Higher Education http://chronicle.com Date: 10/31/97 Section: Athletics Page: A55 October 31, 1997 In College Sports, Is Bigger Better? Institutions gain visibility, but many question the expense and fear the impact on academics By JEFFREY SELINGO

The football scores that stream across the bottom of the television screen on autumn Saturdays are the only national-media exposure that many Division I sports programs ever receive. But once every few years, a little-known team escapes its obscurity by receiving an invitation to a bowl game or by beating one of the top-seeded teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's men's basketball tournament.

During the 1997 tournament, the College of Charleston, Coppin State University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga heightened their profiles with improbable victories.

To advocates of bigtime college athletics, these victories and the attendant publicity were evidence of the institutional benefits of major sports programs. But critics argue that the rewards of major college athletics are fleeting, and the risk of pursuing them great.

In the past five years, seven institutions have increased the size, scope, and budget of their athletics departments to join Division I, the most competitive, most visible, and, for its elite members, most lucrative classification in the N.C.A.A. Such a move, some college officials say, can help increase contributions from alumni and make the college more attractive to potential students.

They cite such results as the substantial increase in applications to Boston College in the early 1980s, when the Eagles' football team was the best in the East, as evidence of the institutional value of athletics. The surge in interest seemed so clearly attributable to the team's renown that it became known in admissions circles as the "Flutie factor," after Doug Flutie, the team's charismatic quarterback.

Northwestern University also experienced an increase in applications after its football team went to the Rose Bowl in 1996, for the first time in 47 years.

"People tend to rally around and support what they perceive to be big time," says Milton Richards, athletics director at the State University of New York at Albany. He warns, however, that presidents should expect to lose money on Division I sports. "Frankly, that's how we fund the history department and the rest of this institution -- we don't make money."

But skeptics point out that most Division I sports programs lose money, and question whether dollars devoted to sports could be put to better use. They also argue that pursuing excellence in athletics can undermine the academic mission of a university.

"Every school wants to believe they will be the one to make it," says L. Jay Oliva, president of New York University, which dropped to Division III from Division I in the early 1980s. Blinded by the allure of media coverage and national championships, he says, college presidents and boards believe that they can justify the expenditures required to operate a strong program and can avoid the scandals that have marred Division I athletics.

The institutions that have made the leap to Division I in the past five years are California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, Hampton Univerity, Jacksonville State University, Norfolk State University, Troy State University, the University of Tennessee at Martin, and Wofford College.

Membership in Division I is expensive. Institutions are required to sponsor at least 14 varsity sports, 10 more than in Division II. Their teams must also compete in a season that, in sports such as football and men's and women's basketball, is 50 per cent longer than it is for teams in Division II.

The N.C.A.A.'s scholarship limits are much higher in Division I than in Division II. To stay competitive, most colleges award as many athletics scholarships as the rules allow, further escalating costs.

To compound the difficulty, an institution must compete under the rules of Division I for two years before being admitted. During this period, it remains in Division II, which has a much smaller revenue stream. (Division III institutions seeking to join Division I must first spend three years in Division II.)

"There's no how-to book on how to make this move and make it work well," says William L. Price, athletics director at Norfolk State University, which moved to Division I this year. "Now we're facing some obstacles we didn't expect, and it's too late."

Other institutions are more upbeat about the decision to increase the size of their sports programs.

After less than two years in Division II, Albany announced in April that it would move to Division I in the 1999-2000 season. Until 1995, it had competed in Division III. "My intention from day one was to go to Division I," says Dr. Richards, who was hired as athletics director from Kansas State University, in Division I, in 1993.

Any lower division, he adds, "wasn't a good fit" for Albany, a research institution with 17,000 students. "In Division III we were playing institutions with which we had nothing in common."

Division III includes a large number of small, liberal-arts colleges. Division I is composed primarily of major state universities.

Albany joins two other universities in the state system -- Buffalo and Stony Brook -- in making the move up to Division I. Despite perpetually tight education budgets in New York, the moves were made possible when state officials ruled last year that the universities could use mandatory student fees to finance sports scholarships. The $625,000 increase in Albany's athletics budget for Division I will be paid for by raising student fees to $128 from $83 over the next three years, an increase approved by students in a non-binding referendum last spring.

