'My father, former U.S. Rep. J.J. “Jake” Pickle, loved the University of Texas and Longhorn football, basketball and baseball.

While in office, he used his considerable influence to negotiate legislation favorable to the university, including the “Pickle amendment” allowing tax deductions for donations to buy football tickets. He could not have foreseen the consequences of this legislation to “his” university 20 years down the road.

I’ve been following the articles about the university’s powerful sports programs, Longhorn football in particular. Every time I drive by the expanded Royal-Memorial Stadium, I wonder on what other educational uses those millions of dollars could have been spent.

Our sports programs have become so powerful and autonomous, they eclipse the purpose of the University of Texas when it was founded in 1883, and which should be our purpose now: to provide the best education.

If the time has come to repeal or amend the “Pickle amendment,” then we should do it.

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Why don’t most of our colleges and universities use some of their profits from sporting events to support their academic programs?

That would not only save taxpayers money but could help lower tuition rates.

If they can afford to pay their coaches $2 million a year, then they can sure spend a little of that money on academics.


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UT athletics’ spendthrift addictions are revoltingly beyond ostentatious.

It would not be socialism to use some of sheik DeLoss Dodds’ chump change to enhance the quality of education and the number of kids educated.

What a national embarrassment - a rich club where the justification for buying anything and everything is having the means.

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I cut UT out of my will more than a year ago as my way of protesting the excessive emphasis on sports. I don’t care if the sports department is self-financing. If a university president can’t see that $8 million to $12 million for a football scoreboard is absurd, then I can’t trust him or her with my hard-earned life savings.

And to UT sports donors, aren’t you a bit ashamed that you aren’t doing anything more meaningful with your money than buying luxury recliners and flat screen TVs for pampered college football players?

With many students coming out of college today carrying a crushing student loan debt, the flawed priorities of UT supporters astonishes me.

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...[The] articles expose the sad fact that the actual expense of those programs is not merely steep - it’s obscene. Adding to the insult is the athletic department’s shameless reluctance to share its bounty with the university’s academic departments.

Starting today, I’ll not pump one more dollar into UT athletic programs. I can live without sports tickets, Longhorn clothing or club memberships. Instead, I’m going to find a better way to give back to the university, one that promotes the university’s true purpose.

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The timing of the series could not have been more appropriate, given the drubbing the football team took Sept. 29 from Kansas State.

Has it occurred to anyone at UT that the opulent facilities and the pampering that these athletes receive might be generating a sense of inflated self-worth and entitlement that’s not exactly conducive to a winning football team?

The environment they live in (buses to practice to avoid traffic) won’t foster the hunger and drive that are key to a championship team.