At all costs: universities often talk about ending the out-of-control arms race of college sports, but this time, in the wake of horrific scandals, they may really do it.

Sex, drugs, alcohol, fraud, payoffs ... We might be talking about an episode of the Sopranos, but we're not. This story is about sports--amateur sports at that. When word came out a few months ago that federal lawsuits had been filed by three women who said they were raped by University of Colorado football players (see "CU, Wouldn't Want to Be You," p. 43), the world reacted with horror. But Bob Eno, a history professor at Indiana University and a member of the steering committee for the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, says many in the academic world were less surprised. "We could have predicted that these sorts of events would occur and are occurring."

The COIA (www.math.umd.edu/~jmc/COIA/COIA-Home.htm) is a college sports reform group that includes faculty senates from the six athletics conferences forming the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the Association of Governing Boards of Universities & Colleges, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). "There are many pressures on schools when it comes to recruitment because so much now hangs on winning, aside from just competing," says Eno. "Now there are so many financial issues tied up with the winning team. The stakes have risen to the point where some programs are willing to go way out of bounds to increase their leverage to win and fill the seats at football stadiums."

On the heels of numerous recent scandals, the higher education world is finally (again) examining the role of athletics in academia. And every time a new scandal erupts, we are shocked--shocked--that such things go on within the halls of academia. Ah, but there's the rub: In many schools, and especially those with a proclivity to horrific headlines, the athletics department is acting as an autonomous fiefdom.

Let's be clear, right up front, that we are talking about a fraction of the athletics programs at colleges and universities around the country. No one wishes to denigrate the accomplishments or contributions that have been made by well-run athletics departments. Still, on a recent ABC Nightline program dealing with the Colorado scandal host Ted Koppel noted that his program had covered similar ground 14 years earlier, yet little has changed. Consider this list (sadly, incomplete) of recent college sports scandals:

Last August, Baylor University (TX) basketball coach Dave Bliss resigned after trying to cover up illegal payments to players, including to a player who was murdered by a teammate. Bliss allegedly spread rumors that the murdered player dealt drugs. Under Bliss, players received meals, lodging, transportation, and clothing in violation of NCAA rules. The basketball staff sometimes paid for athletes' lodging, and players also received free airline and taxi transportation. Bliss also solicited donations from Baylor basketball boosters to support a summer basketball league that involved prospective players, in violation of NCAA rules.

A University of Miami football recruit was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges during a school-sponsored recruiting trip earlier this year. The player had a record of 10 prior arrests that the university didn't know about when it signed him.

Brigham Young University (UT) leveled harsh punishment against six football players following an off-campus party in January 2004, also attended by recruits. Alcohol was served during the party, in direct violation of the school's honor code, and at least one player engaged in sex with a female athlete. The young woman and one player have since withdrawn from the school while the others have been suspended or placed on probation.

A forgery scheme was planned last year, in order to enable an imposter to take the SAT for a player being recruited by the University of Georgia. The investigation of that scheme also revealed that former U Georgia Assistant Men's Basketball Coach Jim Harrick gave $300 to a friend of prospective player Tony Cole for Cole's expenses, violating NCAA ethics rules. Harrick also fraudulently conducted a fail-proof academic course for players called "Coaching Principles and Strategies in Basketball." The final exam contained such brain-benders as "How many points does a 3-point field goal account for in a Basketball Game?"

The men's basketball team at Fresno State University (CA) was put on four years' probation last September after it was discovered that someone else completed the players' course work.

According to NCAA statistics, 31 schools have been penalized for major recruiting violations since 2000. The violations often included giving cash, game passes, cars, plane tickets, and other banned gifts to players and family members.

"But the NCAA rules specifically provide that you cannot offer excessive entertainment to players and recruits, and sets [imitations with respect to the cost of such entertainment," notes Robert Clayton, an attorney with Washington-based Epstein Becker & Green, which frequently represents education clients in NCAA and Title IX compliance matters. "More important," he says, "is the fact that this conduct is now being examined not just in terms of whether it is appropriate, but also in terms of whether the actions have external ramifications in criminal and civil liability for the institution. A student host who is designated by the athletics department is under NCAA bylaws as a representative of the institution. The big question for schools," he adds, "is their liability when recruitment-related sex is non-voluntary, or when providing alcohol is contrary to drinking-age laws of that state. To what extent is the institution liable for the conduct of this individual who is operating under the authority of the athletics department?"

