U of Oh!

The big news here locally is Nike founder Phil Knight's $100 million donation to the University of Oregon athletic department.

Some background: Knight is a U of O alumnus and one of our biggest benefactors. His donations, and Nike's involvement with the U of O athletic department, have been quite unpopular with the U of O faculty, who point out that, hey, the academic side of campus needs support too. In the middle of all this is the fairly recent hiring of businessman Pat Kilkenny (himself a former U of O Duck benefactor) as the Duck Athletic Director. Also in the middle of all this is the need for a new, expensive basketball arena.

The new multi-million donation from Knight will probably be a good kick-start to the new arena project, and I'm sure it will upset the professors something fierce.

My take? Knight is free to donate all he wants to the Athletic Department, but he should have covered his ass and given an equal donation to the University for academic use. Forgetting the rights or wrongs of giving a lot of money to the sports teams, the fact remains that the University could use a lot of money for a lot of things - new buildings, maintenance of old buildings, scholarships, salary for faculty - the list goes on and on. Knight has quite a lot of money to throw around, so why not make good with the entire University community and give some to the other side of the river?

I'm also a little sad that old Mac Court will probably be torn down. I thought perhaps they could find SOME use for it, and at least keep the exterior intact. I suppose businessmen have no use for sentimentality. I understand, but I'll miss the place all the same. I did have an idea for what how they could use the land - a new baseball stadium for the re-born baseball program! I don't know if there would be enough room, but perhaps a re-do of the entire area to fit both baseball and softball fields would be a solution.

Ok, enough writing. Go Ducks, and let the bitching over the money begin!