When athletic director Norwood Teague announced his $190 million plan to upgrade Gophers athletic facilities earlier this summer few people ever thought about Minnesota’s future as a member of the Big Ten Conference.
Perhaps they should have.
There might come a time when the Big Ten decides schools that aren’t investing in their athletic programs are also not worthy of membership in the historic conference. “I think that’s a possibility,” Mark Sheffert told Sports Headliners.
Sheffert is a University of Minnesota alum, Gophers fan and supporter, former president of First Bank System and now CEO of Minneapolis-based Manchester Companies, a company providing strategic and financial planning to businesses. He’s also a personable guy with a modest manner who has the respect of local leaders in the business community and at the University of Minnesota.
The Gophers have fallen far behind in athletic facilities compared with schools in the Big Ten and elsewhere. The needs list includes the often publicized absence of a basketball practice facility for men’s and women’s teams but goes way deeper. A football complex, academic center, training table, women’s gymnastics facility, wrestling training facility, Olympic sport indoor practice facility and outdoor Olympic sport track were all in the details Teague announced last month.
“There was a report a couple of years ago that showed Minnesota was second to last (in the Big Ten) in re-investing (in facilities),” Sheffert said. “Purdue was last. We were also second to last in donations to the athletic department.”
That’s the kind of stuff that one day might lead to head scratching in the Big Ten office in Chicago about Minnesota’s future. The Gophers not only are behind in facilities but the football program has mostly been in free fall for decades. Every conference school has been to the Rose Bowl more recently than the Gophers who last visited Pasadena in 1962. Minnesota hasn’t won a Big Ten football championship since 1967.
In basketball, the record the last four decades is better but doesn’t exactly glitter. During the past 15 years the Gophers have mostly been second division finishers in the Big Ten. Before that period there was the embarrassing and expensive academic scandal of the coach Clem Haskins era that wiped out a Big Ten championship and NCAA Final Four appearance. Even further back in Gophers basketball history there were other sanctions by the NCAA.
The high profile sports of football and men’s basketball are what drive the big revenues in college sports today. The profits made are sometimes stunning. Texas, for example, had about a $71 million football profit for school year 2010-11, according to a December 28, 2011 article by Businessofcollegesports.com. The Gophers’ football profit of approximately $13.5 million ranked No. 30 in the nation (down from No. 25 the year before). The profit in basketball of about $9.5 million ranked No. 47 in the country among football and basketball programs. The potential to grow profits at Minnesota is considerable in both sports.
Minnesota’s annual share of the Big Ten TV income pot is over $21 million and without it the Gophers athletic department would operate in the red, likely unable to sustain a 23 sport program that includes 12 women’s teams and 11 men’s teams. “If we don’t make investments in our sports, I think the Big Ten Conference will look for teams that are investing and will be competitive,” Sheffert said. “You don’t watch two teams (on TV) not investing in their programs and who are battling for last place in the standings. If you’re an advertiser, you don’t buy time with two teams last in the conference.”
Athletic departments have to “think like a business” and “take stock” of weaknesses, Sheffert said. In a visit he made to Lincoln, Nebraska to study the Cornhuskers athletic facilities he saw what the better programs are doing.
The Gophers have one practice field for football. At Nebraska Sheffert saw three fields, creating opportunities for the offense, defense and special teams to each have their own space.
The Gibson-Nagurski football complex where the Gophers practice is about 30 years old and Sheffert said it has a leaky roof. The building is sometimes shared with the softball and golf teams because of the minimal indoor facilities for Gophers teams.
Passionate college football fans know that schools like Ohio State, Michigan and Nebraska have far superior facilities to Minnesota’s. The comparisons are striking, even when it comes to meal time. “The (Gophers) football team eats dinner in the hallway (at Gibson-Nagurski),” Sheffert said.
At Nebraska there is a large dining room. Sheffert said football players and other athletes see food offerings that are color coded at the training table, helping to guide selections depending on whether athletes are preparing for game days or practice days. “You don’t even have to think what you should eat,” he said.
At Minnesota a donor stepped forward to buy more computers to help athletes with academics and close a small gap between what the Gophers have in technology compared with other schools. Those same athletes sometimes receive tutoring in open settings while at other schools there are private rooms. Places like Michigan and Nebraska have elaborate programs to track and tutor athletes, creating more likelihood athletes will perform better academically.
Sheffert said at those schools the athletic departments have their own orthopedic doctors and pharmacies on-site. Such resources can influence parents and recruits who at a place like Nebraska will even be impressed by the setting for the coach’s office. Bo Pelini’s office doubles as a suite and looks out over Memorial Stadium.
Ask Gophers coach Jerry Kill if he can lose recruits because of facilities and he will say yes. He has a new stadium that opened in 2009 but there’s so much more to the facilities picture than where a school plays seven or eight home games each year.
All of this doesn’t even address basketball where the Gophers and Northwestern are the only Big Ten schools without designated practice facilities other than their gameday arenas. At Nebraska, Sheffert was impressed with the Cornhuskers’ facilities including the technology. The Huskers not only have multiple practice courts but players can sit at their lockers and swipe a card to study game action of themselves on computers. In the showers they can swipe cards to hear favorite music.
Sheffert said at Nebraska, unlike Minnesota, there are separate weight rooms for football, basketball and wrestling. And this fall the basketball team will be competing in a new $180 million arena.
It’s not just Nebraska, Michigan and a few others that are investing in their programs. Google searches quickly show $55 million projects either completed or in motion for other Big Ten schools. Oregon has opened a $68 million football complex that is so lavish it commanded a photo spread in Sports Illustrated this summer.
The August 5 issue of the Businessofcollegesports.com reported that Utah has opened a $32 million football facility. Duke is working “in earnest” on a $100 million facilities plan, according to the website. The Air Force Academy is considering a $50 million-plus renovation of its football stadium.
“We continue to fall behind…teams that are competitive,” Sheffert said. “We have to start with the idea that football, basketball and hockey are the entertainment business. They are (played by) student athletes and we owe it to them to provide the best facilities (for academics and athletics) that we can. We are at a competitive disadvantage when recruiting the best players in the country.”
The disadvantage goes beyond facilities. Kill has been at the bottom of the Big Ten’s salaries for head football coaches since he came to Minnesota in 2010. Presuming Kill continues to improve the Gophers football product, Minnesota will become increasingly at risk for losing a popular coach who is admired around the country not only for his football IQ but also his moral values and concern for the community.
So far Kill has been able to hold on to his assistant coaches although it’s a group that is far from the best paid in the Big Ten. Gophers offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover and defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys don’t rank among the top 10 paid coordinators in the league, according to a May 4 Espn.com story by Adam Wittenberg. In a league where only 18 assistants make less than $200,000 per year, 15 of them work for Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue and Indiana, according to Wittenberg.
Sheffert assesses the financial landscape at Minnesota and voices optimism. “I view it as a great opportunity,” he said. He is part of a group that has dialogued with Teague and University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler.
Sheffert knows more than a little about money and he said there are different ways to finance facilities improvements. Those options can include fundraising but also borrowing money in a responsible way while taking advantage of favorable construction rates as the economy continues to recover. “We may have to take a risk but we take a risk by not doing anything,” Sheffert said.
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