UT-Austin again has put athletics over academics
Like many I was shocked, but upon reflection not surprised, to learn this weekend that the University of Texas at Austin fired football coach Tom Herman and immediately hired Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian to replace him. This will cost UT approximately $15 million. The total bill might be closer to $40 million if you factor in all buyouts of existing personnel, the price tag for Sarkisian’s salary and the additional money needed if Sarkisian elects to clean house and recruit his own staff as is typically the case.
Let’s put this athletics expenditure in perspective. In 2019 the football program at UT generated approximately $157 million in revenue. This constituted an increase from $144 million in the previous year.
Make no mistake. I am a fan of college sports, each week watching, being entertained by and rooting for the Texas Longhorn teams. Perhaps I am a hypocrite but I find this recent move reprehensible and unacceptable — both tangibly and symbolically. I say this having been a UT faculty member for 41 years, an administrator for six years and a member of the Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Men for three years.
Once again the message communicated by UT is clear: College athletics, not academics, dominate and are the priority of universities. Just imagine if the $40 million was available to help pay faculty and staff. In addition, it is likely that some donors who have a long record of giving to academic departments, colleges and educational programs may now be so upset that they could stop giving. They might reason that, if UT can flitter away $25 million on bad decision making, why make additional donations?
UT’s termination of Herman and simultaneous hiring of a new coach would be extraordinarily problematic in any normal year. However, the university’s decision is even more disturbing this year. Like all universities, the coronavirus pandemic has strained UT’s budget. Salaries are frozen, staff are being let go, open faculty and staff positions are going unfilled and more academic budget cuts might be on the horizon. At the worst moment of suffering in this pandemic, UT’s highest priority is a new football coach.
A former doctoral student of mine put the current state of affairs in even starker terms. College athletics is a cesspool that turns administrators and coaches into millionaires by exploiting the labor and health of young Black men. The education they were promised in exchange proves very hard to get with 6 a.m. lifting sessions and majors restricted by afternoon practice times. Fans don’t seem to care that their heroes are disposable, and readily disposed of. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Taylor Branch observes, “It has a whiff of the plantation.”
If a substantial percentage of donations to athletics was skimmed off the top and given to the academic side of the shop — that would result in well more that the current $5 million transferred from athletics to academics. Of course I doubt this will happen.
Unfortunately, there are no signs that things will change in the future. The beat goes on. In the years to come coaches will come and go and universities will continue to dole out incredible sums of money to hire and buy them out. Sadly, like many I may continue to be a hypocrite, criticizing and being stunned by the enormous disparity between athletics and academic budgets while simultaneously being a sports fan and cheering for UT teams. And that, of course, is precisely the problem. Hence, it is not an overstatement to say that college athletics hold universities hostage.