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Hocutt asks for increased athletic funding
Laura Bernheim / Staff Writer / lb174804@ohiou.edu
After eliminating four sports earlier this year to combat
a $4 million deficit, Ohio University’s Athletic Department appeared before a
general fee committee last night to ask for increased funding of more than
$425,000.
For 2007, the department is budgeted to receive $13.6
million — about 43 percent of the net general fee revenue — from general fee
funds, not counting the $425,000 proposal.
The Athletic Department originally budgeted in fiscal
year 2006 for $14.3 million from student general fee revenue but actually
received $13.7 million after the university fell short of enrollment targets.
The program cuts will save the department an estimated $685,000.
“Honestly, we cannot sustain another reduction like
we’ve experienced the past two years,” said Kirby Hocutt, director of
Athletics. “At a time when university support has declined the last two years,
salaries have increased and normal inflation rates in certain areas have
increased well over 3 percent.”
Starting in 2004, the Athletic Department budgeted based
on a promised university increase in funding of $1.5 million over three years.
They only received $800,000 and this year faced an additional $241,000
reduction.
While Hocutt said the department has had success in
generating revenue from other sources, such as marketing, royalties and
concessions, it isn’t enough.
“There is nothing with (the budget presented to the
committee) that we think is excessive or out of line,” he said.
Hocutt said the more than $425,000 increase would improve
student-athlete welfare, especially in Title IX equivalence sports such as field
hockey, women’s soccer, baseball and softball.
“Some programs, when they travel, they’ll put four
student-athletes to a hotel room,” he said. “It’s common with many of our
teams that two people will share a bed. We want a student-athlete to have the
same accommodations on the road as they have at home.”
Joe Carbone, OU’s baseball coach, also played for the
university in the late 1960s. He said at the meeting that his players are not
having the same quality experience that he had as a player.
“We stay in the cheapest hotels around, bottom
dollar,” he said. “We’re just hanging by a string. Nobody spreads a dollar
as well as we do.”
Generally speaking
General fee money is divided among athletics, student
enrichment and campus life, and health, wellness and safety. Until recently, the
university had no documents to show specifically where the money went.
In the past, OU collected students’ tuition and general
fees, combined them into a general fund and did not track what each program
received. The Ohio Board of Regents mandates that general fees should be used to
fund only non-instructional student services and programs.
The Student General Fee Advisory Committee has already
met with the Office of Education Abroad, Campus Recreation, Graduate Student
Senate, The Post and the Kennedy Museum of Art.
The committee — composed mostly of students — is
meeting with all organizations that receive funding from the general fee pool
and will present recommendations to Budget Planning Council. BPC will eventually
make a proposal to OU President Roderick McDavis, who has the final decision
about where general fee revenue should be spent.
More, more, more
Athletics director’s request for funding ludicrous in
face of financial crisis
After cutting four sports earlier this year and blaming
those cuts partly on a $4 million deficit, Ohio University Athletic Director
Kirby Hocutt is asking for more money — an additional $425,000 from general
fee revenues, to be exact — to improve student-athlete welfare. Aside from the
irony that Hocutt claims concern for student-athlete welfare but cut four sports
teams without first warning the athletes, it takes a lot of audacity to ask for
more money when the athletic department already takes a large chunk of the
general fee revenue. In 2007, the department is slated to receive $13.6 million
— about 43 percent of the general fee money.
Student-athlete welfare is an admirable goal. If the
university were swimming in money, there would be nothing wrong with asking for
more money so athletes can stay in better hotels for away games. But with the
budget crisis OU is facing right now, it’s difficult to justify more money
spent on sports for relatively frivolous desires. Case in point is the
unnecessary expense of putting up OU football players in a hotel the nights
before their home games. Supposedly, the rationale is that the players need
their rest and can’t get it on campus. However, after 17 OU players got
arrested in a nine-month period in 2006, it seems just as plausible that the
real reason Coach Frank Solich lobbies for the hotel is that he has to baby-sit
these players. True, the last thing the university needs is more bad publicity
about football and alcohol, but the student general fee shouldn’t have to pay
to prevent this.
Hocutt has pointed out that salaries have increased, as
have inflation rates. Fair enough, but the athletic department needs to keep in
mind that the rest of the students should not have to sacrifice for them. The
trade-off for increasing the head football coach’s salary (Solich makes about
$80,000 more than his predecessor Brian Knorr) might be that student-athletes
have to rough it, even if that means staying in their dorm rooms on the night
before home games.
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DROPPED
TEAMS
2006
Women's Lacrosse Team
Swimming
and Diving
and
Track
and Field
|
