University of Virginia Library

...And The University

On a smaller scale, colleges and universities
throughout the country are faced today with
their own priority decisions. Like nations,
universities have limited financial resources;
they must determine their institutional goals
and spend their money accordingly. Many
schools are beginning to face the fact that a
successful, big-time athletic program costs
more than it's worth.

Duke University is attempting to deal with
the problem now. A study committee has
recommended that Duke withdraw from the
ACC, discontinue awarding scholarships solely
on the basis of athletic ability, and realign its
athletic offerings to place more emphasis on
minor sports and programs with greater
student participation than basketball or
football. The recommendations have been
made, but the power struggle within Duke has
just begun.

And in such struggles the supporters of
big-time athletics generally manage to emerge
unbloodied. They maintain that a successful
big-time program can pay for itself; that
successful teams in basketball and football
will pull in enough revenue to finance the
whole program. They submit that to make
money, you have to spend it; and that, given
time, heavy investment in athletics will prove
worthwhile. In a tiny number of schools like
Notre Dame and Alabama, this is the case. But
even Ohio State, which fields extremely
successful teams in the major sports, loses
money on its total program. The big-time
athletic investment is a gamble on very long
odds.

The University does not spend money on
athletics on the scale that many others do, but
the inversion of the proper priorities is
nonetheless apparent $35 of the student
comprehensive goes, in some form or another,
to the athletic program - $7 goes to the
library. The day may soon come, given the
present rate of growth in big-time athletic
expenses, when Virginia will have to decide
whether it wants to compete in a conference
like the ACC or whether it has to spend its
money elsewhere.