It was a typical day, gray and dreary, the kind most people in Eugene would forget. Three men sat at a booth in the crowded EMU Fishbowl conversing over lunch.
English Professor James Earl munched a maple bar and sipped hot coffee, chatting with biology Professor Nathan Tublitz and art history Department Head Richard Sundt about, among other things, the big business of college athletics.
A few months earlier, word had circulated about the upcoming $90 million expansion of Autzen Stadium. The news had come as a surprise, but it is ingrained in Earl’s memory.
“It all goes back to the fateful day when the faculty read in the newspaper about the expansion,” recalled Earl, then the University’s Faculty Senate president.
The three men had always questioned the project, but on this winter day, it was discussed in detail.
They scoffed.
How could the University, always in need of more funding, be willing to shoulder a portion of the money needed to make such renovations? The purpose of a University is to educate, they argued. How, then, could this be happening?
Perhaps the business of intercollegiate athletics was getting too big for its britches, they speculated. Pretty soon, the answer seemed all too clear to the three men: Something had to be done.
And while no one at the table knew it, the faculty members’ ensuing conversation was going to turn into something very, very big.

The movement
During the past two years, a movement aimed at slowing the “arms race” of big-time college athletics has grown by leaps and bounds, and Earl is considered by many to have fathered the efforts.
Even before BCS bowl games, branded athletic apparel and Times Square billboards, members of academia had concerns. Sports were becoming too commercialized, some said. Others believed money had become the focal point in athletics; as stadiums, facilities and contracts grew and grew, so did the desire to outdo the next program.
Keeping up with the Joneses had become a problem.
Moreover, faculty concerns were going unnoticed and unaddressed because academics across the nation had no unified voice.
Finally, and perhaps somewhat overlooked, was the fact that intercollegiate athletics was straying from what it should be viewed as — a positive feature.
“No one is asking for the elimination or reduction of college sports. Nobody is trying to do that,” Earl said. “What we’re trying to do is control the way in which it fits in within universities.”
Locally, many at the University had become overwhelmingly tired of seeing the Athletic Department grow while academic services suffered. The expansion of Autzen may have been the final straw for many faculty members, but the camel’s back was getting weaker day by day.
A number of faculty members took issue with a controversial move that shifted the 2000 Civil War game from a November date to a December weekend immediately before Finals Week. While the Faculty Senate could not do anything, per se, about the rescheduled game, it certainly let the University know of its displeasure.
Some also questioned the $2 million subsidy given to the Athletic Department on an annual basis. Many wanted to see the funding go, and athletics officials were not opposed to the idea. With the faculty push, something finally happened: The allocation was rescinded.
“I’m certainly glad it got something going,” Earl said. “But here, locally, we thought the job was pretty much done that year when we got the subsidy cut.”
But that was only the beginning.
In May 2001, the University’s Faculty Senate — led by Earl — voted to end the exponential growth of athletic programs and budgets. In actuality, all the resolution did was put the topic out for discussion, but many schools followed suit. Today, a majority of the schools in the Pacific-10 Conference have adopted similar stances. Schools in the Big-10 Conference have joined the surge as well.
Adding to the surge is Myles Brand, former University of Oregon and Indiana University president, who now heads the NCAA. Brand was very vocal in the need to slow the growth of college athletics, leaving many to look optimistically at his appointment.
“The path that we are following … already has led to a growing sense among members of the public and even members of the community, that athletic success is the main goal of too many institutions of higher learning,” Brand said Jan. 23, 2001, when he was Indiana University’s president. “We must get off that path. We must make certain that academic concerns are first and foremost. To do that, we don’t have to turn off the game. We just have to turn down the volume.”
Others agree.
“The role that (athletics) are now playing is distorting the initial goal and has for sometime been distorting the goals of academics,” said Bob Eno, Faculty Senate President at Indiana University.
To mute the growth of college sports, Eno said a plan must be devised that will allow ample time for change. The plan, which he and others have envisioned, would have a timeline for various projects and would likely be formatted on a 10-year scale. Ideally, it would list various changes as steps of the plan, showing what a refined school should look like.
Faculty Senate presidents at more than 60 schools have been contacted about starting general discussions about intercollegiate growth — discussions much like those that began here at the University. To date, Eno said he has heard back from all but four schools.
Despite all the progress, though, he remains reserved.
“The odds are extremely long on this,” Eno said. “There are enormous forces that want to see intercollegiate athletics grow at the level of professional sports.”

The outlook
Faculty representatives from across the nation are expected to sit down for discussions with trustees and officials from the NCAA later this year. The meeting, likely to be held in Chicago, could come as early as May.
The idea of big-time college growth will more than likely resurface locally in upcoming months, too; University officials are currently eyeing several locations for a new, multi-million dollar basketball arena.
Perhaps it is fitting that dialogue will circulate once again on the streets and in the buildings of the campus area, perhaps a little humbling as well.
“It’s a nice feeling, actually,” Earl said of the movement he began.
But, he acknowledges, there is still work to be done.
“If there’s a meeting in the spring, I hope to be there,” Earl said.
Because as all good sagas go, the quest is never really over until it is over.