. The cost of success
► &
season is nothing new. McMenamin says colleges
began a rigorous effort to recruit Green during his
junior year of high school.
By die fall of his senior year. Green had narrowed
the list to five schools — Notre Dame, Penn State,
Arizona, Michigan and Nebraska.
“Those five schools put a tremendous amount of
money into recruiting him,” McMenamin says.
The USA Today All-American didn’t sign his let
ter of intent for Nebraska simply because Memorial
Stadium is 50 miles away.
There were phone calls, recruiting trips. Osborne
sent Green handwritten notes from fishing trips —
telling him how the fish were biting.
“It was fun in the beginning,” Green says while
getting his bleeding elbows bandaged after practice.
“After awhile it started to drag on. Everybody wanted
to talk to me.
“You learn a lot about people. You learn that
schools... they’ll do whatever to get you there.”
All the attention given to Central’s star players
has brought the school its own rewards.
“We have a reputation,” McMenamin says. “The
recruiting process is positive for our football pro
gram because it gives us name recognition and the
kids read about Central. Seeing (University of Iowa
Coach) Hayden Fry and Osborne in our building is
impressive.”
And it helps with, well, recruiting.
Meanwhile, a small and shrinking sector of the
college athletic world has stayed away from the
money race. The Ivy League — ridiculed by some,
laughed at by others—stubbornly holds to the terms
set out by fpotball’s forefathers.
Chuck Yrigoyen is the league’s associate direc
tor. There are few, if any, star athletes here. Televi
sion cameras are a rarity at league football games.
The glitz is missing from these New England stadi
ums.
“It’s safer, our way,” he says. “People look at the
Ivy League as one that has regressed. That may in
fact be the case. But we’ve managed to stay away
from the front pages of the paper as far as things
coming out of the NCAA office.
“So, I guess we’re pretty happy.”
But there are rumblings of change.
Take Pennsylvania University.
The Quaker football program has won two league
titles in die last three years, while compiling a 26-3
record. I&the three years prior, die {irogram went 9
Penn’s junior quarterback Mark DeRosa com
mented on the scrutiny placed on the Penn program
in an interview earlier this fall.
“Everybody thinks we’re breaking some rules,”
he says. “I’m sure we’re bending some rules, but
everybody else better start bending some, too.”
This is a league that bans its football teams from
post-season play. Spring practice was just instituted
in April 1994. A few months before, freshmen were
made eligible for the varsity team. At the same time,
the number of freshman recruits were reduced from
50 to 35.
In the Ivy League all gate receipts and game-day
monies go back to the school’s general operating
funds.
“It’s generally a whole different attitude on how
to operate the financial issue and the pressure it
brings,” Yrigoyen says. “It lends itself to more con
trol.”
And Yrigoyen says the league has one mainstay
that will hold it back from the edge.
“One of the founding tenants of the league, which
is obviously not going to change, is no athletic schol
arships,” he says. “We are not going to compete at a
mat— m m
high level without it. It simply isn’t going to hap
pen.
When Byers talks about what the “athletic schol
arship” has done in Division I, and what the NCAA
hoped to accomplish, he speaks of failure.
“Indeed, the full-ride grant did not achieve its an
nounced purpose to stop ‘all this cheating and out
side payments,”’ Byers writes in his book
“Unsportmanlike Conduct.”
“It only intensified that problem. The NCAA, in
effect, had put in place a nationwide money-laun
dering scheme.”
For more than four decades, the NCAA has
struggled to maintain control of its member institu
tions. Currently, there are 106 Division I schools
under the auspice of the association.
Byers has been called the “leading architect of
the big-time intercollegiate athletics,” a system he
now criticizes at length.
He says the organization “was essentially blown
out of the water” in 1984 when the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled the NCAA’s television controls uncon
stitutional.
“From that point on, the acquisition and merger
efforts began taking place so major conferences
started flexing their marketing muscle and negotiat
ing power. They all realized that they were free in
the market place and they were going to generate as
much money as they could for themselves.”
The most recent NCAA revenues and expenses
report best details the explosion of wealth.
In 1985, the average total revenue of Division I
schools was $6.8 million. Eight years later, that total
had increased 100 nercent.
For football, average revenues rose 69 percent to
$6.3 million for that period. In 1970, the average
football program drew about $960,000 of an ath
letic department’s $1.2 million total revenue.
Eventually, there will come a time when there
isn’t an abundance of money, Byers says. Then, the
more powerful teams will begin consolidating to grab
larger shares of the wealth.
But Byrne says consolidation could hurt power
ful programs like Nebraska.
“Because Iowa State won’t make it,” Byrne says.
“Neither will Kansas State. Neither will Oklahoma
State, if we go to mega conferences,” he says. “We
will. We will make it. But then, all of a sudden, some
thing else is going to happen.
“We are not going to have (those schools) on the
schedule anymore. InsteacUour diet is going to be
UCLA and Notre Dame and Washington and Okla
homa and Texas andTexas A&M and Colorado. And
we are going to end up six and five.
“There are going to be a hell of a lot of six and
five teams out there. And there isn’t going to be any
body going undefeated anymore.
“Guess what that means?
“That means you’re not going to be going to bowl
games,” Byrne says. “You’re not going to be having
the dynasties anymore. You’re not going to be hav
ing the fan following. It’s going to be a problem.”
Notre Dame relies heavily on fan support. Busi
There was a time when playing the Kansas State
Wildcats was the equivalent of an off week. The pro
gram was dubbed the “Mildcats.”
