May 07, 2004

As Rice Goes, So Goes All Of Non-BCS?

FROM THINK TANK McKINSEY & CO. comes the mother of all reports on college athletics, a gargantuan 121 page volume replete with all manner of charts, tables and graphs--but no pictures.

Commissioned by Rice University, the masterpiece is modestly entitled �Intercollegiate Athletics at Rice University,� but it is actually a comprehensive overview snapshot of Division I-A.

By way of exhaustive--and sometimes overdone�analysis of grad rates, SAT / GPA gaps, TV money, NCAA infractions, peer group schools and athletics budgets, the report validates many things that we knew already. Most notably:

1. the Division I-A �arms race� is spiraling dangerously
2. the distance between haves (read: BCS) and have-nots (read: non-BCS) is ever increasing
3. academic stalwarts like Rice--and Northwestern, and Baylor, and Vanderbilt�are hard-pressed to be competitive

While most observers of college athletics are well aware of these realities, never before have they been presented with such a glut of research to back it up.

More specific to Rice University, the report provided the following tidbits:

� With 2800 students, Rice is the second smallest school in Division I-A (only Tulsa has less students).
� Rice has one of the highest grad rates in Division I-A: 81% in 2003.
� Rice athletes admitted in 2003 had an average SAT of 1130; the overall student body average was 1426.
� Rice has one of the highest percentages of athletes relative to the entire student body in Division I-A: athletes are 12.1% of the entire student body (overall Division I-A average is 4.0%) � only Air Force, Army, Stanford and Tulsa have higher percentages in Div. I-A.
� Rice is one of only 20 schools in Div. I-A never to have been sanctioned by the NCAA.
� Rice�s football team has not earned a bowl invitation (or bowl revenues) in 42 years.
� Rice�s athletic department has a $10 million deficit.

The Rice faculty is clearly not supportive of the continuation of big sports at Rice. In a faculty poll, more than half supported dropping Rice athletics to Division III. Thomas Haskell, a member of the Faculty Council, told the Houston Chronicle, "There is a strong sense on campus that playing in Division I-A is an absurdity for a school the size, character and selectivity of Rice."

The report offered four solutions for Rice trustees consideration: to remain in Division I-A, or to drop to Division I-AA, Division I-AAA (with no football team), or to drop to Division III. The trustees will make their decision by the end of May.

The report summarized Rice�s dilemma when it said, �The bottom line is demographics," Only a handful of universities -- Duke, Notre Dame, and Stanford -- "have a geographic or legacy advantage or possess powerful traditions ... [but] there are not many athletes left for the Vanderbilts, Baylors, Tulanes, and Rices."

Will Rice be the first of the non-BCS schools to bolt Division I-A? Most think it�s an even bet at this point.

(this 495 word excerpt was distilled from a 910 word article in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram of 5-6-04, a 550 word article in The Chronicle of Higher Education of 5-6-04, and the McKinsey report �Intercollegiate Athletics at Rice University,� a 121 page, thousands of words and hundreds of charts and graphs volume�available in its pdf entirety at http://professor.rice.edu/images/professor/report.pdf)