Tag Archives: Athletics

11/9/2009: From the RG, on the Blount reinstatement:

Bellotti emphasized that Oregon’s decision was not influenced in any way by boosters, donors or lawyers.

11/7/2009: I’ll be brave, and post this from Ron Bellamy at the RG before kickoff, on Chip Kelly’s new contract.

Chip Kelly’s first contract as a head football coach will pay him an annual guaranteed salary of $1.25 million this season and next, plus a share of Oregon’s season ticket sales, and offer a myriad of bonuses for performance on the field and in the classroom.
…
The contract, signed by Kelly on Oct. 26 and by UO President Richard Lariviere on Thursday, was released to The Register-Guard on Friday in response to a public records request.
…
Kelly will receive a share of season ticket sales, two-tenths of a percent this season and moving to a sliding scale next season — 3.25 percent for gross sales of $13 million or less and 1.65 percent of sales exceeding $13 million.

I’m no economist, but you don’t have to understand collusion to understand why college coaches earn this much money and college players earn zero. The NCAA has a myriad of rules designed to make sure of this – they even require players who want to switch schools to redshirt for a year. Chip Kelly seems like a great guy, but the NCAA set this system up to make sure that every possible dollar of profits goes to the coaches, not the students, players, or universities. It smells rotten and it is rotten.

10/15/2009: Jeff Mapes in the Oregonian writes that the state lottery take is falling. Bad news for UO’s “self-sufficient” athletic department, which for some bizarre reason gets about $1 million a year from lottery funds to pay for scholarships for athletes. The academic side gets about $200,000.

CJ Ciamarella has an article on the Wed Senate meeting here, mostly dealing with budget issues. Word is there may be more cuts coming, since tax revenues are running behind projections.

Every now and then we get discouraged by how difficult it is to extract public records from UO – so we browse through about the only thing Melinda Grier is willing to share with the public – the UO Directory. And we find this:

Hmm.

10/3/2009: After 2 years of Kilkenny’s prodigal spending, UO’s athletic department has a serious budget problem. Fortunately their media contract includes a bonus for higher TV ratings. By reinstating Blount, Chip Kelly stirs up a little more controversy, brings in a few more viewers, and makes it a little more likely his $1 million a year checks won’t bounce. Maybe Kelly will get really lucky and Blount will hit someone else.

But there is some real news here. First, Blount got a lawyer from the new NCAA Alumni Association. There are few quotes below, but you should read the whole story on ESPN – the reporter has done some real investigating. Of course, the lawyer has an agenda of his own, but it’s obvious Bellotti and Kelly have been trying to hide the back room deals.

Bellotti dismissed the notion that Blount having legal representation or assistance from the advocacy group played any role in Kelly’s reversal. “None whatsoever,” Bellotti said. “That’s never been an issue in any of these discussions.”

Yeah, uh, whatever you say, Coach.

Second, this really gets interesting if you check out the sociologist Harry Edwards on wikipedia. Edwards has been advising Blount. Long, long ago, when America was a different country, Harry Edwards was a Black Panther and was the architect of the black power protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Personally, I think that was a great day for sports and for us all.

So, what do you think? Did Harry Edwards tell LeGarette Blount to “keep your head down and that nice Irish coach will surely take care of you and your kid just like he promised” or “this is your whole life, get a lawyer and fight for it.” And who paid for Edwards to spend 2 days in Eugene anyway?

5/27/2009:

This Daily Emerald story by Ben Schorzman challenges the frequent claim that UO’s Athletic Department is self-supporting. It turns out the state gives the Ducks $1.2 million in lottery money every year. If that money went to academics, athletics would be in the red. It’s a pretty interesting read. He’s got a related story here. Mr. Schorzman asks lots of questions, and I hope this is the beginning of some good reporting from the Emerald on athletics and money.

Rachel Bachman at the Oregonian does a good job getting the facts out:

5/9/2009: End of Kilkenny Era

Someone should start filing some public records requests on this stuff – starting with the highly unlikely claim that the Athletic Department’s books are balanced. It would be a simple matter to request the budget reports and then see what they are actually including as expenses in those reports.

Another issue is conflicts of interest. What do you think the chances are that the ~200 employees over there are, many with years of experience, moving in and out of marketing jobs and endorsement contracts, are actually reporting all their financial conflicts of interest with UO contractors such as Nike? State law requires such reports.

Frankly we are too busy with the academic side to do much of substance here, but if you have anything particularly interesting, use the comments or email [email protected]