A loyal reader sent me a link to this article on the Detroit News web site, though I think some others were referring it in my post about the new basketball coach. “Ron English has support in bid to make EMU football a winner” is the corresponding fluff piece about the football program, though the emphasis here is on how EMU is spending money to improve the football game. Here’s a quote:
Players walk into new meeting rooms with the Eastern Michigan mascot peeking at them and inspirational messages pushing them past old barriers.
There is new projection equipment and new furniture, and the cinder-block walls with peeling paint are something of the past.
Welcome to the modern Eastern Michigan football program, where money is being spent as the Eagles attempt to leave their longest and darkest era.
“We have been able to invest in football for the first time in the program’s history,” Eastern athletic director Dr. Derrick Gragg said of the program’s facelift, which includes a $3.9 million indoor practice facility and new meeting rooms. “Obviously, when you invest this much into the program, the payback is that you win.
“And that increases school spirit, and school pride with the alumni. About 80 percent of our alumni are in the state, and everybody roots for their alma mater when they win.”
Jeez. First off, in an era in which academic programs are being cut far beyond the bone, this sounds a little like gloating and a lot like priorities at EMU are not on education. I realize that it does take a certain amount of money to run a football program (which is the argument for getting rid of football in the first place), and I can imagine that they needed some upgrade in facilities. But this is not the message that Gragg et al ought to be promoting now, and it’s not a message I think EMU ought to avoid sending. If I was a parent interested in sending my kid to EMU, I might think instead “huh– they don’t seem to have their priorities straight.”
Second, I think that Gragg is more or less putting English and the EMU football team “all in” in here: that is, the investment is worth it because a winning team increases school spirit and pride and such. I think that claim is true– illogical though it is since the quality (or lack thereof) doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the school. But the key issue here (to quote Charlie Sheen briefly) is winning. And if Gragg and English don’t turn their record around to far north of 50% next year, I have a feeling that this “investment” will come back to bite them in the bum.
That’s exactly what should happen as well. I never thought I would wish failure on a team I should have loyalty to, no one should. But after reading this I do hope the team… continues just as they have for the past two years just to reenforce the ridiculousness of what was said in that quote. It is insulting to flippantly say throwing money at a sports team automatically equates to success. I cannot believe someone with Dr. in front of their name could make the statement, “Obviously, when you invest this much into the program, the payback is that you win”.
This also does show me just how off this institution’s priorities are in this time of financial and ACADEMIC difficulty. If everyone in the administration feels that Dr. Gragg’s idea is true, why are they not investing that much more money in academics where that way of thinking tells you money will make the graduation rate magically improve!
I could be wrong here, but I think what he meant by “the payback is that you win” is that it is on the football program; the program has to pay it back by winning. I don’t think he meant that by putting money into a program that it will generate wins or a winning program.
I say that as a person who doesn’t believe EMU needs football, but I’ll give Derrick Gragg the benefit of the doubt.
In re EMU: Sitedad writes: “huh– they don’t seem to have their priorities straight.”
If such is true then EMU is NOT the only university guilty of such an accusation.
“The University of Michigan is expected to announce at a Wednesday news conference the addition of men’s and women’s lacrosse as varsity sports in the near future. Michigan athletic director David Brandon has called a news conference to make the public confirmation”
http://www.wilx.com/sports/headlines/U-M_to_Add_Lacrosse_122535654.html
There certainly has been a lot of heated debate about cuts to academic programs at UM despite a $250+ Million dollar renovation of the Big House, current massive $52 Million renovation to Crisler Arena, and now adding two new sports teams.
Please do not make this sound like EMU is acting unilaterally when it comes to the athletics v academics debate.
On another note, please highlight the good press EMU Athletics just received for the university as a whole about the academic achievement by our Student Athletes. Well done students!
Eastern Michigan basketball, football continue APR improvement –
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/eastern-michigan-basketball-football-continue-apr-improvement/
“The Eastern Michigan football team also continued a slight upward trend since its 902 score in 2004-05 and scored a 937 this year. The NCAA’s multi-year penalty line is 925. The national APR average for football is 946.
EMU’s women’s programs all scored exceedingly well, including perfect 1,000-point scores by its gymnastics and cross country teams. Other women’s scores include: softball (996), swimming (990), track (962), rowing (987), basketball (979), golf (975) and soccer (965).
The school’s other men’s programs scores: wrestling (966), baseball (965), cross country (959), golf (955), swimming (938) and track (933).”
Keep up the great work EMU Student Athletes representing Eastern Michigan so well both in the classroom and in athletic competition!
EMU96Grad,
Clearly the major difference between UofM expanding its athletic programs and EMU’s sustaining its athletic programs is that EMU loses many millions by these expenditures and UofM makes many millions of real revenue on athletics. There athletics is self-supporting: at EMU, athletics are a fiscal blackhole, sustaining by take-aways from academics. Or did you fail to notice that the Big House sells 100,000 tickets to each home football game? Its football program has market value. Ours, frankly, is just state-subsidized entertainment, for which there is no market value and virtually no fan base, actual or potential. Even the athletics department does not seriously argue otherwise! No sensible business person would spend his own money on a program like EMU’s athletics – there is no potential for return on investment. But the subsidies continue because…of inertia and a lack of accountability.
