The University of Nike's Pigskin Palace. Knight is no Carnegie!

A couple of days ago, NPR aired a piece on the steel baron, Andrew Carnegie, who gave away a good chunk of his fortune to build public libraries throughout the United States.  Yes, public libraries. To be accessed for free.

In 1889 Carnegie wrote an article called "The Gospel of Wealth," in which he spelled out his views on philanthropy: "In bestowing charity the main consideration should be to help those who help themselves."
The rich should give, so the poor could improve their own lives — and thus the lives of the society. Giving was a code of honor. "The man who dies rich dies in disgrace," Carnegie said.
Nasaw says the steel master was in his 30s when he decided he was merely the shepherd of his wealth.
"It is his responsibility to give it back," Nasaw says, "to return it to the community because the community — all of those men and women who contribute to the making of Carnegie steel, the mothers who feed their children, the day laborers, the whole large community — is responsible for making this wealth and they're the ones who have to get it back."
So public libraries became instruments of change — not luxuries, but rather necessities, important institutions — as vital to the community as police and fire stations and public schools.

Yes, Carnegie was ruthless as a businessman, as a capitalist.  But, the legacy he left behind includes:

1,689 public libraries. Temples of learning, ambition, aspiration for towns and cities throughout the United States.

And then there was a contrasting story about the latest college football excess at the University of Oregon, thanks to Nike's Phil Knight:

The Football Performance Center at the University of Oregon features rugs woven by hand in Nepal, couches made in Italy and Brazilian hardwood underfoot in the weight room that is so dense that designers of this opulent palace believe it will not burn.
This is Oregon football. There is a barbershop with utensils from Milan. And a duck pond. And a locker room that can be accessed by biometric thumbprints. And chairs upholstered with the same material found in a Ferrari’s interior. 

The Oregonian's columnist aptly describes this as Pigskin Palace, and writes:

It's Phil Knight's money, of course, and there's a lot more where that came from. But the new structure does seem to send out a message to everything else on campus.
A University of Oklahoma president once told legislators that he wanted a university the football team could be proud of. Oregon might now hope for a university the football building could be proud of.

 We could have had by now a university that the state can be proud of if valuable and scarce resources are not invested in sporting facilities, right?

Carnegie left behind a rich legacy, despite his brutal business practices.  Vanderbilt too. The Ford Foundation contributed so much to the entire world.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffett seem to continue along in that old American tradition.

And then we have the awful ones like Knight who are all about self-aggrandizement.  It is even more awful that people love it all. Even more pathetic that the left-leaning faculty are always too keen on following football that is clearly at the expense of education. And students are always delirious with football success even when they are jobless after graduating from the university.  Oh the insanity!

“We are the University of Nike,” said Jeff Hawkins, the senior associate athletic director of football administration and operations. “We embrace it. We tell that to our recruits.”

I am ready to puke!

Academics gone, .. .but sports saved!

It is amazing how tolerant we are of a system that continues to make atrocious decisions.  No, I do not mean any particular university system--it is all pervasive ...

I read this about CalState at Bakersfield, which is from where I moved to Oregon.

CSUB students, faculty sad to hear of temporary cuts to some graduate programs

That news was in the local newspaper, and to get more details I checked with the university's website.
And in the home page, the news is this item "Sports Saved!"--thanks to fundraising.

Meanwhile, there is major realignment in the Pac-10, Big-10 and other NCAA leagues, and it is all because of money--this exchange between NPR host Bob Siegel, and Dan Wetzel explains it succinctly:

SIEGEL: Why? What's driving these universities to go into these conferences?
Mr. WETZEL: Well, with college athletics, you know one thing: It's not academics, it's all money. And increasingly, athletic budgets have soared and schools are desperate to try to balance their books.
Currently, one of the really two ways to make money is television contracts. So what you're seeing are schools herding together in bigger and bigger groups to try to attract the most money possible.
SIEGEL: So who stands to win in all this and who might be the losers?
Mr. WETZEL: The people who win are the athletic directors, the college football coaches who get million-dollar salaries. It's about money. It's where is the money going. They're not paying the players. It's going to someone, and it's really going to a small group of people.

Even though this money aspect is all well known, we are supposed to pretend that it is all about amateurism.  I mean, that is exactly what the NCAA said in explaining why it was punishing USC's athletics.

Finally, here in my hometown, while, as previously noted, universities are hiking up their tuition, the gazillion dollar Nike's chief, Phil Knight, donates even more to athletics .... how much did he give recently, you ask?
It is not only how much for athletics, but the manner in which it will be done:

Knight is making yet another extraordinary gift to the UO: a 100,000-square-foot addition to the Casanova and Moshofsky centers and a new field, stands and scoreboard for soccer and lacrosse. The new building would include space for a UO Football Hall of Fame and Museum, covered parking for 300 cars, surface parking for 75 cars, a 20,000-square-foot weight room and space for ticket offices and the Duck Shop. If past is prologue, no corners will be cut when it comes to design, materials and furnishings.

The gift comes with extraordinary terms. As with the stunning new John E. Jaqua Center for Student Athletes, the university will grant a license to Phit LLC, a private group financed by Knight. The license will allow Phit to lease the property and build the projects to its specifications, and give them to the UO upon completion.

The arrangement makes it a private construction job, not subject to the usual bidding requirements for state projects, though prevailing wage rules will apply. The dollar value of the gift will not be disclosed, and the UO will be obliged to maintain the facilities and staff them with a half-dozen full-time positions. It’s an arrangement that is unique to facilities donated by Knight — unique not only at the UO, but nationwide.

The higher education board approved the project with no dissenting votes, through four of 12 members abstained. “This is an act of astonishing generosity,” Lariviere said. “And instead of celebrating that generosity, we’re analyzing it to a level of scrutiny one doesn’t expect for something such as this.”

Oh, wait, UO's president also had the following to say:

In an earlier meeting with Register-Guard editors, Lariviere said he’s “bumfuzzled” by skeptical questions about Knight’s gifts. “Do I wish he’d show the same level of support for Sanskrit? Sure,” the president said of his own academic specialty. “Am I surprised that a man who made his fortune by building the biggest sports equipment company in the world is interested in athletics? Not really.”

Lariviere would be serving the UO poorly by showing anything other than unqualified gratitude for Knight’s gifts.

Blame the system.  We can't do any damn thing.
BTW, I liked one comment I recall reading somewhere: If ever University of Oregon were to play Oklahoma State University, we ought to bill that game after their respective benefactors, Phil Knight and Boone Pickens :)

The most expensive "futbol" commercial ever