Flushing more money down the Rutgers football toilet
Apparently $100 million in stadium upgrades wasn't enough for Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano. He secretly obtained an additional $2.25 million in "discretionary aid" to be used in any way he saw fit, with no accountability and no paper trail. Meanwhile, aside from a trip a few years ago to a bowl game that nobody has every heard of (the International Bowl?), Rutgers football keeps on disappointing its fans. They're off to an 0-3 start this season in their shiny new stadium. Their star quarterback's major claim to fame is his uncanny ability to throw interceptions. And after their latest defeat he showed the depth of his character development under coach Schiano by throwing a punch at one of his teammates.

Rutgers football is just another microcosm of New Jersey government. They gobble up huge sums of tax money and produce little or nothing in return. Their delusions of grandeur do not match their accomplishments. They were supposed to tap into their network of wealthy alumni to cover $30 million of their stadium expansion budget. In actuality they barely raised half a million dollars. But the construction rolled along right on schedule and NJ taxpayers picked up the entire tab. There was a secret clause in Coach Schiano's contract that would have allowed him to walk away from Rutgers if the state didn't complete the stadium upgrades before the first home game. In their zeal to pacify their golden boy coach the state pulled out all the stops.

Too many people think that big time football will be a panacea for Rutgers. We're told that it will put them on the map by attracting new investment and driving interest in Rutgers academic programs. But that hasn't happened yet. It may never happen. While Greg Schiano was building luxury suites for his fat cat fans things on the academic side of the university continued to deteriorate. Deferred maintenance on many of their buildings has resulted in a rundown, crumbling environment for learning. It's too bad they can't use some of those luxury boxes for classroom space during the week.

Rutgers used to be a first-rate world class academic university with an afterthought of a football team. Hundreds of millions of dollars later the football team still isn't capable of competing at the Big East or Big Ten level (although you wouldn't be able to guess that from the size of their egos, which are definitely larger than life). Academics has taken a backseat to football and now neither will achieve preeminence.

Posted at 11:56 by Chris   []   | | | Email | del.icio.us | Digg | Stumble It! | Reddit | Link