'The University of Oregon football team's plans to play its 2009 opening game in China were announced with front page headlines in the Aug. 7 Register-Guard. The proposed Beijing or Shanghai game against Boise State includes flying the marching band and cheerleaders, as well as sports marketing professors and administrators, to China. Everyone could feast on Peking duck as they talked up the UO and Nike brands.

This scheme is just one more danger signal of the growing chasm between massive funding for UO sports vs. bare bones for academics.

Athletic director Pat Kilkenny did not mention costs, but $4 million is a conservative estimate. Flying 400 Ducks to China for one week at $5,000 a head comes to $2 million for transit and lodging.

According to UO Web site figures, that would include 62 football players, 13 coaches, 240 members of the marching band, seven band staff members, 38 cheerleaders, six cheerleading coaches and 34 sports marketing professors and staff.

No one in China plays football. Converting a Chinese soccer field into a football field then back again would be expensive. Other expenses include interpreters, guides, visas and new passports for students. Boise State, or any other opponent, would require the UO to pick up its costs. So the total easily doubles to $4 million.



Now, look at UO spending on academics.

The average UO undergraduate works part time 20 hours a week, but graduates $20,000 in debt. Each year, a dozen UO students fly to Beijing for a year's study, which costs at least $20,000 apiece (out-of-state tuition is $27,000). Regular financial aid and loans apply. But no UO funds exist for dedicated Asia scholarships.

Kilkenny plans to give 12 full scholarships for competitive cheerleading. If the UO created even one Asian Studies scholarship, we'd celebrate.

Another perspective on the imbalance: The budget for the entire UO Chinese Studies program is $2.7 million per year. That includes everything: the world class art museum and library collections, the 16 professors specializing in Chinese subjects ranging from political science to art history, and the Chinese half of the department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, with its lecturers and teaching assistants.

The East Asian Languages department pays among the lowest faculty salaries on campus, yet manages to educate 100 undergraduate majors, 40 graduate students and hundreds of nonmajor students in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

The Center for Asian and Pacific Studies coordinates classes and research for 47 affiliated faculty; hosts scholars from Asia; and sponsors community lectures, films and exhibits. Last March, a sewer main exploded under the center's office. Soaked in filth, the office had to close for a month. Carpets were not replaced until July - one more casualty of the Oregon University System's backlog of deferred maintenance.

A sewer explosion in Autzen Stadium would be cleaned up immediately.



Something else smells when students and professors, including the University Athletic Committee, get their first news about flying 400 Ducks to China from The Register-Guard, rather than from campus discussion. The August press release, when classes are out, looks suspicious.

If UO athletics paid a 10 percent tax toward education, 40 Asian Studies students could fly to Asia. That would make international news. So would funding travel for 40 students from any major who had taken a China-related class. Even four academic grants would be a bonanza. Other UO academic programs are even more starved.

Kilkenny said nothing about costs in relation to the football game in China. He vaguely mentioned "profits" and "donations."...'