Sunday, January 9, 2011

It's About Their Education

Sports Illustrated used to run lots of stories like this, until they found out they couldn't really survive if coaches, athletic directors, PR flacks and ticked-off athletes played Retaliation and stopped talking to them when they wrote embarrassing and true things about them and their behavior.

But every now and again they must think it's worth it, so they bust out some journalism. This time, it's a look at how much of the University of Oregon's athletic renaissance owes to the checkbook of Nike CEO Phil Knight, running in time for the national championship college football game pitting the Knight-supported Ducks against Auburn, a team with its own little tale of interesting spending proposals this past season.

One of the neat little tidbits is how no one knows exactly what Oregon's new football stadium cost. But they have too, you say. U of O is a public university, meaning that the construction had to be bid out and contracts awarded. Meetings about the plans and the expenditures had to be open and part of the public record, because U of O is a public entity.

Nope. See, Knight decided he wanted to give the school a stadium, but he wanted it built his way. So he offered to pay for the whole thing himself, meaning he could select the contractors and approve the plans on his own and not tell anyone what he paid or what they did.

Should help those student-athletes really excel in the pursuit of their degrees, don't you think?

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