William Friday is working back to ambulatory status following knee surgery that nearly coincided with his 87th birthday last month. But wear and tear has dulled neither his interest in promoting restraint in funding college athletics, nor his outrage when new borders of excess are crossed.

It’s tempting to shrug and move on, recognizing business-as-usual as the merger tightens between college athletics, the entertainment industry, and government. Fortunately, Friday and others outside the athletic mainstream have not succumbed to such cynical acceptance.

Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina system, had barely returned from the hospital to his Chapel Hill home before learning Rep. Charlie Dannelly of Mecklenburg County had inserted into the recently adopted state budget a half-million dollar subsidy for athletic scholarships to 10 historically black universities. The bill included minimal academic requirements.

This on top of, or in reaction to, the $8 million in taxpayer funds spent this year alone to subsidize out-of-state athletes at in-state rates for the benefit of sports programs at higher-profile North Carolina universities. That escalating sum derives from a 2005 bill for “nonresident scholarships,” with less than a third of the funding going to support academic scholarships.

Portrayed as a tool for attracting budding scholars, this legislative legerdemain neatly reduced fundraising pressure on booster clubs and athletics departments that proudly – and falsely – boast they do not require public funding.



“There’s got to be some sense of order about our spending on athletics in North Carolina,” Friday said. “I don’t want to be a prophet of doom, because I’ve been an optimistic person all my life, but I don’t think we’re facing reality here.”

That reality, Friday said, included nascent plans to spend approximately $100 million on expanding Kenan Stadium at the University of North Carolina. The former 30-year president of the UNC system objected to the Kenan expansion on fiscal and, if you will, moral grounds.

Friday cited a recent report that fewer than 10 percent of athletic programs break even financially in the so-called Football Bowl Subdivision. Yet that barely slows the train as more schools incur massive debt, and seek ever more problematic revenue streams, in order to muscle to the top of the competitive heap. [Mixed metaphor... starts with a train, ends with a heap.]

“It’s the power of money, and it’s the insatiable appetite: this isn’t enough, let’s do more,” Friday said. Referring to ACC expansion, he added, “What you’re seeing here with the stadium is the natural evolution of that merger. You’ve got to keep up with Clemson and Florida State.” Not to mention Virginia Tech and Miami, the latter school where UNC coach Butch Davis earned his coaching stripes.


... [Where] does the athletic arms race end when members of the University of North Carolina system such as Winston-Salem State and N.C. Central rush head-long to embrace high-profile athletics, and news of upgraded athletic facilities is almost constant at the state’s ACC schools?


... [Many boosters claim that] no state monies go to supporting college athletic enterprises.

This will come as news to Pricey Harrison, a representative from Guilford County who co-sponsored legislation with Onslow’s George Cleveland to repeal what she called “the Ram’s Club subsidy” for out-of-state athletes. “I don’t see how you could justify the taxpayers subsidizing the booster clubs at these institutions,” Harrison said, mentioning UNC, N.C. State, and East Carolina in particular. “It bugs me no end. There are so many other priorities in the state, I can’t justify it.”

So, Harrison and Cleveland forced a vote on their bill in late July, breaking Democratic party discipline to do so. (Harrison, a second-term member, “was a little bit chastised” for her effrontery, she said, and felt properly abashed.) But the upstart legislators succeeded; their effort to repeal subsidized athletic scholarships for nonresident students passed the House on a 93-13 vote. The measure now sits in the state senate, where it may never see the light of day.



The recent round of scholarship aid is the tip of a taypayer-funded iceberg. Public support for college sports already includes direct appropriations to construct arenas, subsidies for grounds and building maintenance, incentives to secure tournaments, providing infrastructure such as roads to service facilities, and making up for income tax deductions claimed by booster contributions dubiously related to educational purposes.

“It’s a question of where your priorities are,” Friday said. “That’s the ultimate issue that we have to be accountable for.”