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Questions and Comments We've Received May 29, 2003 Dear President Cowen and Members of the Board of Trustees: Please allow me a moment to share with you an example of the type of student NCAA Division I athletics is bringing to Tulane University. My daughter will enroll at Tulane this fall. She is the valedictorian of a large, top-notch high school. She is also an athlete. She chose Tulane over many other Tier One academic institutions for several reasons. Chief among these, however, was the opportunity to compete in Division I athletics on full scholarship. Although she received the highest academic scholarship awarded by Tulane (full tuition), without the athletic department grant she may well have chosen another school. The distinguishing factor in Tulane's favor when compared to Emory University and Washington University in St. Louis, two of the many schools to which my daughter was offered admission, was Division I athletics. The distinguishing factor when compared to several other schools to which she was admitted was Tulane's academic standing. The determining factors in Tulane's favor on an overall basis were the athletic grant-in-aid, the enthusiastic and nurturing coaches, and the future teammates who seem so happy to be at and proud to compete for Tulane. These factors won us over from, to name just a few more of the schools to which my daughter was admitted, Northwestern University, the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina, Rice University, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California, Duke, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, William & Mary, and several other schools from the Ivy League, the Big 12, the SEC, and Conference USA. I attended the Honors Weekend with my daughter earlier this year. I was most impressed, Dr. Cowen, with the personal interest you take in Tulane's students and faculty members as individuals. Please understand that at least one member of your incoming Honors Program freshman class would not be at Tulane if it were not for Division I athletics. I urge you to keep Tulane at the highest level in all endeavors, both academic and athletic. I truly believe that the two are not opposed, but rather inextricably intertwined. My daughter is but one example of this. I trust that Tulane will continue to provide many other such fine examples. ***** Please, please......I can't wait to come to Tulane for college and sports are a big part of the college life!!!!!! I may look elsewhere if Division I sports become history! ***** As a parent of a prospective student, I can assure you that we will NOT apply if you drop to Division III. Athletics are a big part of the Tulane experience!!!!!!Please try other alternatives!!!!! ***** The Tulane community has come out in force to support the athletic department. This issue has rallied Tulanians around the country. Capitalize on this momentum and throw your support behind keeping TU D1 and I think you will see positive effects in every facet of the university. Having a strong Athletic program gets the TU brand name into millions of homes whether it be televised games or ESPN or the newspaper. That exposure is priceless. Do not destroy that because if you do Tulane will lose it's place among the elite academic institutions like Stanford, Duke, and Northwestern. Those institutions, like Tulane, provide their students with a great education, but, more importantly, they give students a complete college experience. ***** To the ad hoc Committee: While a university can still be a great educational institution without any intercollegiate (much less Division I) athletics, intercollegiate (and especially Division I) athletics no doubt enhance many facets of a true university and give the students thereof unmatched opportunities to add to their collegiate experience. One of the most important (and obvious) areas of student life effected by school sports, especially Division I sports, is school spirit. Moreover, it has been clearly proven that success in Division I sports, especially football and basketball, can dramatically enhance both the non-athletic finances and academic prestige of a university. Just a few examples include Notre Dame football's long history of financing its library and topnotch research facilities, and the application explosion to Boston College during and after Doug Flutie's Heisman career on the gridiron at Chestnut Hill. Similar (and possibly greater) achievements have been made possible at Duke because of Coach K's basketball teams there. At each of these schools, the athletic programs have remained academically and morally clean as a whistle, and in so doing further enhance their schools' prestige on their own. Of course, athletic emphasis can bring down a school's academic and/or moral prestige and perception. The University of Miami's multiple NCAA infractions and non-infractionary decreasing of academic standards for athletes is a good example. That's why I specifically complimented President Cowen when he refused to cave into Coach Bowden's demands to, inter alia, lower his players' academic requirements as a condition to staying at Tulane. We have not come close to another undefeated season since, but the school has retained its academic prestige. I also told President Cowen that I did not want to turn Tulane into another southern football school, and could accept the losing seasons with the winning ones. At that time, he replied that the thought Tulane could stay competitive without cutting academic corners. Although football is likely to be an easy target for cancellation or downgrading, I hope the committee studies all the ways football has, does, and can in the future contribute to Tulane. First, it is a rich part of Tulane's history and tradition, with highlights in the late Forties and Nineties. In between, there have been other exciting bowl trips as well. Second, what would homecoming be like without it. From what I read, last year's homecoming at the closer, outdoor stadium, was one of the best in decades, and could spark another rich tradition itself. Further, attendance increases