In the case of Colorado, says Clayton, the NCAA rule enforcement is the least of the school's worries. "Now we have a criminal sheriff looking at the conduct, we have the president of the university looking at the conduct, we have state legislators looking at the conduct--and in March we had U.S. congressional hearings about the conduct. It's no longer confined to a 'boys will be boys' mentality, winked at by the coach, winked at by the athletics director, because these accusations are being discussed on Capitol Hill and in the criminal sheriff's office, and by attorneys who are considering filing civil lawsuits against the university."

Big Business

At the heart of the problems is, of course, the fact that college sports have become big business for many schools, a business built on a sports economy that rivals that of some Third World countries. According to an NCAA study released last summer ("The Empirical Effects of Collegiate Athletics," available at www.ncaa.org/databases/baselineStudy/baseline.pdf), athletics budgets at the average Division I school have more than doubled in the period from 1995-2001. Operating costs, such as increased travel expenses and marketing, play some part, of course, but the potential jackpot of sold-out attendance and television contracts plays an even greater role. The problems won't go away as long as the networks are willing to pay many millions to broadcast the games--and as long as schools have high-priced coaches' salaries to pay.

The CBS television network, for instance, paid $6 billion for exclusive rights to air the annual March Madness basketball series for the next 10 years, and ABC has a $525 million, seven-year clear to show the four college football Bowl Championship games. Teams that make it to the top bowl games can earn nearly $13 million each.

The sticking point, however, is that most big athletics programs operate in the red. Only a fraction of schools claim to make a profit from sports. A 2004 report by USA Today puts this number at just 40 schools. So, to keep the programs active, the money often comes from increased student fees. About 60 percent of Division I schools rely on this money for their programs in addition to donor dollars.

"We no longer have this environment called collegiate athletics being self-governed by the people in the athletics department," says Clayton. "Now we have the governance of athletics being dictated by the business of college sports. When a coach is fired, it's not for low player graduation rates, it is for losing ball games. Losing ball games affects the commercial enterprise."

The average Division I-A head football coach's base salary is now $388,600, an increase of 83 percent over the four year period between 1998 and 2002, and after inflation, according to the USA Today report.

In fact, embattled Colorado coach Gary Barnett, with a salary of $1.6 million, is his state's highest paid public employee. Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy's $1.1 million annual package is about four times what the university president earns. And Nick Saban, head football coach at Louisiana State University, set a record a this year as the highest paid college coach in the country. His six-year compensation package? Nearly $18.5 million.

All this is difficult to explain away in such tough economic times for IHEs. For whether it is to attract donor dollars or perhaps Lucrative broadcast payments, university spending on athletics (particularly football and basketball) has increased, while academic spending has suffered.

"On the one hand, if you can get $18 million for coaching football, my hat is off to you, but on the other hand, on a priority Level, I think we've lost our brains," says David Williams, vice chancellor for Student Life at Vanderbilt University (TN). "I understand the market piece of it, but it's hard for me to understand how you justify paying a football coach that much when you have English professors or philosophy professors who are making a tiny fraction of that. It's one thing in the pros, but I have a real hard time when universities are saying we can't give staff raises, we can't give faculty raises, we're cutting staff here, we can't build new Laboratories. How can we say that our basketball program should be getting considerably more than our sociology program because it is a sport? I think our priorities are a Little mixed up."

Those confused priorities were also the impetus for the formation of the COIA, says Bob Eno. The Coalition had its beginnings in 2000 when University of Oregon professors were angered to learn--by reading about it in the newspaper--that the university planned a multimillion-dollar expansion of its football stadium, even as academics budgets were being slashed. They formed a Loose e-mail network of faculty leaders from over 50 Division I-A schools in Bowl Championship Series conferences.

Now, in an effort to gain Legitimacy to negotiate effectively with the NCAA and athletics departments, the group is introducing its framework to faculty senates at many universities. (See "COIA's Roadmap to Peace," p. 45) "We're asking that the senates vote to join the coalition because of a general endorsement of the framework," Eno says, describing it as a "terribly slow process when the senates haven't written the policy and can't amend it." Twenty-four faculty senates have signed on so far, and the group hopes to have nearly 40 by year's end.

In February, the Coalition met with athletics directors from various schools to share their concerns over the increasing arms race of college athletics. Surprisingly, says Eno, the two groups were on the same wavelength. "The athletics directors clearly felt, just as we do, that there was a strong disconnect between the values that govern athletics policy and the problems we encounter when we have highly commercialized, large-stakes athletics programs," says Eno. "That disconnect is something that troubled that group of athletics directors just as it troubled us. It wasn't what they got into the business for. Many of them had been athletes and were very attached to the ideals that are built into students who participate in healthy amateur programs. Those values are undermined when college sports moves in a more professional direction."

