For over four decades I have been giving money to Oregon Athletics. I do not give to get better season tickets. I do not even have season tickets to any sport other than track and I gave for a couple of decades before I was a track season ticket holder. I give for multiple reasons. My biggest reason for giving is because I feel that college athletics provides an opportunity for people who would not be able to afford to go to college a chance for a better life while also learning life lessons that come from athletic competition.
I have heard people talk about how colleges exploit athletes in search of the almighty dollar. I've heard people claim that the professors' salaries and even buildings on the campus were paid for off of the sweat of exploited athletes.
The contention that academic buildings or professors' salaries are paid for by the funds generated by star football players is complete nonsense, but what about the athletic facilities? Where do big time NCAA D1 universities actually get the funds to offer athletes such fabulous facilities? Where did Oregon get the funding to develop Autzen Stadium, the Hatfield Dowling Center, The Casanova Center, PK Park, the Marcus Mariota strength and conditioning facility, the Moshosky Center, the Jaqua Center, Jane Sanders Stadium, the Hayward Field renovation and many more athletic facilities and training equipment? Oregon Athletics, like most D1 university Athletic Departments, built their facilities through the generosity of private philanthropy.
Where would college sports be without the generosity of benefactors? I live in a community that has a major university by the name of The University of California at Santa Cruz. With an enrollment of almost 20,000 it is the second smallest school in the UC system. UCSC, like all UC campuses, ranks higher academically than most of the universities in the Pac 12. All UC system Universities (except UC Merced which is only around 15 years old and has around 9,000 students) are large universities with high ranking academics. If UCSC decided to have major college athletics, could they do so? The answer is no. They don't have the facilities. In order for them to develop the facilities it would take private gifts. It would take decades of fund raising and construction just to get up to the NCAA D3 level. College athletics, as we know it, could not exist were it not for a long history of private giving.
Some talk about the Universities' endowment funds as if they were partly paid for off of the backs of exploited athletes. University endowment funds come from private donations. Many colleges with the most impressive endowments don't emphasize sports. Some with giant endowment funds don't even have football teams.
Without the generosity of benefactors, the Oregon campus would look very different. Most buildings are paid for in a large part (if not solely) from private gifts. Oregon would not be able to have the quantity or quality of professors that they do without the generosity of benefactors. Much of the research conducted at the university is done through private endowment funds paid for by the generosity of benefactors. This generosity has greatly enhanced the university that the "exploited" athletes attend.
Perhaps we might reconsider the prevailing question of where universities would be without their star football and basketball players and instead ask where would the star athletes be without the generosity of benefactors of the university? Perhaps we should also ask ourselves where the University of Oregon or universities in general would be without the generosity of devoted alumni and friends? Are athletes exploited or is their situation made possible because of generosity?
