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Monday, November 20, 2006

Bravo, Rutgers


At a time when New Jersey is awash in Rutgers football fever, William Dowling would appear to be fighting a lonely, Quixotic battle.

But the Rutgers English professor and a small core of ardent critics of the university's quest to be a football powerhouse are regrouping as the team has vaulted from perennial loser to being ranked as the sixth-best team in the nation.

"It's a dramatic rise in football fortunes and a dramatic decline in academic and intellectual values," Dowling says of Scarlet Knights mania.

Dowling is a founder of Rutgers 1000, a group of students and professors who tried for a decade to get Rutgers out of big-time athletics.

While the group may have officially disbanded four years ago, many members, as well as alumni, still want to see the Rutgers sports programs reduced in size and influence, and the football team's ascent onto the national stage hasn't changed their attitude.

"The old network is spontaneously coming back to life," Dowling said. "We're examining the remote possibility of saving Rutgers from the Division 1A sports monster."

The once-vocal organization -- named for its alleged membership -- unsuccessfully lobbied the university to drop down to the Division 1-AA Patriot League. One of its most influential supporters was the late Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize winner in economics and a Rutgers alumnus.

"The football buildup sends a symbolic message," Dowling said. "What this tells the state and students is that the only thing Rutgers cares about is having a semi-professional football franchise and attracting academically substandard students who don't like being in school but do like having a football team to cheer for."

Rutgers officials disagree. They contend the university is not sacrificing academics for the football team. In fact, they argue, pride and national attention generated by the team can help attract more applications, corporate sponsorships and alumni donations.

And while admitting that most universities rarely turn a profit on a football team, officials said increased ticket sales and a trip to a postseason Bowl Championship Series game could help defray the $13 million it costs to run the team, perhaps even help fund other programs.

To earn a trip to a BCS game, Rutgers will likely have to win the Big East Conference title. The Scarlet Knights are in first place heading into tonight's game against Cincinnati.

"Rutgers success on the football field has prompted many people to take a closer look at the university," Rutgers President Richard McCormick said. "We are confident that they will learn what we have known for a long time, that the research achievements of Rutgers faculty are recognized worldwide, and that Rutgers provides excellent educational opportunities for more than 50,000 students each year."

The university has stepped up efforts to publicize its academic achievements, noting in a news release this week that touted the high ranking of several departments: "Rutgers football is hardly the first of the university's programs to earn national and worldwide distinction."

Still, critics dispute the notion by university officials that a postseason bowl appearance will boost Rutgers' reputation and attract quality students. While some top-tier universities have great teams, they argue, a university's prestige is not a product of its athletics.

Rutgers alumnus Mark Mattia, a 1975 graduate, said athletic director Bob Mulcahy has somehow sold the idea that a great football team makes a university great.

"That's nonsense," Mattia said. "Michigan, Berkeley, they are not great because they have great football teams. They are great universities."

Mattia, a Rutgers 1000 member who lives in Tewksbury, said Rutgers is sending the wrong message by increasing football spending at a time when every department has suffered cuts. That includes funds for tutors for the team, which hasn't lost a player for weak academic performance in six years.

Coping with a $66 million shortfall in state aid this year due to budget cuts, Rutgers cut six Olympic sports, eliminated 800 course sections, cut 189 jobs and 374 lecture positions.

So it irks Mattia that football coach Greg Schiano is expected to earn $1 million this year.

"Frankly, I'm not proud that the highest-paid public employee in the state of New Jersey is a football coach," Mattia said.

Howard Sands, a 1964 Rutgers graduate who lives in Delaware, is so angry about his alma mater's push for NCAA Division I glory, he stopped donating money to the university two years ago and asked that his name be removed from alumni lists.

In a letter to McCormick last month, Sands wrote, "I am still hoping that some time in the near future you and your athletic staff will see the light and return the focus of Rutgers to education and research, and that Rutgers will follow the path of academic excellence of universities like NYU and Chicago, which have survived financially without selling out to the demands of the small-minded Rah-Rah crowd."



---the star-ledger---