Chris Rossi

KHS 6661
Final Project
Part 1: Book Review
In the cleverly titled Var$ity Green, author Mark Yost highlights both
the culture and corruption involved in collegiate athletics and makes note of
one underlying factor in both: money. With a quick skim of the books pages,
the one thing that is most evident is the large usage of monetary values,
mostly in the range of hundred of thousands, millions, and even billions,
representing anything from athletic budgets, ludicrous TV broadcasting
contracts, and shoe and apparel partnerships. Collegiate athletics are treated
more like an entertainment industry than anything else and with the rising
number of corruption scandals, the author even goes as far as referencing
the NCAA as The Cartel. Alongside the topic of the importance of money,
Yost focuses on the term student-athlete, with a lack of emphasis on the
former rather than the latter.
To begin, Yost introduces the analogy of Kansas States hiring of Bob
Huggins as an analogy for the rest of the book. By hiring Huggins, a former
Cincinnati basketball coach, to be K-States newest coach, they brought in
someone with a controversial past that doesnt fit the system or prestigious
culture that Kansas State has instilled in their university and Yost argues that
it is all because of money (Yost, 2). At Cincinnati, Yost was able to build a
marketable brand that reached all parts of the country in addition to

compiling a significantly high winning percentage, both being benefits

financially for the university. Kansas State wanted a piece of this despite
knowing that Huggins players had once had a 0% graduation rate and he
had had previous run-ins with legal problems. Kansas State clearly took a
gamble in hiring someone who didnt fit the well-established, prestigious
culture. This goes to show that universities are in it for the money in my
opinion, even if this is an anomaly in a large pool of schools. Huggins was
able to resurrect a program that had long been dormant and has benefitted
in the long run despite risking their status of academic excellence (Yost, 3).
Later on, Yost discusses what he calls the Entertainment Product,
also known as a student-athlete to most (Yost, 13). While it may seem harsh,
this is a reality in my mind. They are the raw material in a multi-billion dollar
sports industry. Universities and schools try to market their athletes as
primarily students but when it comes down to it, thats normally not the
case. Whether it be the extra studying time or tutoring, the extra time given
for homework and tests, or even the possibly altered grades to remain
eligible, these student-athletes have a distinct difference compared to
most other students. I believe the author does a great job as describing
these practices by informing the reader of Phil Hughes, the associate athletic
director for student services at Kansas State, who says his primary goal is to
protect the Entertainment Product by ensuring that they properly make
adequate progress according to NCAA guidelines.

Another argument that the author touches on is in regards to the

ridiculous costs of renovations to stadiums and athletic facilities. Going into
2009, one of the big economic concerns regarding college athletics was the
so-called facilities arms race where universities all over were attempted to
one up each other when constructing new stadiums and facilities. While
some think that this will cause issues for the overall financial health of the
university and jeopardizes academics, the author asks, does it matter?
Most of these issues seem to occur in big time universities; however, there
was an intriguing case in the small Division III university of Adrian College.
While they originally had to play football games at a nearby high school, the
school introduced plans for a $6.5 million outdoor stadium, which eventually
opened in 2006. The head of the project backed his idea with the thought
that more and more students will attend games and thats exactly what
happened. The following year, freshmen applications more than doubled and
the student body grew 20% in one year at a time compared to the average
2.5% increase of other private colleges in Michigan (Yost, 99). Yost also
argues that this increased spending does not hurt academic facilities, which
he backs with valid research. A 2005 study by two economists commissioned
by the NCAA concluded that athletic capital costs account for only a small
proportion of overall university spending and that most of the renovation
projects are reasonably within the operating budgets of the average athletic
department. The author makes clear points that suggest that athletics
spending is in fact reasonable and allows the university to be more profitable

in the long run, which I feel allows for spending in other areas without having
to increase tuition. While Yost does cite some critics of athletic spending,
such as the Oregon professor who claims that the more the athletic programs
get, the less there is to support the academic programs, he argues that it is
not necessarily true (Yost, 104). While the increase in academic contributions
is not growing as quickly as athletic ones, these numbers are on the rise and
its too hard to tell at this point if one is growing at the expense of the other.
Additionally, most people would believe that athletics bring in large profits as
a result of their suites, stadiums, and scoreboards, but for the most part,
most are simply paying for themselves rather than generating an actual
profit.
Throughout the book, the author touches on a wide variety of subjects,
often skipping around too rapidly. However, there is a clear underlying tone
touching on the concept of money and how important it is too collegiate
athletics. Whether its the ridiculous spending on stadium renovations or the
way they treat their entertainment products, money is the defining factor
of how successful a university is and it seems as though everything is
connected. New stadiums bring in more recruits and more recruits bring in
more viewers and more viewers demand more ways to watch their team play
nationally. Collegiate athletics is truly an entertainment industry and is
unable to operate without corruption. This can stem from overzealous
boosters or unlawful recruiting scandals, but regardless of their intentions,
they all have one goal in mind: more money. Yost does a great job

