Is Baylor a Have-Not in the Big 12? Not Likely.

Is Baylor a Have-Not in the Big 12? Not Likely.
Dave Campbell's Insider Notepad -- 5/23/01.

May 23, 2001

Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.

That was an interesting, enlightening and provocative story written by Associated Press staff writer Doug Tucker and carried as the top story in the sports section of the Waco Tribune-Herald's May 19 (Saturday) edition.

Tucker is based in Kansas City and before the Big 12 Conference was formed he was properly recognized as a Big Eight Conference insider. Obviously, he still has great connections. For those Insider readers who might not have seen his story, he began his account with these words:

"A schism over money is getting wider and deeper in the Big 12. If unchecked, some people fear it might rip and tear at the very fabric of the 6-year-old conference.

"Can have-nots like Baylor, Missouri and Iowa State hope to compete against Nebraska and Texas when they have less than half the financial firepower?

"Would those richer schools agree to a more equitable sharing of the millions in football and basketball money the Big 12 takes in every year? Should they?"

TUCKER GOES ON to quote U. of Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds as saying, "To re-open that issue would be a mistake for the conference. The conference right now is very, very healthy and happy."

But Tucker then quotes outgoing Kansas State athletic director Max Urick as saying: "Sure, it's happy and healthy from Texas' perspective. I'd say the landscape has changed since the time we first started the conference. There's an interest in examining the distribution of revenues to make sure the health and longevity of the conference is maintained."

And Tucker quotes another outgoing athletic director, Bob Frederick at Kansas, as saying: "Certainly, feelings are high. Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Texas say (the revenue distribution) is OK."

Perhaps it is more than coincidence that the two athletic directors speaking out are on their way to the Big 12 exit gate. They might feel more at liberty to voice their views publicly than some of those who are still going to be on the job next year and in years to come.

ONE OF THOSE still on the job, Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione, is quoted as saying: "I'm not really sure (revenue sharing) is an issue they would want to tackle. I just don't see any move to totally re-evaluate our revenue-sharing formula. It's primarily balanced."

It should be noted that Castiglione speaks out as an athletic director who left Missouri (tagged by Tucker as a have-not) to become AD at Oklahoma (listed as a "have"). Different schools, different perspectives?

No one predicts an imminent showdown, Tucker writes. But he quoted one conference official (who asked not to be identified) as saying "the have-nots are having a huge difficulty trying to keep up with the Joneses."

Included with Tucker's story was a chart compiled by Collegiate Financial Services of Madison, Wis., listing Big 12 athletic budgets for 1999-00.

I have no idea whether the chart is accurate or not, but its figures list the U. of Texas budget of approximately $42.2 million as the league's largest, closely followed by Nebraska ($41.2 million). Then come Oklahoma ($27.4 million), Colorado ($27.2 million), Texas A&M ($26 million), Kansas ($22.2 million), Kansas State ($20.3 million), Texas Tech ($19.9 million), Missouri ($19.9 million), Oklahoma State ($18.8 million), Iowa State ($18.6 million) and Baylor ($18.5 million).

"Oklahoma, back in the big-time football business following last season's unbeaten, national championship run, expects revenues this year to skyrocket much closer to the Texas-Nebraska neighborhood," writes Tucker.

He also quotes UT's Dodds as saying Texas' budget has increased since the 1999-2000 figures were compiled to the $50 million range with no apologies.

"We worked hard to get there, and we didn't get there by taking money from other institutions," Tucker's story quotes Dodds as saying. "For Texas to turn around and say we're going to share everything with everyone is not something I want to do.

"Four million of our budget goes to retire bonds for facility improvements. I doubt Baylor has $4 million for retiring facilities. We're best off not to stir this up."

And Tucker winds up his story with Kansas State's Urick saying nobody "expects the big guys to share everything," and then quotes these words from Urick: "Our point is revenue that is generated by conference contracts, where we as a group negotiate for contracts, the distribution of that revenue is what is in question and needs to be reviewed."

Herewith some observations, strictly my own, concerning those issues.

FOR A SCHOOL that has been tagged a "have-not", Baylor is doing the kind of job that reflects tons of credit on athletic director Tom Stanton, his associates, his coaches and Baylor's athletes.

The figures list Baylor as last in athletic budget. But in the Dallas Morning News' measure of Big 12 athletic programs at the end of the 1999-2000 school year, Baylor finished ahead of Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Colorado, Kansas State and Texas Tech, in that order.

And in the Sears Directors' Cup competition, which measures how major athletic programs did strictly in NCAA post-season competition, Baylor finished ahead of Colorado, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Kansas State, Kansas and Texas Tech.

And coming forward to this just-now-ending school year, let us remember that Texas, with the Big 12's largest athletic budget, has (as far as I can determine) won exactly one conference championship this school year (women's tennis), unless you count swimming and diving. Baylor, reportedly with the league's smallest budget, has matched the UT total (men's golf, unless you count rugby).

