Success of UO athletics will mean more money for Oregon academics.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

Unquestionably, Oregon is a poster child for the "arms race" in college athletics, and yet that very same pursuit has put the Ducks in position to make "a meaningful contribution" to academic scholarships at the university.

How interesting.

Because the expansion of Autzen Stadium, the construction of an indoor practice facility, the lavish football locker room, the aggressive marketing and use of private jets in recruiting, the proposed new basketball arena - all of which are prominent in national discussions of the arms race, because it's one thing when Nebraska and Michigan and Texas have been at that level for decades, but Oregon seems to be another matter - are all factors in how competitive the Ducks can be and how successful they can be, on the field and thus at the ticket window.

Just a couple of years ago, Oregon athletics was receiving a $2.8 million annual supplement from the UO general fund, an amount that had been reduced from about $5 million when Bill Moos became UO athletics director in 1995. The supplement was eliminated - four years faster than required, Moos said - when the expansion of Autzen Stadium generated increased revenues for the athletic department.

Now, the UO athletic department - because of success in the money-making sports of football and men's basketball, and increased financial support from donors - is in position to generate some money for academic scholarships.

Included in the 27-page report released last week by the UO Athletics Task Force, after a 2 1/2 -year study, is the recommendation of a "voluntary" contribution by athletics to the Presidential Scholarship fund. (According to one of the 18 footnotes in the report, Presidential Scholarships are awarded annually to the state's brightest students, who receive about $5,400 each per year, renewable for up to four years of study.)

Said the report: "This voluntary contribution will help symbolize the mutuality of the relationship between athletics and academics."

It will also symbolize the importance of winning, because winning will determine whether the athletic department is in position to make such contributions.

"Some of our greatest fans should be the faculty, because if we're successful here, we're going to be able to grow that line item number to send more money to scholarships," Moos said.

Because the athletic department needs to replenish depleted reserves against the prospect of "a rainy day" football season down the road, Moos resisted being mandated to provide a fixed amount to academic scholarships each year. He is also, at present, not willing to impose a ticket surcharge, either a season-long surcharge or, for example, a one-time surcharge for a specific game to generate money for the scholarship fund.

(A $2 surcharge for a single home football game, for example, would generate more than $100,000, which is the bottom-line target figure that Moos uses when talking about the donation to academics, though he says it could wind up being more.)

"We have the flexibility to implement that if we want to, but I was not going to commit to that," Moos said. Does a surcharge remain a possibility? "Not now," he said.

Moos is also opposed to taxing donations to athletics by requiring that a certain percentage of those be sent to the scholarship fund. Currently, he said, 3 percent of all donations are diverted to fund the UO capital campaign, and he doesn't want to add to that.

"That was sensitive," he said. "If people want to give $1,000 to intercollegiate athletics, and they're told that 10 percent is going to academic gifts, that creates divisions and resentments."

As Moos envisions it, there will be a line item in the athletic department budget, targeting how much the Ducks would send to academics, but it would be clearly dependent on whether the two money-making teams are having a good year. Do the football and men's basketball teams get extra TV appearances? Does the football team reach a major bowl game?

"We'll put in a line, and it will be based on so many TV exposures and all this," Moos said. "If we start struggling in football and we're not getting on TV, we would not be able to fulfill that line. We're talking around $100,000, and it could grow, and it could diminish.

"I did not want to put our program in jeopardy to be required, quote, to send X number of dollars. ... If we were required to make an academic gift to scholarships, and it had an adverse effect on this program by cutting a program or reducing athletic scholarships, then we're back into a conflict between faculty and athletics."

Then again, if the NCAA approves a 12th football game, if Oregon gets a new basketball arena, if the football team keeps recruiting the kind of athletes who can fill Autzen Stadium, all that is "going to allow our coffers to grow and expand the figure on that line item," Moos said.

That's not likely to buy off faculty critics of Oregon's involvement in the arms race. However, they might keep a closer eye on the Ducks' place in the Pac-10 standings.