Issue link: https://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/106010
[ ] faculty&stAff news Division 1 Football: a losing proposition for universities? Adrien Bouchet TU professor wins Knight Commission Grant, presents research Adrien Bouchet, TU's Warren Clinic Endowed Professor of Sports Administration, won a Knight Commission grant in 2011 to enhance the study of intercollegiate athletics policy. Bouchet presented his study at a highly publicized meeting in Washington, D.C. this October. National media, including the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and ESPN, covered the event. Other grant recipients included faculty from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia, Penn State, the University of Washington-Seattle and the University of Colorado. Partnering with Michael Hutchinson, a professor from the University of Memphis, Bouchet spent six months researching the unsustainable path of sports spending in higher education. Titled "De-escalation of Commitment among Division I Athletic Departments," their paper centered on how universities chose to reduce spending on athletics. "Although recent data provides evidence of limited profitability among intercollegiate athletic programs, Division I athletic budgets continue to proliferate. Consequently, increasing expenses coupled with deficient revenue generation induces dependence on scarce institutional funds, creating what organizational theorists term permanently failing organizations," according to Bouchet's summary of his research. A former Miami Dolphins and Florida Marlins employee, Bouchet was a walk-on linebacker at Auburn during his college years. His passion for athletics fueled his enthusiasm to bring transparency to the issue of Division I athletic departments and provide recommendations for a more sustainable path for college sports and student athletes. "Division I athletics works at many institutions; however, that doesn't mean that every school should be participating at that level." said Bouchet. "Mike (coauthor) and I equate many schools' participation at the Division I level to Wile E. Coyote continuing to chase the Roadrunner despite years of limited success." The Knight Commission was formed in 1989 in response to more than a decade of highly visible scandals in college sports. The Commission's goal is to promote a reform agenda that emphasizes academic values in a climate in which commercialization of college sports often overshadows the underlying goals of higher education. The NCAA adopted one of the report's central recommendations in 2011, requiring teams to be on track to graduate more than 50 percent of their players in order to be eligible for postseason competition. Bouchet, who joined The University of Tulsa School of Nursing in 2010, submitted one of the 39 applications that the Knight Commission received from researchers and organizations throughout the country. Six, including Bouchet's, were selected for funding in October 2011. Bouchet spent the next six months interviewing university presidents, faculty, athletic directors and many other stakeholders at Division I schools around the country. He focused on eight schools that had made recent decisions to reclassify down from Division I status, remove the football program entirely, or restructure their athletic departments. ■ THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA B U S I N E S S M AGA Z I N E { 2 3 }