Because most Division I programs lose money, students have been left with little choice but to shoulder the cost of moving and staying in Division I. Increasingly, students, along with faculty members, are voicing their displeasure.

Protests and angry editorials greeted officials of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro last year, when they proposed a $30 increase in fees to pay for a new baseball stadium. The increase stood. Students now pay $422 in athletics fees, $152 of which is used to pay down the debt on sports facilities.

The athletics fees have risen nearly 80 per cent since Greensboro switched to Division I in 1991. Student fees now total $1,003 a year -- just $13 less than tuition for in-state residents.

University officials say the student fees are the highest in the state system because the athletics program has few other sources of income. At Greensboro, the fee pays for about 80 per cent of the department's $3.6-million budget, compared with about 50 per cent of the budget at other system campuses.

Robert Wineberg, an associate professor of social work at Greensboro and a critic of the university's move to Division I, says the cost to students has been more than just monetary. Academic budgets have been frozen or cut even as enrollment has grown, he points out.

Greensboro officials presented the move up to Division I as a way to help the university's fund-raising programs and to attract more men to what was once an all-woman's college. But the number in both areas have not substantially increased, and Dr. Wineberg calls the effort misguided. "When you throw all of your energy into something that is non-academic, there's not much left for what the institution is all about," he says. "Harvard does not spend all its energy on developing sports."

Nelson E. Bobb, athletics director at Greensboro since 1983, concedes that the first six years in Division I have been more difficult than he had expected. Success did not come as quickly as some people on the campus had imagined, he says, and the resulting resentment added to the typical growing pains associated with the move.

Even after six years in Division I, the Greensboro men's basketball team attracts an average of only 1,200 fans to games in its 2,300-seat arena. Its men's and women's soccer teams, often ranked among the best in the nation, rarely fill even half of their 3,200-seat stadium.

"If you're building a program, you don't automatically change the way folks spend their entertainment dollar," Mr. Bobb says. Greensboro's situation is particularly difficult in basketball, he adds, because it's a "neophyte program" within an hour's drive of four Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouses.

In fact, members of Division II and III say Division I athletics programs have become so strong that new entrants could have a difficult time ever achieving success.

"A lot of conferences at that level have taken in all the schools they want and have closed the doors," says N.Y.U.'s Dr. Oliva, who 11 years ago helped found the Division III University Athletic Association. "It's difficult to understand why anyone would want to enter at this particular time in bigtime college sports."

Finding top athletes who are also good students is more difficult for institutions joining Division I, says Murray Sperber, author of College Sports Inc. (Henry Holt and Company, 1990). The best athletes who are strong students will choose the top Division I programs, forcing other colleges to lower their standards, he says.

Dr. Sperber, a professor of English at Indiana University, also questions the benefits that supporters of bigtime athletics attribute to Division I programs. He acknowledges that interest in an institution may increase after it receives free publicity through a sports team. But officials of colleges with weak athletics programs could find easier and cheaper ways of attracting donors and students, he argues. "Who is applying to a school because it has won in athletics? I call those students the 'beer-and-circus people,' because they're never in class on Monday morning and leave early on Friday."

Northeastern Illinois University announced in September that it would move out of Division I. Officials of the Chicago institution said a feasibility study showed that the university had not -- and probably could not -- raise enough private money to sustain a Division I sports program. Even alumni who were athletes while in college were not interested in donating money to the program, said President Salme H. Steinberg. And the Board of Trustees refused to raise student fees after a survey found that entering students ranked athletics 19th out of 21 reasons for choosing Northeastern Illinois.

"Public universities have an obligation to keep costs reasonable," Dr. Steinberg says. "The 170 student-athletes are disappointed, but I have to worry about the 10,000 other students who want a quality education."

Despite its difficulties, Greensboro has begun to see the benefits of its move to Division I, Mr. Bobb says. Applications and donations to the university are up, he notes. And although the athletics program is responsible for only a small part of those increases, he says, the expanded program has increased the name recognition of Greensboro.

In hindsight, Mr. Bobb says, a more-open debate about the merits of moving to Division I was needed at Greensboro. It's a discussion that he encourages other institutions to engage in before making any decisions.

"I don't think athletics itself is the universal panacea," he says. "We're a part of the dynamics of the institution."