There has been recent media attention to generous philanthropic donations by professional athletes to their alma maters.  For example, a former Michigan State basketball player contributed over $3 million.  Good for him.  I think it’s great that there appears to be a trend of increasing gifts by players, but I am very concerned that so many of these gifts go to university athletics programs.  I am quick to point out my belief in donor autonomy.  After all, it’s their money.  Some donors want to help others in need. Some seek to promote social change.  Yet others are inspired to support innovative ways to address scientific, educational, or social problems.

My concern about contributions to athletics departments is threefold.  First, such gifts support a very narrow piece of universities, far removed from the primary educational and research missions.  Athletics departments are in competition with overall university fundraising.  Who decides that a university needs a new, spectacular training facility instead of music classrooms or funds for student research or travel support to tackle social problems around the world?  Second, ever increasing athletics endowments will simply underwrite the growing professionalization of college sports.  Will the generosity of professional athletes and others result in athletics departments that are entirely autonomous from the universities they are housed in?  One certainly wonders how many football players at Oregon think about Plato or environmental science or calculus from the hermetically sealed, gold-plated athletics palace built by the owner of Nike.  At that point athletics departments can honestly cut the cord to education.  Finally, athletics programs already have access to vast revenues through media contracts, ticket sales, and sports paraphernalia, a stream of revenue that does not appear to be slowing.  I am waiting to buy a t-shirt with the name of my favorite physics teacher on the back.  Former college athletes can show important leadership in making gifts to the core research, scholarship and creativity of great universities.  How about a Dean Smith professorship in English literature or medieval history?

This is Lew Margolis.

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