I’m glad students asked University president Dave Frohnmayer and Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny the hard questions at the open forum this past Tuesday.
However, we – we students, we in the media, we Duck fans, we in the campus community and greater Duck nation – still don’t have any of the hard answers we’ve been seeking. Chief among them: What exactly is the athletic department going to do with $100 million?
New stadium? Oops, I guess not. Kilkenny and Frohnmayer have flip-flopped on the subject since Phil and Penny Knight made the donation announcement in early August. The Knight donation is being used as a huge financial backstop (in the form of the Legacy Fund) to take out the stadium loans, true, which fits into a role as discretionary funds to save the AD’s bacon if they overspend.
But what, exactly, will they spend these “discretionary funds” on?
More planes to send coaches and athletes (re: football) around the country on recruiting missions? Probably. Seed money for its own winery to provide the vino for the highest-level boosters at Autzen Stadium and the new arena? I can see it. A gigantic 10-story ziggurat with a gold plated O on the side? Maybe if we had Scrooge McDuck in the big chair at the Casanova Center, but who knows if Kilkenny harbors such desires. He might.
Will they pay to open more sections to students for football and men’s basketball games, though? Probably not – we’re a mildly tolerable nuisance until 15 years after graduation, when we can all really afford to stump up to mandatory donations for the Duck Athletic Fund. Could they afford to fund the soon-to-be-cut wrestling program? Ah-ah…now we’re into the realm of fantasy.
Because, of course, when you have that sort of money, it doesn’t make sense to spend it on athletic programs that do make sense – like wrestling, women’s crew, or women’s rugby. Those could all actually be funded with about $2 million, in all honesty, but it’s a stretch on the athletic department’s wallets! Especially if they make anything close to 10 percent interest on the Legacy Fund. We can’t spend even a fraction of interest on dying sports, not when there’s women’s competitive cheerleading to prop up.
If I had Uncle Phil’s money, I’d know how to spend it. I’d keep the wrestlers, add another women’s sport and be the hero of the day.
I’d pay Nike to hire designers who can ignore football players on the subject of graphic design (or just import them from Adidas in Germany; what’s Deutsch for “Just Do It,” again?).
I’d commission a book called “How To Be an Oregon Duck Fan” that will be given out to every freshman. It’d include chapters on why to hate the Huskies, how to pity Oregon State fans, Pit Crew etiquette and how to sneak into Autzen Stadium while drunk.
I’d pay off ESPN to get College GameDay in Eugene at least once a season – you know, like SEC schools! And I’d invest in the physics department to figure out time travel to make sure Dennis Dixon’s anterior cruciate ligament never tears in the first place. I’ll even donate a DeLorean to the cause.
I’d be king of Eugene and spending Uncle Phil’s money with reckless abandon. Plus, I would actually tell you how I’m spending that $100 million, and why the state gets the bill for Mac Court’s replacement.
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