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Posts tagged as “Jim O’Fallon”

NCAA enforcers prevent UO sprinter from enjoying the fruits of her speed

It seems there’s a UO policy that limits when faculty can assign course incompletes – the work has to be incomplete, but not too incomplete. It’s the job of UO’s well-paid Faculty Athletics Representative Tim Gleason to enforce these sorts of rules for our unpaid “student-athletes”. So they pulled Jasmine Todd out of the starting blocks, This will hurt her future…

President commissions investigation of athletic recruiting scandal

It’s the usual big-time college sports scandal: athletic department recruits transfer player with history of sexual assault without doing due diligence, player assaults another student, university keeps it secret, victim hires Attorney John Clune to sue the university. A few twists: at Baylor University the second assault ended in a trial and conviction, and…

Mike Gottfredson’s last act was to appoint Tim Gleason as FAR. So how’s he doing on representing the faculty?

Apparently it’s going to cost $732.92 to find out. Long story:

RG columnist Don Kahle’s hilarious 8/15/2014 column on Mike Gottfredson’s $940K buy-out ends with this:

… One of Gottfredson’s final acts as president was to appoint one of his campus allies to serve as the university’s Faculty Athletics Representative for the NCAA. Sports must have been on his mind when he wrote his final letter to the university, which ended with “Go Ducks!”

This was a controversial decision. The UO Senate had already passed a resolution on 4/9/2014 calling for an open search. Gottfredson ignored it. So the Senate scheduled debate on legislation for an open search in May. Gottfredson didn’t show. On August 6th he gave the ~$108K gig to former UO Journalism Dean Tim Gleason, a frequent bowl game junketeer.

Civil rights historian Taylor Branch lectures Scott Coltrane about NCAA cartel

4/16/2015 PM: I didn’t see our Faculty Athletics Representatives Jim O’Fallon or Tim Gleason or PAGIA Chair Kim Sheehan in the audience – there were a lot of empty reserved seats – but Interim President Scott Coltrane got quite the lecture tonight from Taylor Branch about civil rights, college sports…

Snowpocalypse mensch Sherwin Simmons pummels Duck FAR Jim O’Fallon

Art History emeritus professor Sherwin Simmons is best known for his well-tempered response to the snowpocalypse of 2013. Duck strategic communicators were trying to arrange some good press showing their athletes and regular students having fun together with a friendly snowball fight, so the coaches released the football players from their indentured servitude and sent them to…

FAR Jim O’Fallon endorses “separate and unequal” athlete tutoring subsidy

FAR Jim O’Fallon: 0.5FTE at $195K FAR Tim Gleason: 0.5FTE at $219K Jim O’Fallon has been pulling down $100K or so a year to serve as UO’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative for 25 years, without any faculty review. Last summer Mike Gottfredson appointed retiring Journalism Tim Gleason to replace O’Fallon…

UO Student Senate rejects Ducks’ attempt to raise mandatory ticket fee

2/21/2015 update: That’s the vote from today’s ASUO meeting.

Duck Athletic Director  Rob Mullens is now in the difficult position of having to choose between:

a) taking the same $1.6M as last year and being revealed as the sort of person who would try and bluff our students for money, or

b) cutting the ticket allotment and being revealed as the sort of person who would take revenge on the students over $50K, after getting a $250K raise himself.

Presumably he’ll figure out some way to take the offered 0% increase and try and save face. My guess is this will involve a donation from some Duck booster who suddenly finds it in his heart to give a little to UO students.

By rejecting the Duck try for a 10% increase, our students are leading the way to the March 4th meeting of the full UO Senate, which will consider legislation to hold the Athletic Department to its 2004 promise to start making payments to UO’s academic side for academic scholarships. The student vote is a hopeful sign that maybe UO can finally figure out how to balance the interests of the Duck’s big-time sports enterprise and its well paid coaches and AD’s with those of UO’s cash-strapped academic side.

2/21/2015 update: Meanwhile, the University of Akron is *paying* its students to go to basketball games, in an effort to build some buzz for TV. And in cash – not just Uncle Phil bobbleheads.

Ironically, as Fox Sports points out, if Akron were to give the *players* $5 for showing up for each game, they would swiftly bring down the wrath of UO’s Jim O’Fallon and his NCAA infractions committee.

2/20/2015: Lubash and ASUO Student Senators call out Eric Roedl out on his ticket threat

Letter to the Daily Emerald, written by UO undergrad and Truman Scholar Andrew Lubash, and signed by 13 other Senators and 3 ACFC members, here:

… Out of the $15 million ASUO budget, students spend $1,695,348 paying for the football and men’s basketball ticket lottery. This comes down to about $71 per year that students pay through their mandatory fees for the chance to go to our athletic events. We, the undersigned, think this is too high. …

However, when the ASUO began negotiating with the Athletics Department this year, we were surprised to find out that not only was there absolutely no chance they were going to give us more tickets, they were requesting $169,000 more from students than last year, for the same number of tickets. A 10% increase!

We were infuriated.

