That would of course be Oregon State University. From their VP for Enrollment Jon Boeckenstedt’s blog. That’s right, OSU’s VP for Enrollment runs a very interesting blog on the side. Here at UO, the faculty can’t even get enrollment projections from the administration.
Orange (of course) for increases, blue for decreases:
What about Oregon’s other top-tier university? Not so good:
Why the difference? Maybe because OSU focuses on education (including online), while UO has become a football mill – a scheme which our administrators embraced while claiming it would boost enrollment.
What does our new President think of this? I don’t know, but there is no evidence he’s got a plan to deal with this except, of course, more football. Which is presumably what Uncle Phil’s Board hired him for.
Meanwhile it seems Duck AD employees President Scholz, Rob Mullens and others of their ilk are not the only UO employees making bank off football. From Lewis and Clark Law Prof Jack Bogdanski’s blog at https://www.bojack2.com/2024/08/dark-money.html :
There’s a website called On3.com that estimates individual athletes’ values for this purpose, but the site’s methodology is kind of a black box, and they admit their numbers are appraisals, not hard information about actual deals. For what it’s worth, they show more than two dozen U of O ballers with values greater than $270,000 a year. Here are the top 10 of those, with their appraised values:
1. Evan Stewart (WR) $1.3 million
2. Dillon Gabriel (QB) $1.2 million
3. Ajani Cornelius (OT) $626,000
4. Tez Johnson (WR) $526,000
5. Jabbar Muhammad (CB) $486,000
6. Jordan James (RB) $415,000
7. Josh Conerly Jr. (OT) $385,000
8. Dante Moore (QB) $341,000
9. Marcus Harper (IOL) $330,000
10. Kam Alexander (CB) $324,000
For those 10 gents alone, the valuation totals $5,933,000. Quite a chunk of change, although as I say, it seems those figures are just educated guesses.
There are something like 90 other players on the football roster. And as I say, 20 of them are valued at an average of about $300,000. We’re up to $12 million, with 70 more to go. And that’s just football.
Anyway, I’m glad the jocks are getting paid, but it’s pretty ridiculous that here they are, now legally classified as university employees, at a public institution, and yet we have no idea who’s getting paid what by whom in exchange for what. It isn’t exactly what some of us envisioned when we said that the hypocrisy of “amateur” athletics should be shattered.