It held the nation’s record for the most losing pro
gram in Division I. Now, in the final Associated Press
regular season poll, it ranks No. 10 in the country.
At the heart of this success story is the answer to
who controls the game.
“There’s no doubt about it,” says Kansas State
Athletic Director Max Uric, “(Coach) Bill Snyder
runs the football program.”
When Uric talks about what it took to change,
Courtesy of Nebraska Sports Information
Game Day at Memorial Stadium brings in almost $1.5 million. “It’s a business,”
says NUfs athletic budget director, and you have to look at it that way.”
Football puts Big Red in the black
sines 199Z Nebraska
football has been solely
responsible for keeping the
athletic department out of
debt
The graph to the right
shows the amount of
money made by football
(red), owed by the rest
of the athletic
department (blue), and
the net profit (green), or
debt (blue)
I The amount of money
football made during the year
■ The debt of the athletic
department without football
K Total amount of profit, or debt
Jr collected by the athletic
lit department
The chart below shows
the amount of money
made, and spent by the
football team during the
1994-95 season
Source: University Athletic Department Aaron Steckelberg/DN
among his top three ingredients is money.
Last year, the KSU football program fin
ished in the black for the second straight sea
son. Previously, that was unheard of, he says.
It brings in $2.5 million in ticket revenue and
operates on a $5.8 million budget
“TherS’silto doubt about it” sgys ISansas
State Athletic Director Max Uric, “(Cbacft)Bill
Snyder runs the football program.”
When Uric talks about what it took to
change, among his top three ingredients is
money.
Last year, the KSU football program fin
ished in the black for the second straight sea
son. Previously, that was unheard of, he says.
It brings in $2.5 million in ticket revenue and
operates on a $5.8 million budget.
Coach Bobby Bowden has found his posi
tion at Florida State University to be one of
power, as well.
“No doubt about it,” Bowden says, “your
head football coach is nothing but a CEO of a
major corporation.”
And they play for high stakes.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if royalties alone
weren’t worth a couple million,” he says. “Talk
about shortening the length of the season?
Shoot man, you take a game off and you lose
a million dollars. With that comes more pres
sure, headaches.”
But the pressure to win sometimes leads to
a program’s downfall.
At the University of Miami, past violations
have resulted in, among other things, the Hur
ricanes being banned from postseason play this
year and a loss of scholarships.
Among Miami’s violations were abuse of
the Pell Grant system, extra benefits to ath
letes, pay for play and a lack of institutional
control.
In an interview just hours before the NCAA
findings were released, Miami President Ed
ward Foote disregarded the alleged wrongdo
ings and said they would not affect how Hur
ricane athletics are governed.
Foote says he has a “fine athletic director”
and a quality new coach. They are the ones
who control the football program, he says, no
question.
“It is a big business. The financial stakes
are high,” Foote says.
Back in the Husker state, the stands are
empty. Memorial Stadium is quiet, silhouetted
against the warmth of a red Nebraska sunset.
Down the road, team practice is just end
ing. Osborne has gathered his team in full
circle. He stands in the center. Behind him
stretch a row of Big 8 championship banners
and three national title flags.
He maps out the schedule leading to Jan.
2, then dismisses his team.
“When you add it all up, football here prob
ably generates $15-, $16-, $17 million,” he
says during an interview as players slowly exit
the pavilion.
“But when I call a play, I don’t think too
much about, ‘Is this going to win money or
lose money for the university?’”
By the time interviews are done, all the
players are gone but two. One'of them is
Ahman Green, stretched out on the sideline.
Green’s spectacular runs have helped clear
the way for a trip to the Fiesta Bowl, a third
straight undefeated season and a chance to re
peat as uncontested national champions — a
feat that hasn’t been equaled in almost 40
years.
It has allowed Byrne and others with a
chance to lay their hands, once again, on one
of the most fertile financial stakes in college
football.
He’s part of a tradition. Nebraska has been
on top for a long time. The Huskers have been
invited to 26 consecutive bowl games and
haven’t had a losing season for 34 years, an
NCAA record. They have been ranked in the
Associated Press Top 25 for 238 consecutive
weeks.
But the last time the Huskers were in this
position was Jan. 1, 1972, against Alabama
Coach Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide.
Bob Devaney was Nebraska’s coach then.
Now, the aging Devaney speaks quietly from
his plush office down the hall from Byrne.
His name plaque reads Athletic Director
Emeritus.
A few months ago, he suffered a stroke. As
he talks about the game, his memory wears
thin and his words come slowly.
He compliments Osborne, the man he rec
ommended to follow him as head coach. He
talks about the problems. And he talks about
yesterday’s game.
“I’ve missed coaching, yes,” Devaney says.
“But I wouldn’t want to go through what he
(Osborne) has had to go through.
“I wouldn’t want to coach today.”
Today, success equals money. And money
equals success.
“The money is there, and you are not go
ing to stop big- time colleges from trying to
get their hands on more money,” Byers says.
“I’m not asking them to give back those mil
lions of dollars. That is the way of the world.”
The problem is, this is the world of ama
teur sport, where naive kids are playing a big
time game. It’s dangerous stakes, he says, and
at some point, the clock is going to run out.
‘Time will tell,” Coach Bowden says. “Are
we piling too much on the top and skimming
too much off the have nots? I can’t answer
that question. We’ll have to see.
“It does seem like it was more fun 30 years
ago, 40 years ago.
“It was more about football back then.”