Far from being a rhetorical group, the Coalition wants to define structural reform that schools can actually buy into. "We're trying to devise some sort of road map that will lead to the actual signing of agreements by the membership of the NCAA. We want to lock in place a process of reform in the next decade," says Eno optimistically. "After we've laid down that roadmap, we'll have changed the structure of intercollegiate athletics--and that is extremely tough to do."

Grabbing the Reins

Changing structure was on the mind of Vanderbilt University administrators last fall, when they dismantled the athletics department to take control of the very things they saw happening at other schools. Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee emphasizes that student athletes are students first, and that they are affiliated with the university. By eliminating the athletics department, Vanderbilt brought its sports programs back into the university fold under the direction of Student Life, to be administered in the same way as, say, the physics or chemistry departments.

"I'm a great supporter of intercollegiate athletics," says Gee, "but I'm not a supporter of what has happened in intercollegiate athletics. I don't support this arms race in which we are increasingly segregating and separating the roles of the athletics department from the values and issues that are part of university life. At Vanderbilt, we have reintegrated the athletics department, both structurally and philosophically, into the university and its administrative, social, cultural, and physical structure."

Part of the change, says Gee, was to prohibit the players from being housed exclusively with each other in a "jock dorm," bringing them back into the general student population. The school also saw no reason for athletes to study only with each other, away from the rest of the student body, so their academic counselor's office, formerly in the athletics building, was moved to the student center. Then Vanderbilt eliminated the athletics department altogether, and thoroughly integrated sports with the university experience. Yet, why go to all the trouble? Although it competes at the Division I level, Vanderbilt certainly wasn't faced with the problems that beset other schools. And after all, most people would say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

"But that doesn't mean you don't paint it," says Williams. "That doesn't mean you don't try to make it better. Did we have recruiting violations? No. Did we have students getting into trouble downtown? No. But we looked at things and said, 'We can be more than we are.' We decided it wasn't broke, but it was getting real close to being broke. We saw that athletics was becoming more separate from the rest of the university, and we feel that has been part of some of the problems that we have been seeing recently."

The move made sense for a number of reasons, says Williams, not least of which was that it eliminated duplication of certain services. For example, there had been one marketing service for the university and a separate marketing service for athletics. Cutting the service, however, was not necessarily a cost-saving measure, says Williams. "It was really more of a cost shifting, because the money that was saved could be redirected partly to help our national recruiting effort."

Vanderbilt is just one of a growing number of admittedly smaller schools that realize that something must be done now to keep the sports arms race from becoming all-consuming. But Jacksonville University (FL) also brought athletics back under the Student Life aegis, although for somewhat different reasons.

"We faced a budget deficit of more than $2 million--significant for our size--and were simultaneously going through reaccreditation from SACS, so it was important for us to restructure our budget," says Public Affairs Director John Daigle. "As part of that campuswide restructuring, we took a hard look at our athletics department. Our head basketball coach also served as athletics director and got an additional stipend in the process. We decided to bring the department--which had really been a freestanding department--under the control of Student Life. From a strategic standpoint, it would bring our athletes into the ford with the general campus community. It would help us from an organizational management perspective and, finally, it would save us some money," he says. "Since the department now reported to Student Life, we could eliminate the athletics director position and our basketball coach could go back to focusing on basketball."

Jacksonville also considered whether it was desirable--and sustainable--for a school its size to continue competing at the Division I level. "We had pros and cons, and a lot of reaction from alumni who heard rumors that we might go down to Division III," says Daigle. "When we realized that such a move wouldn't save us any money, and wasn't in line with where the university wanted to be strategically, we put the word out. That resulted in a lot Less worry from our players, coaches, and alumni about the other changes."

Feeding the Beast

Man does not live by bread alone, and sports do not live by football and basketball alone. Many schools also support wrestling, baseball, swimming, and track and field teams. Unfortunately, the networks don't pay millions to air these other sports. So, when it comes to budget decisions--the choice between keeping a (potentially) moneymaking team over one that isn't--the decision is easy. And with federal funds tied to compliance with such rulings as Title IX, eliminating an unprofitable team to maintain gender equity (and save the football team) is a no-brainer.

