TO: Selected Community Leaders;
The City Council;
The County Commission;
WSU Board of Trustees; WSU Foundation Board;
WSU Alumni Association Executive Committee
RE: Response to "Mayan's Game Plan"
Eagle, 24 June, 2006
The following are snippet responses to the Eagle's Brent
Wistrom and Kirk Seminoff article of Saturday, June 24th, 2006:
"No cost estimates are available": The latest Division 1A NCAA
statistics are available for all 117 universities of Division
1A, published by the NCAA. These statistics provide data
going back to when the Board of Regents "suspended" our
football program and emphasized football at K-State, and have
been provided in Shocker Black & Golds position papers
provided to the president, the mayor, City Council, County
Commission, and well over 100 community leaders, as well as
the Eagle who chooses to contend no cost estimates are
available, at least for drive by scribblers with no time for
substantive analysis, and scribbler dead lines to meet.
"To comply with federal law requiring equivalent scholarship
opportunities for female athletes": The Title IX law and the
latest administrative regulations interpreting that law, only
require that the university show that it is "fully and
adequately accommodating the needs of female athletes", there
is no requirement of equal scholarships for men and women, and
there is no time constraint with regard to when you provide
scholarships or start a women's sport subsequent to starting
a men's sport to pay for the women's sport. And, if the Eagle
or the university administration contends otherwise, they
should cite the specific language of the Title IX statute, or
the specific language of the current administrative regulation
interpreting the Title IX statute to the contrary. The horse
gets to come before the cart even with Title IX.
"University officials say declining enrollment relates to the
area's economy, not the lack of football": Nice try
"university officials", but the truth is you aren't solving
the root cause of the problem, which is lack of being a
traditional university with a traditional football program.
You have been losing students steadily for 20 years, and the
Wichita economy certainly hasn't been going down hill steadily
for the last 20 years. This university statement is precisely
why the university continues to lose students, and continues
to have to buy students with our money to cover up the
university's negligence. It is axiomatic that if you do not
admit what the root cause of the problem is, you will never
solve the problem. But then if you blame the cause of the
problem on something for which you have no control, why then
you can intellectually dishonestly contend you have no
responsibility for solving the problem. The university's
pretended argument is really more suited to child's play, than
it is to any reasoned discourse of the issue.
"Just starting a football program ‘likely isn't' going to be
enough to make a considerable difference in admissions, said
Chad McEvoy, an "assistant" professor of sports management at
Illinois State University": The latest 52 page study
commissioned by the NCAA by Robert Litan, Vice President for
Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City;
Jonathan Orszag, Managing Director of Sebago Associates, Inc.,
an economic policy consulting firm; and Dr. Peter Orszag, a
Joseph A. Pechman Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the
Brooking Institution and Senior Director at Sebago Associates,
who has served as Special Assistant to the President for
Economic Policy at the White House; reviewed by three
independent economists, with research assistance and
programming on the NCAA commissioned project provided by 6
named NCAA individuals and additional NCAA staff, and using
the latest NCAA data base for all 117 Division 1A
universities; which empirical study based upon the latest NCAA
data nationwide exhibits exactly the opposite of Mr. McEvoy's
"isn't likely" subjective opinion. But then why should we be
bothered with substance and the truth, when erroneous
subjective opinion will do just fine to plead our case.
Further, one academic scholarship will add exactly one student
to the university. Athletic scholarships are synergistic, and
one athletic scholarship will attract many additional students
that want a traditional college experience with their
education.
"It may make "more sense" to spend tax dollars on academic
based scholarships, McEvoy said": Query: Did president Beggs
give the Eagle the reference to McEvoy? Once again, McEvoy
relies solely on "more sense" subjective opinion. The NCAA
data and commissioned 52 page report "The Empirical Effects of
Collegiate Athletics: An Interim Report, August 2003", and the
cited Brian, Goff report "Effects of University Athletics on
the University: A Review and Extension of Empirical
Assessment," Journal of Sport Management, 2000, volume 14,
pages 85-104", both find nationwide that there are direct
measurable effects of loss of students associated with the
loss of football: "dropping football can have measurable,
negative effects on enrollments, even for second-tier
schools."
