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How much time will Duck sports suck from new Pres Michael Schill?

Kellie Woodhouse has an excellent, lengthy story in InsideHigherEd about new university presidents and big-time sports, with an Oregon mention, here:

… At Syracuse, Syverud told faculty members in March, according to a Syracuse.com article, that he’s been spending half his time dealing with the sports program in the wake of severe NCAA sanctions for awarding athletes improper benefits, academic misconduct and a failure to enforce the university’s drug policy.

Presidents without experience in sports must quickly learn how to navigate the NCAA, communicate with athletics administrators and mitigate scandals. When search boards choose an untested pick, they’re taking a risk.

“I’ve really learned that this whole athletic sphere and the usual way you approach things just doesn’t work,” Schlissel told Michigan faculty, according to The Daily, adding later, “It’s a time sink.” …

2 Comments

  1. duckduckgo 04/16/2015

    Does athletics pay for half of the President’s salary, or is his time subsidized by the rest of campus?

  2. observation 04/16/2015

    Woodhouse hints at what seems likely to be the inevitable at the big institutions that will find themselves able to sustain the athletics arms race: the hand-off of athletics to branders and lawyers who will increasingly handle (fondle?) their programs as semi-pro franchises outside of the usual institutional purview.

    Add up a few components already moving into place: pay for athletes, TV and internet positioning for the school via athletics, athletic gear marketed through players and facilities, university faculties increasingly questioning the place of athletics within academics, athletic departments who answer only to donors and presidents, and interim presidents whinging about the academic side daring to question the athletic side. Seems a tidy solution but only so far as the branders and lawyers can be trusted, so obviously we’re well into a period of chaotic change.

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