Title IX, the taw that guarantees equal rights for women on the playing field, has become a double-edged sword in its opponents' eyes. While they agree with Title IX in principle, its critics also believe the taw takes away athletics opportunities for mate students. The reason? Title IX requires that the number of mate and female athletes on campus is proportional to the student body, yet women make up an average of 53 percent of the student population on campuses nationwide. Now, if you consider that football (which requires huge teams and enormous budgets) is the only college sport that doesn't have a female counterpart, the problems are apparent: To maintain that gender balance, it is necessary to cut other men's sports programs.

That's just what happened at the University of Miami, which sank its men's swim team to redirect funds to the more profitable teams. And Southern Methodist University (TX) announced in February that its athletics department decided to drop its top performing men's track and cross-country teams. "The decision to eliminate track was a difficult but necessary one," said SMU Athletic Director Jim Copeland. "If we are to compete at the highest level in our remaining sports, we must concentrate our resources to those programs deemed most viable."

The Amateur Hour

With all this talk about budgets and multimillion dollar broadcast deals, it's wise to revisit an earlier point: This issue revolves around amateur sports. Eventually, the top cortege athletes will likely be drafted into the professional leagues, accompanied by bidding wars and signing bonuses. But now, as their talents and skills mature, the college system acts a farm league of sorts, where players hone their skills and draw the attention of the pros. It's not hard to see that keeping these players happy and content is an everyday pressure for top teams. Legally, these college stars can't be paid outright, but that doesn't mean coaches won't go to astonishing lengths to keep them happy. And with this kind of pandering at the core of many current sports scandals, the oft-debated question among sports fans is: Should college athletes be paid for their services?

"At some point, I think a college will try to do it," says Mark Patterson, professor of antitrust law at Fordham University (NY). "The pressures are there because of such rules as the NFL's ban on early drafting. When a student like Ohio State's Maurice Clarett comes to the conclusion that the school is making a tremendous amount of money off him, and he's getting nothing, it looks as though everyone is gaining but him. And at some point, he can also be injured and not be able to play professional football." Patterson believes that such commercial pressures have contributed to the rash of the current scandals. However, he says, perhaps it's time to redefine the terms of the argument.

"It's not clear to me that anyone believes this is an amateur system in anything else but form," he says. "If players were paid--and I'm not advocating that--it would be less of an issue. What I'd like to see is that college football would actually be an amateur system as opposed to what it is now, but I don't think that is ever going to happen."

Attorney Robert Clayton believes that paying players (and thus making them employees of an athletics department that is a separate entity from the institution) would ultimately be damaging to the school. "If you do that, you effectively withdraw your school from NCAA membership," he says. "Students want to belong to an institution that believes that the student athlete is an integral part of the student body and the athletics department is an integral part of the educational mission. The NCAA ensures that goal is met."

Paying athletes as employees would also open a Pandora's box of state issues, says Clayton. "It's being argued in Nebraska now: that if the football program is separate, then the athletes should be treated as employees of the state, and should receive salaries without limitations and benefits, including worker's compensation for injuries."

On the other hand, he says, if you pay players, but they remain as students whose participation is part of the educational mission, you face antitrust ramifications. As employees, how can you limit them to coverage of tuition and room and board? Shouldn't they be capable of bargaining for whatever the market may yield in terms of compensation, as would other employees?

Surely, there are many takes on these issues. But right now, as an astrologer might proclaim, the planets are in alignment. With pressure mounting from all sides to--once and for all--reform college sports, all eyes will be on the NCAA, the COIA, and the governing bodies of the various athletics conferences, for enactment of meaningful changes. But will those changes come? Or will we, as Nightline's Koppel suggests, be revisiting this issue some years down the road--again? The ball, as they say, is in their court.

RELATED ARTICLE: CU, wouldn't want to be you.

With nine women now alleging sexual assault by football players, and stories of recruiting parties fueled by alcohol, drugs, and the promise of sex with attractive co-eds, the University of Colorado has been squirming under scrutiny from local, state, federal, and congressional investigators like a worm under a microscope lens. The scandal has so far cost the school more than $430,000 in outside legal fees over the past 15 months, according to press reports. Additionally, $100,000 will go to pay for a temporary administrator to help oversee the athletics department and $350,000 will pay for a special university-appointed commission to investigate the scandal. As if this is not enough, CU has also--most unfortunately--become the poster child for missteps and misstatements in dealing with a crisis.

First on that list has been the behavior of coach Gary Barnett. After the team's former place-kicker Katie Hnida claimed she was harassed by the team and raped by a teammate, an angry Barnett told reporters, "Not only was she a girl, she was terrible, OK? There's no other way to say it."