Conclusion: Baylor is getting considerably more bang for its athletic bucks than a lot of other Big 12 members.

SINCE THAT IS TRUE, it behooves all Baylor grads, friends and supporters to consider just how much better the school might do if it had more bucks to bang.

(And that is just another outstanding reason why BBF members need to renew their memberships if they haven't already done so, and also to help recruit new members.)

IN HIS STORY distributed nationally by the AP, Tucker quotes Kansas' Bob Frederick as saying: "When we added soccer six years ago, we got $150,000 from Super Target and built our field. Texas added soccer at the same time and built a $3 million field."

That comparison is a little unfair. Texas didn't spend $3 million just on a soccer field, it spent that much on a new combined soccer field and track complex.

Even so, what that strongly suggests, friends and neighbors, is that money ain't necessarily the final answer. It's a big answer, yes, but not the end-all answer. Because unless my memory fails me, Texas has yet to win its first Big 12 title in women's soccer. Meanwhile, Baylor did win a Big 12 crown in soccer and did so on what amounted to a well-mowed pasture with several hundred seats and a make-shift press box.

Baylor has since built a much nicer, more expensive soccer stadium, and I just hope the Lady Bears can do in their new surroundings what their predecessors did in the old one.

NO QUESTION, A SCHOOL must have first-rate facilities to compete in a first-rate way in a first-rate conference. And yes, you have to have money to hire good coaches who can organize, teach, motivate and recruit, just as you have to have the facilities to recruit.

But where is the man who now can truthfully say that Baylor's current facilities are holding back the Bears or Lady Bears in any sport? Some schools may have larger facilities, but are they significantly nicer? And how nice do they have to be for a team to win? I would say Baylor's facilities now more than measure up.

I am reminded of what one of the U. of Pennsylvania women tennis players said upon arriving in Waco for the NCAA regional tournament and first seeing the new Baylor tennis center. "Wow," Baylor Lady Bears coach Dave Luedtke quoted her as saying, "this is like the U.S. Open. (at Flushing Meadow, N.Y.)."

Luedtke also said the coach of the Pepperdine women's team told him he would compare the entire Baylor athletic complex (baseball, softball, tennis, soccer) favorably "to the sports complex they have at Disney World."

This is a have-not school? Balderdash.

Certainly Baylor's athletic budget can stand some improvement (and that's something friends of Baylor can help on by joining the BBF and attending games). Certainly I'm all in favor of whatever steps the Big 12 policy makers might take that would improve revenue distribution and bring the Baylor athletic coffers more money.

But it rubs me raw -- always has -- to hear Baylor called a have-not school. As far as I am concerned, the Bears already are competing well or have proved they can compete well in the Big 12 in all sports but football, and I'm counting on Kevin Steele to get the Bears headed strongly in that direction this fall.

Meanwhile, where money and sports are concerned, remember this: the Minnesota Twins, with reportedly the lowest payroll in the majors, currently lead the American League's Central Division. And the Texas Rangers, with a payroll that is somewhere way up there in the stratosphere, are the sad-sacks of the AL West.

It takes money to contend consistently. It also takes brains.

NOTES, QUOTES, and otherwise. . .

There is something about Stillwater, Okla., that doesn't bring out the best in the Baylor Bears. On his first trip to Stillwater, football coach Chuck Reedy's Bears played poorly and Chuck immediately lost his job. On his first trip to Stillwater, football coach Dave Roberts' team played poorly and Roberts was gone in a twinkling. This past basketball season, Lady Bears coach Kim Mulkey had to take her team to Stillwater and play the Cowgirls in a highly emotional setting -- the school and town were in deep mourning because of a plane crash that killed several OSU players and supporters. The Lady Bears lost in overtime which became the start of a 3-game losing streak. Baylor men cagers have not won in Stillwater since the 1971-72 season. Who upset Dave Luedtke's Lady Bear netters this year, handing them only their second loss in their last 13 matches? The Oklahoma State Cowgirls, in Stillwater.

To be sure, the Bears have won on occasion in Stillwater, but their story mainly is one of disappointment in that city. So why should we have been surprised that Tim Hobby's Baylor golf team crashed and burned in the final round of the NCAA Central Regional Tournament last weekend? After all, the tournament was played at OSU's Karsten Creek course, in Stillwater.

With Hobby losing three seniors from his Big 12 championship team, he will be looking to freshman Adam Meyer to be one of his mainstays next season. And speaking of young Meyer reminds me of a telephone call I received the other day.

"Hey, Dave," the voice on the other end of the line, calling from Granbury, started the conversation. "You've been writing some about that Baylor freshman golfer, Adam Meyer. I just wanted you to know he's my grandson. I gave him his first driver, cut it off where he could use it, got him interested in golf. I'm real proud of him."

The caller was Sam Boyd, a Baylor football standout in the late Thirties and later coach of the Bruin team that upset No. 2-ranked Tennessee in the 1957 Sugar Bowl.