Students who’ve been in the Animal Science Building know that in the winter when the radiators kick on it sounds like it’s haunted by a herd of angry cows. In other areas, students whose departments have lost faculty and funding may feel slighted.

President Stan Albrecht’s well-known quote, “We will continue to emphasize academic quality – whatever else occurs, academics will come first,” also may leave students wondering how this is true when athletic coaches make more than their professors who hold a Ph.D. This may lead some people to wonder why athletics can’t just take a cut to benefit education.

USU’s highest paid employee is the men’s basketball head coach, Stew Morrill, coming in at $406,409 annually, according to utahsright.com. Students might feel confused as to why a coach makes more than a tenured professor with a Ph.D. in an academic institution. The next highest paid employee is Albrecht, making $279,049 annually. The highest paid instructor at USU is Clifford Skousen of the business college. Skousen, who has a Ph.D. and is a successful author, makes $226,029 annually. The discrepancy between Skousen’s and Morrill’s salary is $180,380.

Is the emphasis at universities, including USU, on academia or athletics? It may seem complicated, but the answer is simple really: the comparison is apples to oranges.

The Breakdown: Academic Funding, Budget Cuts and Instructors

Kyle Hyde, assistant director of the Analysis Office, said for fall 2008, the student to instructional ratio was 16.2 to 1. As of fall 2008, Hyde said approximately 83 percent of full-time instructional faculty had a terminal degree.

According to Albrecht, 162 academic positions were cut last year. At the same time USU’s student population grew by 11 percent.

Albrecht said, “The train wreck that’s coming is by having to reduce budgets and cut faculty. The impact eventually will be that class sizes will go up, sections offered will go down, and it will affect time of graduation.”

Albrecht also said in regards to the budget, “We’re maximizing the quality of education students receive by retaining good faculty. We have to look for additional funds, discretionary money that allows us to provide more scholarship dollars, etc. Many of our buildings are funded in nontraditional ways, like philanthropy.”

The National Survey of Student Engagement reported in 2006 that 88 percent of USU seniors rated the quality of their USU educational experience as good or excellent.

The Breakdown: USU Athletic Funding, Budget Cuts and

The Student Athlete

Jeff Crosbie, assistant athletic director for Business Operations, said students’ tuition does not pay for any athletic-related expenses. Student fees, do however, he said, cover admissions for students to attend athletic events free of charge.

Albrecht said, “The state tax dollars that goes to support our athletics is minimal.”

According to Albrecht, cuts have caused vacant positions, like assistant coaches, to remain empty, decreased team travel group size and cutbacks in general services and operations cost, like not buying equipment or uniforms.

Crosbie said, “We currently are at the minimum for the number of sports that we sponsor, to keep our status as members of NCAA Division 1.”

Hyde said, “The amount that coaches get paid is based on what the national market is for a particular position. The majority of our coaches, if not all of them, are paid below what the national average is, but we also take into account the cost of living and other circumstances.”

Albrecht said when they were hiring football coach Gary Andersen, they asked the WAC commissioner to do a comparative analysis to reach a target salary that was competitive but still toward the lower end.

According to Hyde, approximately $4,000,000 is spent on financial aid expenses for USU’s student athletes. This money, according to Albrecht, comes from revenues generated by the sports.

Student athletes have two sets of academic eligibility requirements, according to Brian Evans, associate athletic

director. First, students must fulfill 16 core units out of high school and have an appropriate index of core GPA and ACT or SAT (much like they need for admission). If they meet these criteria, then they are deemed by the NCAA as qualifiers and are eligible to practice and compete. Once in college, they must pass no fewer than 24 credits every academic year, with no less than a 2.0 GPA. They also must be enrolled in 12 credits to be able to practice and compete. Lastly, they must complete a certain percentage of their chosen degree by certain semesters in their college career to remain academically eligible: 40 percent after four semesters, 60 percent after six and 80 percent after eight.

The Value of Athletics

According to Crosbie, student athletes make up a population of 350 while academic students make up about 17,000. However, Crosbie said about 15,450 students attend football annually, while 45,600 students attend men’s basketball and about 250 students attend per game to the various other Olympic sports – volleyball, women’s basketball, gymnastics and soccer. It is clear many students, other than the athletes, have Aggie pride and appreciate USU’s athletics. The value of athletics at universities is multi-faceted.

“I feel that athletics gives great regional and national exposure to any institution and that it is a huge part of the college life experience for the entire campus community,” Crosbie said. “ I think for the student athlete, much is required of them and they are held to a very high standard. I think that it is an invaluable opportunity that not only helps prepare them to enter the competitive work force after they graduate but also prepares them to be constructive members of society.”

Also, athletics and their success of them directly affects student athletes. Albrecht said, “When I go out to do fundraising there is constant reference to the success or lack thereof of the athletic programs, and there’s a lot of community spirit that ties the university to its host. It provides educational opportunities to student athletes who would otherwise probably not have a chance to go to college.”

Why the emphasis on a winning football team? Albrecht said, “In football, winning seems to be a tradition. Back in the day, USU was the premier football program in the state. Many folks do remember and the alumni and donors dream for the good old days. The football program is coming to where we want it to be. It is important, economically, to win however, because filling the stadium allows us to deal with issues like scholarships.”

Athletics undoubtedly adds many positive things to the university setting, and since state funding is separate, cutting back on the athletics programs is irrelevant to the quality of education students receive.

With the recent budget cuts people mentioned to Albrecht he could eliminate the athletic program so academia wouldn’t feel the effect.

Albrecht said, “This is not true at all. It would make no effect on state budget cuts. The money that does come from the state goes almost exclusively to the women’s athletic programs. All we would do is be eliminating funding for the women’s programs, which is against Title IX.”

However, Albrecht said, “Educational institutions aren’t getting away from their purpose.”

What the problem is, Albrecht said, is that coachs’ salaries are “market driven”, or in other words, not regulated by law. So if a university wants a successful athletics program to provide student athletes with scholarships and quality entertainment for the students, the best coaches must be had. They often go where the money goes.

But not always. Albrecht said, “Coach Morrill could go somewhere else if he wanted to and make four times more, but he chooses to stay here.”

Albrecht said, “The increase is really unsustainable in coachs’ salaries. The problem is successful institutions can do what they do because it is entirely self-sustained by revenues generated. It has been going up so rapidly even the wealthiest of institutions will find it difficult to continue to pay these salaries.”

The trend is national. Albrecht said he recently did a NCAA recertification for a West Virginia school where the athletic budget is in the $30 million range, and none of it comes from the state. USU, according to Albrecht, is in the $13 million range for the sports budget.

“The imbalance that is created by the financial wars is over salaries. The perception is that a football coach is more valuable than a Nobel Prize-winning faculty member.” Albrecht said.

– storee.powell@aggiemail.usu.edu