Executive Director, CSCAA
While the members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team continued to redefine the word “class” by their actions, both on and off the court, the Rutgers administration provided yet another illustration of an academic bureaucracy run amuck.
Over the past few months, we’ve witnessed the school’s President, its Athletic Director and a majority of members of the Board of Governors -- a supposed watchdog -- blithely discard the institution’s thoughtfully-crafted mission statement for athletics along with more than a century of tradition.
Anyone who doubts the reality of the Peter Principle need only cast his eyes toward East Rutherford, New Jersey, where Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy and President Richard McCormick provide a living, breathing portrait of an institution run by individuals who have risen to their level of incompetence.
Why did Mr. Mulcahy decide to cut men's swimming and diving, men’s heavyweight crew, men's lightweight crew, men's fencing, men's tennis and women's fencing?
Well, said the A.D. at first, the decision was based on several criteria, including membership in the Big East conference, team success and team academic performance. Okay, if cuts need to be made, these, at least, are defensible criteria.
But wait a minute! It turns out that most of the teams Mr. Mulcahy wanted to cut were members of the Big East, while some he was retaining (at least for the moment) were not. Likewise, by and large, the teams on the chopping block had better records than the teams being retained. What’s more, the teams the A.D. wanted to banish boasted the best student-athletes in the school. Indeed, the men’ (and women’s) swim team have earned Academic All-American status the last two years in a row.
Did the Rutgers administrators think no one would check their criteria to see if they really were the basis for the A.D.’s decision? Or, in their breath-taking arrogance, did they just not care?
Well, Mr. Mulcahy backtracked unashamedly, the real reason was Title IX.
Oh, really? Then why cut women’s fencing and, in the process, deliberately eliminate the Title IX prong that allows a school to be in compliance if it has a continuous record of increasing women’s opportunities?
And why ignore totally the plea of NCAA President Dr. Myles Brand, who stated that no school need eliminate men’s teams to be in compliance with Title IX and offered the NCAA’s assistance? Why not pick up the phone and call Indianapolis to hear what Dr. Brand had to say?
“Heh, heh, you got us there,” Mr. Mulcahy might have muttered to himself, before announcing that what it really all boiled down to was “money.” There just wasn’t enough to go ‘round. So regrettably, some “minor” sports had to go.
“But what if we raise the money to pay for these teams, perhaps even endow them?” supporters asked. “We’ll have to see,” the A.D. replied, a bit more circumspect now after having been burned twice by his own careless statements.
So the teams’ supporters went to work, beating the bushes to scare up some greenbacks. And lo and behold, they were successful. The swim team collected pledges that would pay for the team for the next year, with promises of more to come. In all, the teams’ supporters raised more than $3 million.
Most spectacularly, according to the Associated Press, Bruce Nicholas, of Greenwich, Conn., said he would give $1 million to save the crew team. His family also donated money for the Nicholas Music Center on the school's Douglass campus.
"I intend to do even more," Nicholas wrote in a letter read aloud at the most recent Board of Governors meeting. "If crew is not reinstated as a varsity sport, we can regrettably no long support this university in light of its indefensible decision."
Backed into a corner, the Athletic Director acknowledged, “this really isn’t about money.”
And, indeed, it’s not. Because the school – which had to shut down numerous academic classes due to New Jersey’s budgetary crisis – found abundant – some might say, “obscene -- funds and perks to shower upon the football coaching staff as well as the A.D. and his staff after the football team completed an outstanding season which, by he way, still lost money for the University.
But none of that matters to Ronald W. Giaconia, the Board of Governors' vice chairman who, in classic “don’t-confuse-me-with-facts, my-mind’s-made-up” fashion, said the decision was final, even if donors want to pull their support because of it.
