Article about athletics contributions ignores what academics provide

To the Editor:

It is no secret that an intense and often angry debate is going on within the Ohio University community over the importance assigned to intercollegiate athletics. In a year when nearly every academic department faces deep funding cuts, leaders recently chose to award the athletic department an additional $1.2 million to cover its budget deficit, despite years of uneven performance from the largest and most expensive sports, men's football and basketball.

After reading through the report cited in Monday's article, "OU Athletics Trumpet Its Contributions to Local Economy," I learned that nearly half the $21 million figure the study quotes is drawn from departmental salaries and athletic scholarships. Using this yardstick, most academic units make multi-million-dollar contributions to the Athens area economy, but will we be greeted next week with a headline about, for example, the outstanding economic impact of the College of Arts and Sciences?

If a portion of the athletic department's funding was shifted to academic units, would that money still provide a local economic boost? To me, a study that uses this type of methodology looks like an attempt to artificially inflate the benefit that athletics brings to the Athens area. As such, it does little to reassure the doubtful that OU sports deserve continued preferential treatment, and ultimately serves to deepen the gulf between different camps within the institution.

Michael Lachman
First Street
Athens