While channel-surfing early this morning, I stumbled upon Bryant Gumbel's HBO show, Real Sports. What caused me to pause and watch was a piece by correspondent Bernard Goldberg about mogul T. Boone Pickens (also see his WWW site), who recently gave $165M for athletics to his alma mater, Oklahoma State University (OSU) in Stillwater, OK. His investment firm has since turned that into $300M. His objective is to upgrade the athletic program, especially football.
Pickens, 79, is an interesting guy - a real down-home Oklahoman who built Mesa Petroleum and has now branched into water purveying and capital management. He was also one of the financial backers of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth (SBVT), the group that trashed John Kerry in 2004. Pickens is worth over $1B.
I met him a few years ago when I invited him to be the keynote speaker at our inaugural Ground Water Summit in San Antonio. He seemed like a nice guy ("Call me Boone, son") who just happened to be worth a lot of money.
The Real Sports piece focused on the impact such a gift would have on the school in the context of the elite world of college athletics, and the whether or not it was a good thing.
The show explored the influence Pickens now has at OSU. The golf coach, a favorite of Pickens, was named athletic director. The work to refurbish the stadium, now Boone Pickens Stadium, was shown along with a recruiting video higlighting the (future) sumptuous new digs for athletes. Interestingly, the real quarters for the University of Oregon's (UO) athletes was also shown...can you spell L-U-X-U-R-Y?
Pickens admitted that he would have some say in the decision to hire a new football coach or even a new OSU President. "Some say" might be an understatement.
Goldberg spoke with a few faculty and students who were appalled at the gift's sole emphasis on sports. I suspect these "malcontents" are pariahs at OSU. Two students had even started a comic strip about "Boone State", occasionally depicting Pickens with two small horns atop his head. It would have been nice to have heard from some school administrators. But the usual mantra would have prevailed: better athletic teams equates to better students, more interest in the school, and more donations.
Here at the OSU, Oregon State University, which has won the last two NCAA baseball championships, contributions, not solely to the athletic program, increased after each championship.
So if colleges need more money (which they do), maybe they should just open casinos. Is it right to have an elite caste of gladiators who entertain us and make money for the school, while receiving a pittance in return? Oh yeah, they get an "education".
In fairness to Pickens, it is his money to do with as he pleases, and he has endowed at least one (that I know of) academic program at OSU, the Boone Pickens School of Geology (his undergraduate degree is in geology). The piece never clarified whether Pickens sought all the influence he now has, but he really didn't need to seek it. If you gave my foundation $165M, you can bet I would grant you a "say" in matters, whether you asked for it or not! It's called "human nature".
I do not have a problem with intercollegiate athletics; what I do have a problem with is the "big-time aspect" of them, the million-dollar coaches ready to bolt for the next, even bigger, contract, and meddling by wealthy alums and boosters who get vicarious thrills hanging out with the athletes (sometimes contemptuously referred to as "jock sniffers"). And let's face it, the big-time programs serve as "farm teams" for the NBA and NFL, and, to a much lesser extent, MLB, and even the NHL.
A recent (20 November 2007) Op-Ed piece by Jonathan Zimmerman in the Christian Science Monitor discussed America's addiction to sports. It's a good read, as are the Letters to the Editor.
There can't be much joy in Booneville...err, Stillwater, today: the Cowboys were clobbered by in-state rival OU, 49-17. Looks like Boone needs to cough up some more dough.
Today's quotes were kindly provided by some OU Sooners (I fabricated the second one).
Question: What do you get when you drive slowly through Stillwater, OK? Answer: A bachelor's degree from Oklahoma State University.
Question: What do you get when you walk slowly through Stillwater, OK? Answer: A PhD from Oklahoma State University.
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