Firing Coach Ron Zook Cost University of Illinois $2.6 Million

It's a sad state of affairs that a university that consistently generates Nobel laureates* has to waste so much time and energy on what is technically a "little amateur football club."

It's fairly tragic that a university that both played a major role in developing the infrastructure of the Internet, and developed the key element of making the Internet useful (the web browser) to a billion+ people around the world has to waste time f'ing around with it's role hosting minor league professional sports teams.

Oxford, the Sorbonne, the University of Tokyo, etc. are funded not because their de-facto professional soccer teams do well, but because they are great academic institutions, both providing extraordinary educations to students, but also support world-class research.

Maybe American universities should spend many millions of dollars building oval race tracks and become hosts for a minor league to NASCAR also?  I'm sure professional bowling would love a free feeder system, while we're at it.

(* That means "folks who win Nobel Prizes" for football fans.  You've probably never heard of them, but along with the Nobel Peace Prize, there are also prizes awarded for Chemistry, Physics, Medicine and several other fields of study.  You know, shit that keeps you alive and keeps the lights on, as opposed to fat guys in tights piling onto each other on dirt.  But why would a university worry about academics when there are balls to be kicked and thrown?)

It's doubly unfortunate that a world-class university can only do one thing at a time. Imagine if the University of Illinois had had a football team when they were educating all those Nobel laureates and developing internet infrastructure. None of that ever would have happened.

Know why the University of Illinois didn't build the HAL-9000 in 2001? Football.

It may be unfortunate, but it's also the way American culture is. Collegiate athletics will not disappear anytime soon and it is much easier for a person to watch a running back break off for a long run than understand the pathophysiology, symptomology, diagnosis, and treatment of Grave's Disease, Hashimoto's Disease, or Sjogren's disease. There are plenty of physicians, researchers, lawyers, and probably even Nobel laureates who are fans of one sport or another. Beyond that, athletes are given scholarships and UofI has been one of the better schools to give these kids an opportunity to gain a world-class education while representing the university in the athletic realm. Who knows if they would have that chance without their athletic abilities. 

In 2001, UofI had 2 Nobel laureates in addition to the football team making to the BCS Sugar Bowl. 

I'm proud to be a UofI Alum both because of its academic achievements and its recognition as one of the world's leading research institutions. Schools like Michigan, Stanford, Penn State have been able to have success on the gridiron and in the lab, I would love to see UofI to be able to do the same.

This would be a much more interesting and relevant piece if it examined the income generated by UI football and men's basketball, the cost of losing, and whether it made sense to buy Zook out. College football, and to a lesser extent men's basketball, are businesses. While the win/loss record may indicate the direction the business is taking, lost revenue from empty seats, lost marketing opportunities, and lesser bowl bids are the real measure of Zook's failures.

P.S. If my recollection is correct the UI sports programs are self-funding and actually kick money into the university. That makes the entire discussion somewhat different.

Agree with you on all points. Some fans were upset at the notion that at 6-0, Memorial Stadium was not sold out with OSU coming into the house blaming the fan base for lack of loyalty. Bandwagon or not, the formula is simple, win and you fill the seats. Zook, while a good person by all accounts, was not good at winning football games. 

Yes, this.  Big-time college athletics in BCS conferences generate millions of dollars for their universities.  The better your program, the more money your university makes. 

NCAA schools' financials:
http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_...

U of I football generated $11 million net profit, including Zook's salary expense.  Now, I don't know  exactly what arrangement UI athletics has with the university, but I know that at least one SEC school's athletics dept. gives back a set amount of money each year that totals in the millions of dollars.  That money goes into the university's general fund, and pays for everything from scholarships to staff salaries.  And that money is guaranteed off the top.

So I suspect that it's worth $2M to actually have a winning football team, especially in the football crazy Big Ten.

nice retort Bluefairiane, how about if you see something blatantly inaccurate, you say something about it. Again, great insight and comment. Maybe try saying about the subject at hand.

Even Illinois high school coaches call UofI inconsistent: 
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicag...

It may be worth doing some research before writing an ill-informed columns like this. Some people aren't stupid. 

I guess non-stupid people go to the trouble of creating profiles on a web site for the sole purpose of commenting on a single article, then spend four hours mumbling to themselves something along the lines of "I'll show them, those stupid ... I guess I'll tell them! I'll give them what for," then come back with an "and another thing!"

I love the internet.

This article is so incredibly slanted in its view that i created an account solely for the purpose of pointing out the stupidity of it and lack of research. Zook, while a good person, is a horrible coach. The team started 6-0 and was then the first FBS team ever in college football history to lose its last 6. How's that for consistency? Or how about the notion that over his 7-year career at UI, his total record was 34-50. How about the fact that college football is the biggest revenue generator for universities? Yes, yes it is worth the $2.6 million.  

BOGUS - most athletic money STAYS in the athletic programs. It doesn't pay for classrooms, better teaching, or better non-sports facilities.  Most of the money "earned" by Illinois Sports in the last few years went for things like expanding and enhancing parts of Memorial Stadium.  There are major buildings on campus in a serious state of disrepair (one closed it was so bad), but its ok to give coaches outrageous long term contracts, then buy them out.  Are decent coaches so rare that they are worth that kind of risk?  Can a decent coach NOT do his best without a three or five year contract?  Its not like his record had been really good and suddenly went bad, he was mediocre most of his time here.  Perhaps this is more a problem with the OLD Atheletic Director.  I'll be very interested to see what kind of contract deal the new coach gets from the new AD.

Athletic revenue is dispersed differently within each school, I admit I do not know how UI divides the money generated from football, but one would think that the greater the revenue, the more likely it is that other departments outside of athletics will receive funds as well. I definitely agree with you that AD Guenther had a blind loyalty to Zook setting up this situation. 

Every coach will get a longish contract because they have to convince a bunch of goofy 18 year-olds that they will be there for at least the goof's four years. It's a fact of life.

My recollection was that IMPE, the IMPE satellites, and some other facilities were funded by athletic funds. Also, the marketing benefit that winning athletics has for universities is tremendous. Every year there is a story about how whichever Cinderella team's increase in applications the following year. That is good for the university.

Finally, even if athletics only cover their own costs, provide tremendous marketing, and kick in athletic facilities for the entire campus . . . what more do you want them to do? Does the English Department do that? Engineering might, but who else? It strikes me as an unfair criticism to say that collegiate sports is not doing enough because they didn't pay to refurbish Lincoln Hall.

Yeah, Blue nailed it. You made essentially no relevant points.

Towards the bottom of the article, the author quotes AD Thomas as saying we need a more consistent football team then cites that UI had lost its last 6 games, but prior to that had won 6. Using that as a reference for consistency is extremely inaccurate, essentially a screen shot in a movie. Thus, point being that you cannot use a single season as a marker for consistency.