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Have Money, Will Travel: the Quest for Top Athletes

Budgets soar, and so do coaches, as colleges beef up recruiting efforts

by Libby Sander

Nearly half of the nation's largest athletics programs have doubled or tripled their recruitment spending over the past decade, as their pursuit of elite athletes intensifies and becomes more national in scope.

Forty-eight percent of NCAA Division I athletics departments at least doubled their recruiting budgets from 1997 to 2007, according to a Chronicle analysis of financial data reported to the U.S. Department of Education. Of the 300 Division I institutions for which data were available, 21 each spent more than $1-million chasing talented players in the 2007 academic year.

On the whole, the 65 biggest spenders shelled out a total of more than $61-million in 2007, an 86-percent increase from 10 years before. That amount does not include salaries for recruiting coordinators or construction and operating costs of the gleaming multimillion-dollar facilities that help lure prospects.

Rising travel costs account for much of the increase. But the budget growth also reflects a widespread shift in how and where coaches recruit, compared with a decade ago.

Driven by geographic constraints or a desire to bolster the competitiveness of their teams ? or both ? many more coaches now look far beyond homegrown talent, sometimes even crossing continents to court top prospects. For now, the increased price of recruiting is one that many administrators say they can tolerate. But the high-stakes chase for elite athletes can test even the most generous budgets.

"If they've got to spend an extra thousand dollars to get to see a kid somewhere who can make a difference in our program, we want them to do it," says Bill Myers, chief financial officer for athletics at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which spent $2-million on recruiting in 2007, the most of any institution. "Recruiting is an area we want to invest in."

However, he often reminds coaches, "You're not going to fly on a private plane every time you want to."

The fact that some athletics programs can even contemplate sending coaches on private jets to pursue recruits exposes a disconnect between programs that can, and do, spend to win ? and everyone else, says John R. Thelin, a professor of higher education and public policy at the University of Kentucky.

"Just because you can do that doesn't mean you should," he says. At some point, he says, college presidents will have to decide where to draw the line. "It's a more subtle question about values and balance and propriety," he says. "Where does this fit into our mission and our priorities?"

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