Still Doubt The Importance Of A Strong Football Program To A College?

[NT80]

A Tide sweeps up ex-UTA president

Witt introduced to importance of sports at football-crazy Alabama

11:01 PM CDT on Friday, March 30, 2007

By GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News

gjacobson@dallasnews.com

Call it the education of a college president.

Robert Witt says he knew football was important when he left UT-Arlington – a school without a football team – for the University of Alabama four years ago. But he didn't know how important.

"I did not realize how powerful a force it is in bonding our supporters, both academic and athletic, to the university," Witt says.

Early this year, Witt acted on his new understanding. He agreed to pay Nick Saban a guaranteed $32 million over eight years, the largest contract ever for a college coach.

Combined, Saban and his assistant coaches will earn a little less than $6 million a year, Witt said, just under UTA's total annual athletic budget.

"It's an investment, not an expense," Witt told The Morning News this week. "And it has a public relations payback that is even more important."

In a telephone interview from his office in Tuscaloosa, Witt said a strong athletic program, particularly football, helps increase student enrollment and donations for all of the university's programs.

Within 48 hours of announcing the hiring of Saban, Witt said, Alabama received several hundred applications for preferred seating packages at games, which require donations ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Before an expected crowd in excess of 50,000 at the spring football game on April 21, Witt said, the university will announce that it has exceeded by $20 million its four-year fund-raising goal of $50 million for stadium and arena renovations.

When another major university-wide fund-raising campaign ends in 2009, Witt said, contributions "will go well beyond" the goal of $500 million. Some $250 million will go directly to scholarships.

"The hiring of Nick Saban has created a buzz across this state and the Southeast like nothing I've ever seen," Witt said.

One family of Crimson Tide fans recently named its newborn son Saban. His older brother is named Tyde. The family's last name is Witt, no relation to the president.

"I did send him a t-shirt," Witt said of the newborn.

Witt got an early taste of that intensity in May 2003, just 60 days after he started at Tuscaloosa. He fired the school's incoming coach, Mike Price, because of an incident involving drinking and topless dancers. Price had been hired to replace Dennis Franchione, who left for Texas A&M with three years remaining on a five-year contract.

"I thought I needed to go into the witness protection program," Witt said of the fallout from his Price decision.

Alabama increased the seating capacity of Bryant-Denny Stadium from 82,000 to 92,000 before last season and sold out every home game. "Finding parking for 700 RVs is one helluva challenge," Witt said.

Witt said he hasn't missed a home game in his time at the university. He throws a pre-game reception for 200 to 300 boosters on the lawn of the president's mansion, a short walk from the stadium.

Witt, whose salary is $487,620, said Alabama is one of the few NCAA Division I-A programs that consistently generates a substantial operating surplus. "Not a penny of state money is used to pay salaries or support the program," he said.

This school year, the athletic program is directly funding $1 million in academic scholarships.

Witt said freshman enrollment is up 63 percent since he got to Tuscaloosa, and admissions scores have improved. The president is also substantially increasing faculty pay.

Last fall, 82 National Merit Scholars enrolled, ranking Alabama 11th among the more than 600 public universities in the nation, Witt said. "A strong sports program is an invaluable asset in getting us on the radar screen of gifted students."

Witt spent 35 years in the UT system, 27 in Austin and eight in Arlington, so he was aware of the allure of big-time college football. But it's different in Alabama.

"There is intense loyalty in Austin," he said. "But here it's even more intense."

[PlummMeanGreen]

A FEW GENE STALLINGS MEMORIES FROM HIS CONSULTANT DAYS AT UNT

Other than ex Alabama coach and (then) UNT athletic department consultant Gene Stallings (along with ex NT President Norval Pohl) telling and showing us all by their well planned power-point presentation how ridiuculously ineffective the Mean Green Club had been (recently) in fundraising for Mean Green athletics and.......................FWIW, those who have given large amounts recently under Rick V's watch were on UNT alumnus potential fundraising lists even back then during those low-producing MG Club fundraising years Stallings and Pohl were making that full room of MG fans blush a bit of CRIMSON RED, well, anyway.................

...................I suppose the other thing that Coach Stallings wanted to make clear to us all that evening is how UNT would never be another Alabama as far as major college football was concerned. Well....................I don't think he had to do too much convincing with that statement, either, although many out there adhere to the theory that you may never ever want to say, well, uh..............NEVER; anyway, Coach Stallings (of whom most of us admire) was most likely right-on with that assessment, too, although he could have inserted the names of about 75 other NCAA D1-A football-playing schools in place of UNT with that statement.

Ex UTA prez Witt would probably even tell present UTA prez Spagnola that he should probably change his mind by pushing for (at least) some form or level of college football at the Arlington campus, too; but for those schools that drop football (including Lamar U), the main bug-a-boo of start-up cost to reinstate football seems to most always be the thing preventing such.

There was a time according to some of you who were around and close to the scene post-Rod Rust firing that we may have joined other schools who dropped football and even during a time after that one year Bob Tyler mess at UNT (some of you will remember that very hastily called meeting by Bill Vogel to meet with UNT officals); but we hung in there (although 12 years at the NCAA 1-AA level IMHO is a prime reason we probably lost a geneation of Mean Green fans.

Moral of this thread: Probably never a good idea for a major univesity in Texas to ever drop its football program (and I'm glad we didn't in Denton).

THINK BIG---BUILD BIGGER!

Edited April 1, 2007 by PlummMeanGreen