That said, the academic achievements of EMU student athletes remain impressive. Bravo to them! Imagine what EMU could do for the state, for the nation, if we provided the kind of excellent academic support for all students, as we do for the tiny minority of students who are student athletes!
Education First! Go Eagles.
Agreed, Andrew.
Just read the comments in the Freep.com today after the article about Universities sitting on a pile of unrestricted funds in endowments. There aren’t many comments, but none are supportive of taxpayer support when endowments are full. Quotes by Gragg seem to fuel this kind of sentiment. BTW, the endowment database shows EMU’s endowment loosing 14.48% since ’09. MTU was the only other University that lost ground, with half posting gains of +10%.
Which area of the University handles investing the endowment? Oh ya, that would be the Development Office, under the ultimate direction of our current board chair, I do believe. How is EMU one of only two schools in the state to lose money on their endowment fund? Those responsible should be investigated. Knowing the players really makes this thing smell to me.
It would make for an interesting audit perhaps, but the whole internal audit process at EMU has been bogus for years. Perhaps 20 years ago, or thereabouts, the administration decided that having a full time internal auditor wasn’t a good idea. I’ll just say that IMHO the internal auditors office was doing too good a job, and that wasn’t to the administration’s liking. They could not manufacture their own version of the truth as easily as they would like. The internal audit process is now contracted out. It is now a process by which the administration can pretty much determine the final outcome of the audit before it’s even started. How convenient. And believe me, I have seen it in action many times over the last 20 years.
I think we might be reading a little too much into the article. It was soley an article about the changes made to emu’s sports programs. It wasn’t meant to be very investigative into the institutions academic priorities. Unfortunately emu is caught up in the financial arms race that is division one collegiate athletics. It is a race that emu may or may not be able to compete in due to a multitude of different factors. If it were up to me I would de-emphasize athletics at emu and focus on turning the school into an academic powerhouse which I do believe is much more achievable than winning the MAC championship in football.
EMU has spent, in the last decade, approximately $100 million on athletics, by a conservative estimate. Probably a lot more than that. Football took the lion’s share. And EMU athletics cannot claim, truthfully, to contribute real value relative to that hundred million, to the broad EMU community. Dr. Gragg’s statements are an embarrassment to him and to the university that employs him.
@Twenty years ago, North Central showed up for our reaccreditation visit. EMU copped a plea of grade inflation. One could argue that by pleading guilty to something/anything right up front, the NCA team didn’t go looking for problems on their own.
They were quite disturbed to find a position called Executive Vice President that they had never seen at any other institution. While the title closely resembled the “Provost and Executive Vice President” kind of title held by institutions chief academic officer, the holder of that title was Roy Wilbanks.
North Central said we had to get rid of the position and reorganize along more traditional lines. That’s when (and why) the EMU Foundation was born.
They also noticed that we had a monolithic IT infrastructure that contained something called Academic Computing. Academic Computing consisted of (I believe) a DEC-10 and (I know) the wonderful staff of Beth Welch, Manny Norman, and Laurie Senteney. North Central was not happy to see most of the academic computing resources being re-allocated to fund–for all intents and purposes–administrative computing priorities. Can anyone say ISIS?
North Central said we had to have a separate entity with separate funding to support EMU’s teaching/learning enterprise. All sorts of things became available to the academic community at large once Academic Computing began reporting to Academic Affairs as a separate entity.
We entered a time where the President and Provost could further academics instead of being subservient to the whims and priorities of the Executive Vice President. There was an IT entity dedicated to the academic needs and mission(s) of the university.
And now, twenty years later, what’s really changed? Now, as then, Wilbanks calls the shots. Now, as then, we have a monolithic IT unit unsympathetic and unreceptive to the needs and desires of the academic community. Now we have Banner, then we had ISIS.
The only reason we changed things then was because North Central made *strong* recommendations for organizational change.
Maybe we’ll be lucky and North Central will come through for us again next year. There’s certainly no hope that our current managers (there is no leadership) will do what’s needed for the good of the university.
Wow. This just made me sick. I hope this makes all the people that are likely to be laid off in budget cuts feel a lot better.
How much money could be saved by releasing our Athletic Director from his contract? Hmm…
“and everyone roots for their alma mater when they win.”
Not if you graduated as a Huron.
Your point is a fair one, Eagle Talon. But I think the practical evidence is abundant that today’s college students, and many alumni nationwide, could not care less whether their school’s teams win. It is not, for most students or alumni, a primary basis of identification with their higher education institutions. It is for some people, at some schools, but even at such schools it is far from universal — even for the students who are genuine sports fans. Why become a fan of a team just because your university foots its bills? Why not retain prior allegiances to teams distant or far, and watch their games on TV?
I like sports. But I didn’t pick my schools based on their sports teams, and I wouldn’t ever consider donating to a school based on their team records.
Of the three colleges & universities I have attended, including one Big Ten university where basketball was king, there is only one to which I have donated. It was the one with a minimal athletic program and NO FOOTBALL TEAM (SUNY New Paltz). Why? Because I had a great personal and academic experience there. I don’t even know what their athletic teams’ records are, and frankly, I don’t care.
Gragg needs to find a clue. Universities are **schools** – not sports venues.