Lately I've been noticing a number of similarities between K-State and the Kansas City Royals, particularly when it comes to the subject of money.
Of course, I'm not an expert.
I don't happen to be a sports guy. I have friends who are sports guys. They can spend hours talking about the 1968 World Series or can rattle off the name of every player on the Chicago Bears from 1950 on. They can give a minute-by-minute account of the championship fight Muhammad Ali lost to Joe Frazier in 1971. I had to look on the Internet simply to find that fight.
These are the guys who watch "SportsCenter" all day until ESPN puts something different on. I can't tell whether they watch to memorize the entire program or to find an episode that is different from the one before it. Serious sports guys - the guys who watch those weird Scottish games where a guy throws a tree down a field - watch billiards. They watch bocce and talk strategy.
Bocce. You throw a ball down a field.
If watching SportsCenter for hours on end makes a person an expert, then my level of expertise is somewhere between Lee Corso and a turnip. I don't care how many hours of coaching experience Corso has, or the fact that he's on "SportsCenter" - his brain has been out-to-lunch since the K-State vs. Nebraska game last year.
Benedict Arnold.
Perhaps watching "SportsCenter" doesn't make you an expert, either.
It doesn't take an expert to see the similarities between K-State and the Royals, though.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently came out with its almanac issue for the 1999-2000 school year. It's the issue where it publishes statistics on the distribution of money, students and faculty on a nationwide basis.
Kansas looked pretty good - except when it came to money. K-State didn't compete too well with a variety of other schools, including the University of Kansas, which, despite suffering from the same faculty salary problems we suffer from, somehow has amassed an endowment of more than $724 million. By comparison, our endowment is listed as more than $148 million - a respectable number, but the interest off an extra $500 million would solve the library funding issue pretty easily.
Of course, even Harvard, arguably the best funded institution of higher education in the country with a cool $13 billion hanging around in endowments, will complain about not having enough money. Every college or university could use more money.
If, say, Harvard wanted to buy France, it might find it to be a bit of a financial stretch.
Our job is to continue to assess whether or not we are providing the best education for our students and for the state of Kansas. We are not among the top institutions in research and development, and we are listed well beneath a number of schools for the amount of money we get from the federal government - more like an also-ran.
Our most telling deficit is in the area of faculty salaries, which should come as no surprise to, well, anyone.
The College of Architecture, Planning and Design should prove that facilities and equipment are less important to competitiveness than quality faculty members. Seaton Hall has been in dire need of refurbishment since the 1970's while Architecture, Planning and Design has become one of the best architectural schools in the country.
What we need is a good shot in the arm for our more deadbeat departments and colleges, but that's tough to provide to a school that traditionally has been a faculty farm. We take young post-docs, mentor them into great researchers and teachers, and then send them away to the school that will pay them the most. The average pay for a full-time professor here is about $64,000. The average pay for a full-time professor in Iowa, for example, is about $78,000. Whether you think professors are overpaid already is irrelevant - who is going to turn down a $14,000 raise?
Sound familiar? The Royals can't pay their players, either.
One also might point out that in Iowa, there are a total of 20 public institutions competing for $2.1 billion in state expenditures. In Kansas, there are 34 public institutions competing for $1.5 billion.
Hmm ... write your representative.
Baseball is in trouble now because Colorado Rockies owner Jerry McMorris thinks it would be a good idea to do away with the Royals, Minnesota Twins, Montreal Expos and Oakland A's. There's a feeling among the powers that be that it would be a good idea to downsize the major leagues, despite having named several new expansion teams over the past few years, including the Rockies.
The Royals have been targeted for downsizing because they suffer from a limited market and already low coffers. K-State suffers from too little state funding in a state where there are already too many schools.
Perhaps the regents will try to downsize us as well - but I can't make that prediction. I'm not a sports guy.
I'm a student.