Now, they say that they will likely begin cutting student football tickets if we don’t give them at least a 3% increase (~$50,000). Their actions are greedy and deplorable. They’re acting like a business focused solely on profit, when they should be working towards supporting the academic side of this university. Why isn’t there an expectation on our campus that athletics give back to students? Students aren’t even guaranteed a ticket.

… After an article came out in the register Guard saying that the Athletic Director would fundraise millions in order to pay for his own salary increases ($700,000/year) and those of other Athletic department staff, we had had enough. We find it fundamentally unfair that the Athletic Department can find it within their hearts to fundraise for themselves, yet they resort to threatening to cut student tickets if the ASUO does not give them their requested increase. Is it actually that hard for them to raise $50,000 on top of the millions they already plan to raise? We don’t think so.

… At some point, someone needs to stand up and shine a light on the enormous difference that exists between what the Athletic Department deems as “necessary” and what students deem as excessive. Many of us struggle to afford our education as it is. We should not stand for our own Athletic Department to treat us as another lucrative source of funds to line their own pockets with. It’s time for them to start giving back and support students of all financial backgrounds.
We don’t understand how the ASUO, in good conscience, could increase the Athletic Department’s budget $1 unless we guarantee that students get more football ticket. If more tickets is not an option, we should not agree to charge students more for the same amount of tickets.

[Signed by 17 Student Senators, etc.]

2/19/2015 update: Duck’s Eric Roedl threatens to cut student tickets unless they pay 10% more:

Actually, our students have already talked him down to a 3% increase, and Roedl’s latest threat seems pretty unlikely, given that Scott Coltrane just told the UO Board that athletics would have no problem coming up with millions to pay for raises for Helfrich and Mullens.

But Roedl’s giving it a half-hearted effort anyway. Gotta try and cover his own $42K raise, I suppose:

From: Eric Roedl
Date:02/19/2015 4:05 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: [student name redacted]
Cc: Laura Jorgensen
Subject: Student Seating Options

[Student name redacted]

Attached ticket calculator contains two options:

1. Represents a 3% increase to I-Fee as discussed with no impact to student seat allocation.

2. Represents a 0% increase to I-Fee. Under this model we would likely [emphasis added] reduce the number of football seats per Pac 12 Game (Utah, Wash. St., Cal, USC, Oregon St.) by 300. We would then increase the number of Pac-12 Season Student Season Ticket Plans available for student purchase (at a price of $300 per package) by 300.

Please review and let me know if you have any questions or thoughts prior to submitting.

Thanks, Eric

Spreadsheet here.

2/10/2015 10:30 update: AAD Eric Roedl fails to talk students into paying more

The committee can’t agree, so the default recommendation of $0 goes to the ASUO Senate, for a Feb 24. vote. That’s a $1.6M cut from last year. Rob Mullens has two weeks to raise the money from donors, twist enough arms in the student senate to get a bailout, or convince Scott Coltrane to stick to the threat of a cut in tickets if the students don’t pay up.

The compromise plan should be to switch to a voluntary athletics fee. Roedl hates that idea because he wants to hide the true cost of “free” tickets from the students.

8:00 AM Tuesday, Now, in the EMU Rouge River room.

Lubash is giving Roedl a brutal beating. Roedel is trying to cram down a mandatory student fee increase, the day after the AD announced it had the funds to give $2M in raises to the coach and athletic director.

IMG_0519

My guess is Roedl bails and leaves the money on the table, but who knows? Students will have to play hardball, and he’s spewing doubt and confusion.

Student asks what would happen if they cut the IFee? Roedl won’t say.

Lubash: You say you can raise money to pay for coach’s raises. Why not go out to you donors and ask for money to pay for cuts in student ticket prices.

Hansen: Notes that the AD estimate for ticket values assumes demand curves don’t slope down. Ben assigns failing grade.

Schlegel: Never a campaign among donors to get donations for student tickets? Roedl: Not to my knowledge.

I gotta go, sorry no more live-blog.

3:30 PM update: UO Board approves fat raises for Helfrich, Mullens. Ducks want more student cash.

Diane Dietz has the story, here.

It’s tough listening to Coltrane push this on the Board: “The cost of these contracts is borne entirely by athletics”. Sure, if you ignore the millions in hidden subsidies from student tuition money.

The brown-nosing at this meeting is pretty deep. The trustees did have some tough questions about the Falling Sky contract to sell beer to the students at the new EMU though.

2/9/2015 update: That’s what’s happening today, in 15 minutes, at the Board’s EAC meeting. Angela Wilhems is still hiding the contracts, but it looks like Mullens will get a $250k raise to $700K, while Helfrich will go from $1.5M (if I remember right) to ~$3.5M. Plus a plethora of bonuses, of course.

Well this certainly explains why Mullens has been trying to get more money out of the UO students. More on that below and here.

2/9/2015: With Matt Court attendance < 50%, Mullens wants to raise student fee

According to this new report from the OC Register’s Ryan Kartje, Oregon’s basketball attendance is down 24% from last year. Word is the student section was half empty tonight.