Barnett tried unsuccessfully to defend himself the next day, claiming, "A portion of my remarks were misinterpreted or taken out of context." But, to paraphrase the famous Watergate question, "What did Gary Barnett know and when did he know it?" On the same day Barnett was placed on paid administrative leave, word surfaced that yet another police report alleging sexual assault had been filed back in 2001. That report indicates that Barnett might have tried to dissuade an alleged rape victim from talking to the police. He purportedly told the woman he would back his male player 100 percent if she reported the rape to authorities.

"All I can say is that I believe there are some inaccuracies in the police report," Barnett said. About his forced leave, the coach told reporters, "I'm a team player and I will accept President Hoffman's decision. While I don't agree with it, I will deal with it like I would expect one of my players to handle his consequences."

Other questions were raised about the coach's behavior after a former CU journalism student produced a video report she made three years ago, in which players bragged that the coaches encouraged them to ride with police officers on patrol. The idea, according to the players, was that in the event of trouble, police would be less inclined to arrest players with whom they were friendly.

University President Elizabeth Hoffman also drew criticism initially for first denying the allegations, then telling a CNN reporter that she had appointed someone else--a "special assistant"--to be her eyes and ears in the athletics department, to determine where the problems might lie.

"The chancellor and I have very big other issues to deal with like a budget crisis of extraordinary magnitude in this state that threatens to take away all the funding for higher education, so we have got to deal with these larger issues," Hoffman said, in what came off as a surprisingly annoyed tone of voice. "But at the same time," she did add, "this one is so serious we need to have somebody who can tell us exactly what is going on so we can get to the bottom of all of these allegations and find out whether someone is responsible."

The fact that days after her remarks Hoffman announced sweeping changes to recruitment rules--independent of what the NCAA may ultimately decide--suggests to Attorney Robert Clayton that she might have felt enormous pressure from state and federal sources to take immediate action.

"I think that's when the rubber hit the road," says Clayton. "When you take a position that you have a budget priority, you have to remember where your budget comes from: state and federal appropriations. So you'd better listen when your state legislators and federal congressmen say, 'Wait a minute. Our interest in providing appropriations to your institution is dependent on whether your institution is accomplishing the goals of the state in terms of its educational benefit to our citizens. If we don't see that, then we may take a different interest in funding you at the levels you desire.'"--TG

RELATED ARTICLE: COIA's roadmap to peace.

The COIA Framework, aimed at Division I-A, outlines essential features such a plan should include, and calls for the NCAA and national academic constituencies to develop detailed, appropriately flexible strategies for implementation. The goal of reform is not negative; it is to bring out the positive aspects of intercollegiate athletics, which contribute to the personal development of athletes, and enhance college life on campus and off.

Academic Integrity. Colleges should admit only students with realistic prospects of graduation. Admissions practices should confirm that high schools must prepare athletes to meet such standards. Continuing eligibility standards should ensure that only academically engaged students compete in athletics. Faculty must take responsibility to ensure academic integrity in all programs. Athletics advisors must be closely integrated with academic advising to ensure prioritization of academic goals and integrity.

Athlete Welfare. The design and enforcement of limits on athlete participation in non-academic activities must be improved; assessment of coaches must reflect commitment to athletes' academic opportunities. Optimal season schedules for each sport should be designed and adopted. The terms and bases of scholarships should be reexamined so as to support student academics, and athletes should be fully integrated into campus life.

Governance. Shared oversight of athletics between governing boards, administrations, and faculty should involve clear communication and complementary responsibilities. Best-practice designs for the interaction of faculty athletics representatives, campus athletics committees, and faculty governance should be designed nationally, and adapted locally. Uniform reporting standards for athletics budgets should be established to provide more financial transparency. Stable athletics conferences should support the linkage of athletics and academics, and become the basis for intercollegiate relationships beyond athletics competitions and finances.

Finances. The link between winning and financial solvency undermines the values of college sports and contributes to the athletics arms race. Broadened revenue sharing, and limits on budgets and capital expenditures should be implemented. Amateur goals appropriate to each sport should determine standards of expectations. Cost cutting in the areas of scholarships, squad size, season length, and recruitment should be explored.

Over-commercialization. Excesses in marketing college sports impair institutional control and contribute to public misperception of the nature and purpose of higher education. Schools must step back from over-commercialization by cutting costs and setting clear standards of institutional control and public presentation of college sports.

--Source: The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics