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A recent article in The Oregonian has caught some fire for its tales of recruiting expenditures by the Mighty Expensive Ducks of Oregon. Seems the school coughed up $140,875.99 to fine-dine potential migrating waterfowl.
“We can afford it.” said Oregon athletic director Bill Moos.
A bit much you say? No problem. They still have $459,124.01 left to spend.
Of course, there was air fare, and what’s $109,727.64 among friends anyhow? They were private jets, you know. I mean one poor soul was forced to fly commercial to USC and Michigan. Cheap bastards!
The rooms at the Hilton weren’t too bad. Just $270 a night. No word if balloons, glitter. streamers and rubber ducks were included. But they doubled up. So that’s like cheap or something.
They got to check out the Ducks’ $3.2 million locker room with a hidden wall entrance to the stadium that rises magically at three feet per second. An engineering and physics lesson all in one. Who said this trip was all strippers and steak?
Dinner was available for 76 of the teams’ most important individuals. Only $5,475.20. Who can’t eat $72 worth of grub? It’s not like there was any alcohol to pay for. And besides, they paid for their own paint ball from the $20 per diem.
Breakfast the next day was OK. The eggs were good for $41, but it was hard to concentrate on eating with all those bearded old guys making speeches about grades or something. Not to mention they had to keep pushing aside those books by some dudes named Dickens and Thoreau to make room for the plates. What a pain!
Lunch was only $1,485.30. Dinner rang in at $3,706.80. Followed by a tour of Nike chief executive Phil Knight’s private suite Stadium with sporting the message, "Just do it."
The next day was anther excruciating 8 a.m. wake up and a $2,650.13 breakfast. Skimping in at only $36 per. Then it was back to the airport for another ride in a small plane.
So what’s the problem? The NCAA makes millions off ... blah blab blab blah blah ... it’s really no big thing.
I won’t place much credence in any conspiracy theory. But if the NCAA doesn’t want to look like hypocrites, it has to acknowledge that international players are here to stay and that the systems they play under are much different from our own. There may be no hideous thought behind its actions. But it does look fishy and the NCAA has to nail it down.
One more thing.
All the players have said the right thing. That they got their rings, they know who Won and that's all that matters. But the banner matters. The recognition matters. They may not think much of it now. But in the future, with grandkids on their knees, it would have been nice to be able to show off the NCAA record book to show what grandpa had done.
E-mail Steve at smurray@midweek.com
-- MidWeek, May 19, 2004
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