"But the committee said the program should not begin until
sufficient funds are raised": That was the convoluted
irrational opinion of the 3 WSU nursing school no votes on the
committee, controlled by one KU professor assigned to the WSU
nursing school, under whom the other two worked. Obviously,
the attempt was to be to raise the money to reinstate the
football program, and the vote was for president Hughes to
forthwith proceed with raising the funds, but the then KU
controlled Board of Regents (without any subject matter
jurisdiction over athletics funded independently from the
state), would not allow Hughes to proceed, so Hughes "retired"
(probably at the request of the KU controlled Board of
Regents), and then took another presidents position at a
university in the southeast.
"Other members of the City Council don't want to "meddle" with
how WSU "chooses" to spend its share of the mill levy": Please
note the pejorative word "meddle". It is the legal obligation
of the City Council and County Commission, to designate the
use of the funds, other than the debt service of the capital
improvement line item on the Mil-levy. The university has no
legal right to "choose" how our tax-payer's Mil-levy money is
spent. The budget submitted by WSU, legally is only for the
consideration of the council and commission, and has no legal
binding effect whatsoever. It's the taxpayer's money, and if
we want to use any part of it, except for debt servicing
capital improvements, to solve our 20 year old festering loss
of student problem the university fails to solve, it is the
legal right of our representatives. Those councilmen who
contend they don't want to "meddle" with how WSU "chooses" to
spend our taxpayer's money we give to the university, are
simply abdicating their legal representative responsibilities
to their constituent taxpayers.
"[i]t could become a council issue if Mayans pushes for a vote
on whether the city should tell WSU how to spend its
contingency fund": If we don't allow it, there is no line item
contingency fund. As Mayans statistics show, the contingency
line item was a modest $7,091 in 1998, the year before
president Beggs' tenure that began January 1st, 1999, and then
for the fiscal year 1999, immediately jumped dramatically an
unconscionable 66.9 times, to $474,355 under president Beggs'
first budget, and has continued under president Beggs to as
high as $800,000 as late as two years ago, 2004. This
dramatically increased honey pot of play money for the
president, we believe, has never been properly accounted for
by the university's administration to the City Council or the
County Commission, and no one on the Council knows or can say,
how this contingency money was in fact spent by the
university. Mayor Mayans in trying to establish a proper use
for the contingency line item money, should not only push for
a vote on how this contingency money should be spent, but the
City Council and County Commission we submit, have a legal
duty to the taxpayer's to designate how the contingency money
should be spent, if for no other reason, than to understand
and constrain precisely what the contingence money is allowed
to be spent on by the president. Perhaps some of this
"contingency" money is already ear marked by president Beggs
to go to the faculty (as other moneys on the Mil-levy do, that
should properly be the function of state funding), or other
honey pot desires that he doesn't want to disclose as a
specific line item for specific approval, and therefore forms
the real basis for president Beggs apparent unmeritorious
reluctance to use the contingency money to solve our loss of
students problem, and failure of growth of students problem;
which costs the university and this community not only
economic detriment attributable to the loss of students as
identified by Mayor Mayans; but also cost the university, and
by extension our county tax payers, their fair share (which
share is presently zero) of state tuition accountability
money, that could be used to the great benefit of the
university and this community.
"The university "sets aside" out of its $6 million ($6,644,552
for 2007) share of property taxes for a contingency fund.
Most of the money in that fund is used for scholarships, Beggs
said": The university already has other specific scholarships
designated on the Mil-levy in specific line items. If some of
the contingency money went for scholarships, then president
Beggs should produce the Roger Lowe WSU accounting
documentation showing where the money went, who received the
money, and the amounts of such money; as well as accounting
for all contingency money that has not gone for scholarships
since the beginning of his tenure, January 1st 1999. This
documentation should be required by the City Council and
County Commission, so that our representatives document and
confirm the evidence, and demonstrate, exhibit, and establish
their due diligence satisfaction and fulfillment of their
legal responsibility and accountability for the contingency
moneys; not simply serve as a rubber stamp (as presently
verbally evidenced by some members of the City Council) for
president Beggs' substantively unaccounted for honey pot of
play money desires; contra to the desires of the Mayor and the
community to use "contingency" line item moneys to solve our
20 year old festering loss of traditional student problem.
Respectfully submitted,
Shocker Black & Golds
By:
Fred Marrs
p.s. Our web site is now on line. Visit www.AlumniShockersBlackand
Golds.com and click on position papers for information on the
return of WSU football which should be posted in a day or two.
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