have been impressive and would likely continue now that Tulane is in a league in which it can legitmately compete with every school in it. Further increases and winning mean of course, more money. Finally, it is virtually impossible to revive a football program once it is cancelled or downgraded. Just look at Drake, Georgetown, SMU and Washington University. Next, I would like the committee to look especially at what football can do for the student-athletes themselves. Because of the size of the team and the social, economic and racial demographics of its players, football more than any other sport (or progam at Tulane) attracts and gives qualified students a chance for an outstanding education (and collegiate life experience, which taught me more than any course at Tulane), who would otherwise have no such opportunity at all, or have an opportunity for only a small fraction of the same. If football is eliminated as a scholarship sport, the lives of the would be recipients of most of those scholarships will forever be negatively effected in a tremendous way. I played just one year at Tulane. Injuries and the availability of academic scholarships allowed me to graduate without continuing on the team. Others did not and do not have such options. I respectfully request that you continue to give them the opportunity to graduate from Tulane as long as they work hard and keep their nose to the grindstone. Having said all of this, I realize that football is not only expensive, but also a Title IX nightmare. If, despite the above and other reasons for keeping it, it cannot be maintained at Division I, I would strongly suggest and request that Tulane drop it entirely, and not hold on to it at Division III. This is because it would never have a chance of making money or even breaking even at another level. If dropped entirely, rather than in part, the other sports could do better within Division I with the additional resources saved from football. Basketball always seems like the easiest sport for a school to make money on. Baseball at Tulane has recently become extremely popular, if for no other reason than our LSU rivalry. Given our location, there is no reason to think it won't remain so. Therefore, if football cannot for some reason be maintained at Division I (as great private schools like Stanford, Harvard, Duke, and Northwestern) have done, don't keep it dangling at Division II or III, but mercifully kill it and commit to building up our other sports. ***** As an alumnus who has been a consistent contributor to Tulane academics as well as a follower of athletics, I strongly urge the Board to reject any move to drop D-1 status. This would be a shortsighted decision at exactly the wrong moment in history, when TU athletics in on the rebound and when the BCS mess now strangling us may well be forced to change in the near future. The negative ramifications of such a decision will travel far with us, especially in the realm of alumni giving----even people who hate and scorn sports should realize that it is the glue that binds many alumni to the school. I'm not interested in being Emory West or Case Western South. Stop this debacle before it damages the Tulane community beyond repair. ***** I am quite concerned about the efforts now underway to either eliminate or seriously downgrade the athletics program at the University. In my view, the University has done a fine job in maintaining high academic standards in it's athletic program. The current Athletic Director alongwith the current Coaching Staff are in the process of developing a program that could eventually be the model to be looked up to among the nation's private universities. They should be given the chance to accomplish this goal. Although I am not in Dr. Cowan's shoes, and don't know all of his motives or other difficulties he is facing, I can assure the Board of Trustees that this move is not going to solve his problem, but to the contrary, will only exacerbate his situation with Alumni and the majority of the community that now support Tulane in many other ways. I, for one, would support the replacement of Dr. Cowan if there is continued movement toward destruction of the athletic program at Tulane. ***** OK, this time I will try to be of civil mind. If you opt to drop Tulane out of 1-A athletics in any sport, you will be risking our league affiliation with C*USA. Tulane must be in a decent conference for all sports if athletics is to continue, period. The years that Tulane BARELY survived as an independent (before joining C*USA) should have taught everyone a lesson that Tulane must stay in C*USA until the league achieves BCS standing in football, or Tulane is able to join a better BCS conference. If this board opts to lower Tulane's standing in college athletics in any way, it would be ripping apart too many DECADES of Tulane's great history. My affiliation with Tulane goes back to my father, a World War II veteran (a member of the storied "class of 1946") who used his GI Bill $$$ to attend and eventually graduate from Tulane in 1950. Tulane athletics was important to Dad and his classmates back in those days, and was always an important portion of the great memories that he had of the university. I, too, used the military to achieve a Navy ROTC scholarship at TU, and the winning success that Tulane football had during my four years there (three winning seasons and two bowl appearances) will remain with me always. I know that the board is wrestling with this question because of money. Please, I beg of you, find a way to balance the books and keep Tulane athletics as is. You must realize that Tulane 1-A athletics is a tremendous seller of the university and generates great positive publicity for the university as a whole. Your action on this matter involves something much greater than just funds. ***** Keep the athletics program and fire Mr. Cowan. I am a Tulane Alumni (Newcomb '84) and I am very displeased with Mr. Cowan as president of Tulane. He is not building the school he is tearing it down. It is my understanding that this is just the beginning of his rotten plan for the destruction of a wonderful university. |