Living in Iowa: U of I basketball coach is sent away with $2.4 million – why even replace him?
March 18, 2010 · Dan Brawner

Remember when you were a kid, how much fun it was to play during recess? Usually, nobody kept score or even much cared who won or lost. On Tuesday, the front page of the newspaper showed three photos of University of Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter with his head in his hands. After three losing seasons, declining attendance and plummeting revenue, the fans are unhappy, the university is unhappy and now Lickliter has been fired. If it's supposed to be a game, how come nobody is having fun?

Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Adults have taken a perfectly good game and tried to turn it into a business. It's common knowledge that college football and basketball are big money makers. But is that really true? According to a 2004-2005 study conducted by the Indianapolis Star of 164 public university athletic programs, only 9 percent of Division I schools had programs that paid for themselves. The rest were forced to make up the difference with student fees and general school funds. The Star noted that without these subsidies, their athletic program would have cost the average school $5.7 million a year.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) requires schools to submit a meticulous accounting of ticket sales, expenses and other financial data. But it doesn't release this information to the public or to other schools. And different schools crunch their numbers differently - some include debt servicing in their calculations or capital expenditures like the cost of a new stadium. There is no way to make an accurate comparison. The Star quotes Indiana University professor Murray Sperber from his 2000 book "Beer and Circus" that college athletics is the "most dysfunctional business in America."

Although the Indianapolis Star ranks the University of Iowa sports program in the top 10 among the most profitable in the country, revenues have been falling in recent years. It must have been hard for the U of I to justify paying Lickliter $1.2 million a year to keep chalking up the biggest losses in the school's history. With six years left on Lickliter's contract, the university probably thought it was worth it to fire him and pay him the $2.4 million in severance. And Iowa still has to replace him with a coach who is willing to work for less than $2 million a year and who can actually win basketball games.

During this year of budget cutbacks at the U of I, some teachers' contracts are not being renewed, and remaining instructors have to absorb their workload. Entire programs have been eliminated, like the German department, and Cinema and Comparative Literature.

What if Iowa didn't hire a new basketball coach? It might take some of the pressure off to win games. They could just play for the fun of it. One of the dads could coach each game - they way they do in T-ball. And they could take turns. The players, the fans and the university could relax and enjoy the game.

I am sorry Lickliter had to lose his job. He'll have to learn to economize now. "Lickliter," isn't that a German name? Maybe he could get a job at the U of I as a German teacher. And every once in a while, he could fill in as a coach when one of the dads is busy.