I am sure it will not be long before UO opens a satellite campus in Dubai. They will fly in Paris Hilton for the grand opening. www.youtube.com/luddite333

Not sure I get your point: I tend to favor directing funds toward educational efforts rather than new football uniforms for every game.

Here's a bit more about UO and athletics, this time about the Jaqua Athletes Only Study Center and the odd role of Howard Slusher, the sports agent who broke the NFL hiring cartel back in the 70's.

Jaqua Athletes Only story

For the professors, a link from a tax law blog on this:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2009/12/another-take-on-college-athletics-and-tax-exemption.html

I went to high school in a hellpit in North Texas called Lewisville, where the school had money to resod the football field every couple of years but where the teachers didn't have money for paper to print out final exams. Every property tax hike in the area was hyped as being able to pay for essential school services, but the few times the tax hikes actually went through, the high school hired a few more football coaches, each getting paid four times what the head of any other department was making. Even better, to be expected from a town where said football team was named "The Fighting Farmers", anybody critical of the football program rapidly found crosses burned into their front lawns.

Now I'm getting letters from my old school, asking me to contribute money to cover the property tax shortfalls. Now, I could let them know how I feel, but instead I simply asked "Will my contributions be matched by cuts in the football program?" To date, I have yet to receive a response.

The Ducks are many things, good and bad, but "classy" isn't one of them.

Your alert reader needs to know that whatever else he did or didn't, Kilkenny didn't take the AD job for the money. He worked nearly for free.

The Jacqua Center is not for athletes only.

Mike Bellotti was a class act all the way and regarded as such widely.