highlighting the problems that come with the NCAA and collegiate athletics
in general, as it does not end on a positive note. Issues ranging from
academic integrity, graduation rates, recruiting scandals, and the overall
influence of big money on college campuses are not getting any better.
Theyve been around since the beginning of collegiate athletics and are
continuing to grow worse over time.

Part 2: Concept Application

The focal point of the book that my quasi-experiment is based off is the
premise of spending for advancements and renovations to athletic facilities
and stadiums. The book discusses the idea of a facilities arms race across
the country as universities are competing to build the most extravagant
arenas, stadiums, and training facilities that they can to bring in new recruits
(Yost, 97). To me, this is an enticing topic because every day it seems you
see a report on a new renovation being planned out at a university and the
videos blow you away with how lavish and extravagant the designs and
efforts are. Just recently, Southern Miss, typically not known as an athletic
powerhouse, revealed their latest plans to get a new football locker room, a
nutrition center, and a new strength and conditioning center (Petro). The
question normally asked is how a school is able to afford these renovations
and if the spending on athletics is a detriment to spending on academics. As
a non student-athlete, I can understand that a recruit would be encouraged
to attend a school that has top of the line facilities and stadiums to play in
and for me, I dont feel that the spending on these facilities negates the
ability to spend on educational facilities as I understand that athletics are
often self-funded and are able to generate profits for other departments.
While the sample size of people surveyed is not large enough to make any
definitive conclusions, I feel that it will appear to have an agreed upon idea.
With this study I am aiming to find out how other non student-athletes and

student-athletes feel about spending on stadium renovations and the

comparison between the two demographics.
The primary way this concept was tested was via online
surveys/questionnaires. By offering an online medium to ask questions I was
able to reach the largest pool of participants. The survey was posted through
a variety of sources such as Facebook, Twitter, and email and the majority of
the responders were from Grand Valley, a Division II school, while others
were peers from Division I schools such as Michigan State and Michigan. The
hope was to receive a significant amount of responses from both studentathletes and non-student-athletes and for the student-athletes to represent a
large variety of sports. Examples of the questions were as follows: Do you
think having new/renovated facilities will increase future enrollment? Do you
feel that facilities play a large role in where a student-athlete decides to
play? Does the spending on athletic facilities hinder the ability to spend on
academic facilities? Does your school seem to spend excessively on new
athletic facilities? As a non-student-athlete, do the renovations to facilities
matter to you?
Once the results were collected, they did not appear to be too
surprising. The majority of the respondents agreed that renovations and new
athletic facilities were a positive, for both non-student-athletes and studentathletes. This seemed to be the same for student-athletes of a variety of
sports whether it be football, basketball, or swimming as most of them share
some of the facilities depending on the school. One noted difference was

between the respondents from Division II schools to Division I schools is that

some students felt that the spending at their DI school was excessive and
wasnt necessarily necessary. Being a graduate from GVSU I can say that our
athletic facilities upgrades and renovations recently have been quite
remarkable, but we have also had groundbreaking renovations on new
libraries and science centers that are equally impressive. It was almost
unanimous that people agreed that newly renovated facilities would bring in
more students, as was shown in the Adrian College case study presented in
the book (Yost, 99). While some argued that the spending on athletics
seemed to hurt the ability to spend on academics, the author of the book
suggests that this is a misconception. This is primarily because portions of
the budget for building new academic buildings and facilities result in an
uptick in tuition costs for students whereas a football or basketball team is
able to use its own revenue to build upgrades. Generally speaking, it seems
the results of the study show that the thoughts of both student-athletes and
non-student-athletes are not very different when it comes to spending on
stadiums and athletic facilities as they both feel they are important to
bringing in new students and recruits.

References
Petro, C. (December, 2014). Southern Miss Announces Plan for Renovations
to Athletic Facilities. Hub City Spokes. Retrieved from
http://www.hubcityspokes.com/sports-slideshow-sports-usm-goldeneagles/southern-miss-announces-plan-renovationsathletic#sthash.sPiAkQAC.dpbs
Yost, M. (2010). Var$ity Green: A Behind the Scenes Look at Culture and
Corruption in College Athletics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.