But apparently that’s not going to keep Duck Athletic Director Rob Mullens and his AAD Eric Roedl from trying to raise the mandatory fee they charge UO students for tickets. Kaylee Tornay has the report in the Daily Emerald, here:

The Feb. 6 budget hearing between the athletics department and the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, which determine annually the amount and price for student ticket distribution for football and men’s basketball games, led to yet another stalemate in reaching an agreement. The ACFC approved a proposal of an 18.9 percent decrease to the Athletics Department’s current ASUO budget. Later, this decision was overturned due to faulty voting processes, according to ACFC Chair Andrew Lubash.

The budget hearing was the second held this year to work out how much it will cost students next year, regardless of whether they attend athletic events or not, to receive the same amount of tickets to athletic events that they received in the 2014-2015 school year. Students pay for 5,448 tickets per regular season football game and 1,854 per basketball game. These are distributed via a lottery system (when you log onto goducks.com and watch the O spin for an hour hoping to get a ticket) that is funded by a percentage of the Incidental Fee, which each student pays every enrolled term.

This year the student body as a whole paid the Athletics Department $1,695,348 for the ticket lotteries for football and men’s basketball. The Athletics Department opened negotiations this fall requesting a 10 percent increase to provide the same amount of tickets for the 2015-2016 year. This would mean an additional $169,535 and would bring next year’s total to $1,864,883.

The ACFC met with Athletics on Jan. 16 and negotiated the request to a possible 3 percent increase rather than 10 percent. That would mean students would pay $50,860 more than they did this year. However, no official agreement was reached, and the ACFC discussed the athletics budget again in a meeting on Jan. 30. Ronnie Grenier-Hemphill, the chief liaison between the Athletics Department and ACFC, informed the Committee that Eric Roedl, Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director of Finance, had brought up the possibility of having to cut the amount of tickets, if anything less than the 3 percent increase were approved.

The Emerald followed up with Roedl on the matter and he delivered the following comment:

“Maybe we’d adjust the ticket allotment in some ways to more accurately reflect the value and the money that’s being transacted…we’d continue to have dialogue to find something that works for everybody.” Roedl said.

Funny, I don’t remember anything about falling attendance in Roedl’s powerpoint, when he was hitting up the students for a 10% increase.

If the students do pay this, where will the money go? To people like AD for Finance Eric Roedl, who’s already managed to scrape up the funds to give himself a $42K raise, to $212K, in just two years:

2014:

Screen Shot 2015-02-09 at 9.14.23 AM

2012:

Screen Shot 2015-02-09 at 9.14.11 AM

Gottfredson unable to find qualified “Faculty Athletics Representative”

9/22/2014 update: Gottfredson’s last official act before skipping town with his $940K was to appoint former journalism dean Tim Gleason to replace longtime NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative Jim O’Fallon (Law), after presumptive heir Rob Illig (Law) crashed and burned with his viral “I’m worth $1M, so screw you unemployed law grads” campaign. The FAR’s are having their national meeting in November in New Orleans. For more info about what the FAR is supposed to do to balance the interests of big-time Duck sports and its multi-million dollar employees with our academic mission, try here. Meanwhile the UO Senate needs to decide what to do about Gleason – specifically this proposed legislation from Pedro Garcia-Caro calling for a Senate role in appointing a new FAR.

7/21/2014 update:

This winter Gottfredson set up a search committee to find a replacement for Jim O’Fallon (Law), who has had the FAR job for 25 years and who been the subject of repeated Senate motions and reports calling for a review and replacement. The Senate will take this up again in the fall. Andy Karduna (Human Phys) agreed to chair the committee, despite Gottfredson’s secrecy requirements. Karduna reported to the IAC and the Senate that the secrecy (and presumably Gottfredson’s control-freak job description and the requirement of a year-long apprenticeship to O’Fallon) kept several qualified and interested faculty from applying. Rumor has it that Rob Illig (Law) wanted the job, but his $1 Million salary goal was a bit too steep. The appointment was supposed to be made in June, but apparently there are still no takers.

6/20/2014 update: Gottfredson appoints IAC-lite, to evade faculty oversight of athletics

The day after President Gottfredson got the EPD report on the basketball rape allegations he decided to dismantle the Senate Intercollegiate Athletic Committee and appoint his own handpicked group of faculty to a new “Advisory Group”. Still no word on who Gottfredson will appoint as FAR in training. At least a few qualified and interested faculty refused to apply under the terms of Gottfredson’s secret search. The Senate will vote on legislation for a new search in the Fall, in any case.

KATU accuses UO of hiding rape allegations to protect Duck basketball’s APR

Update: Troy Brynelson and Alex Cremer make it criminally plain, in the ODE: The University of Oregon purposely delayed the expulsion of three basketball players in order to preserve its academic standing with the NCAA and financial incentives for members of the athletic department, according to an exhaustive investigative piece from…

UO Ducks avoid Notre Dame scandal by not making athletes write papers

It’s a national scandal – the NYT has the details here. Notre Dame was trying to make football players write papers. Fortunately the players, or their coaches, hired real students to do the work before any actual damage was done. Jim O’Fallon’s NCAA Infractions Committee will conduct a thorough investigation,…