'. . . At the end of the day, we're pretty stable as a conference,' KSU president says in wide-ranging interview with The Plain Dealer.
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Kent State University president Lester LeftonIn anticipation of this week's Mid-American Conference meetings in Cleveland, Kent State University president Lester Lefton sat down recently for a Q and A with Plain Dealer reporter Elton Alexander.
Their discussion covered topics ranging from the NCAA proposal to pay small stipends to athletes, to athlete graduation rates to the future of college sports:
PD: What about the new NCAA rule on paying athletes? You have never been in favor of this.
LL: "I think there will be something passed, effective in a couple of years. Not immediately. Maybe 2013, 2014 or 2015. There is likely to be some flexibility. The real issue is that nobody can afford it. It's not like there is money just sitting around, where you can all of a sudden just lay out more. This is part of the pathway towards breaking up athletics into the haves and the have-nots. I don't know that they are doing this purposely for that reason, but that is what it will functionally wind up doing.
"Because, unless you are one of the top 60 schools, in the BCS, you just can't afford it."
PD: That seems to be a common theme around that issue.
LL: "That is a common theme amongst a lot of issues: the paying of coaches multiyear, multimillion-dollar contracts. Extravagant facilities. The paying of athletes. It's about all this conference realignment, to bring in even more money. It's all part of a pattern."
PD: Does this disturb you?
LL: Very much. I think intercollegiate athletics is on a collision course with itself, in the same way the housing bubble was on a collision course with itself. It is an unsustainable model as it is currently designed. It is likely to lead to some kind of super conference, or conferences, or maybe even Division I, part A, part B, part C. It is not going to stay the way it is, in the direction that it is going."
PD: Academic Performance Ratings is another issue. The NCAA system penalizes schools that have athletes underperform in school by taking away scholarships and enforcing other penalties.
LL: "They are doing better because there is so much money put into academic tutoring, and monitoring of individual athletes' (academic) performance. These big teams at the big schools are investing millions and millions of dollars into insuring that (athletes) actually graduate. APR is a good thing, I'm glad they have it.
"But it is harder to have a consistent APR when you have a small squad, like in basketball, than when you have a large squad, like football. When you have 87 guys, if one or two of them aren't doing well, it doesn't hit you APR very hard. But when you have 15 guys in basketball, two or three can make a very big difference in the APR. When you get some of these places, with a lot of "one and done" you wonder what's going on there. The whole system is whack. It is not sustainable."
PD: Coming closer to home, in general, six years in as president, what are your 1-2-3 priorities?
LL: "My number one priority is overall student graduation rates. We're in the business of graduating students. We are the most successful public university in Northeastern Ohio in graduation rates. But it is still not good enough."
"(No. 2) It's very important we develop a culture of philanthropy, because the state keeps taking away more and more money. There was a day when nearly 80 percent of our budget came from the state. Today, only 18 percent of our budget comes from the state. So increasingly, we have to rely upon philanthropy in the same way that private universities do.
"We raised $42 million dollars last year. A record. We just completed a $250-million capital campaign.
"(No. 3) Another big challenge, the next couple of years that has been continuing, is our physical infrastructure. Sixty of our buildings were built in the 1960s, and haven't been touched pretty much since then. They were built by the state, and the state pretty much doesn't give much money any more for buildings. Sixty building went up in a 10-year period paid for by the state. Today, we couldn't get one building paid for by the state. So we're going to embark on a major remodeling effort."
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AP file photoKSU president Lester Lefton, left, joins football coach Darrell Hazell, center, and athletic director Joel Nielsen, right at Hazell's introductory press conference in December 2010. PD: Where does athletics fit into that picture, and what are your plans to lift Kent athletics?
LL: "Academically, we want to compete with Ohio State, be No. 2 to them, the same way the Cincinnati does. Cincinnati, Kent State, maybe Ohio University -- we're all pretty good schools with national reputations. Athletically, we're in the MAC. We're a midmajor. On any given Sunday, or Thursday night, we're gonna win, or we're not gonna win.
"We've had our good years, we've had our not so good years. But we haven't come out at the bottom. We're not a bad team. The conference is a pretty evenly matched conference. Really, on any given Sunday, whether we're going to beat Miami, or Bowling Green, you never know what is going to happen."
PD: Is this to say, there is a different measure there for athletics?
LL: "Oh, definitely, within athletics. We're matched for the kind of students that come to our schools. We're matched economically. I think we're well matched. We play well in the MAC. The MAC has good values, in terms of putting students first. We're going to continue at Kent State to try to improve our facilities, improve our coaching staffs. We tend not to build new, we tend to renovate. The cost of building new facilities is just extraordinary. We just don't have the fan base or the alumni base to support it.
"We have a $43 million-dollar master plan for athletic facilities that we are fund raising for now.
PD: Is there a target date for any shovel turning?
LL: "Well, I think it is a 10-year plan, based upon our fund-raising ability. The more (AD) Joel (Nielsen) and I can raise money for athletics, the more quickly we will proceed with the plan. There are certain things we want to do right away. I think you are likely to see a new basketball practice facility as one of the first things. We're likely to develop some new women's locker rooms, some office space for basketball and football needs to be spiffed up."
PD: All of this circles back to what you just mentioned, in regards to buildings. With graduation coming up -- not to mention athletic events, concerts and such -- Kent is the only school of this size in the state without an updated arena, auditorium or multi-purpose facility capable of holding graduations, and other big events?
LL: "We could never do it."
PD: So any kind of timeline for a facility along those lines?
LL: "No. A practice facility is the first thing. To be competitive with other teams in the MAC, or even nationally, we really need that. It's something we should have been done years and years ago. We're going to get that done in the next couple of years."
PD: But a multi-purpose facility, or auditorium, for a school of this size, it's amazing not to have one.
LL: "We have an auditorium. It holds 800 to 2,000. But we would never fill it (arena/multi-purpose facility) for basketball games. That's not on the agenda. Very expensive to build. Very little use. We need to get the biggest bang for our bucks."
PD: Last time we spoke, you were pretty strong against paying coaches "the big bucks" as you said. Kent remains at the low end regarding coaching salaries. How can you remain competitive with this philosophy, considering contracts around the country continue to rise?
LL: "They do. The performance of coaches does not seem to be correlated with how much you pay them, except for very high-end coaches and very high-end teams. If we pay our basketball coach, football coach, women's men's, an extra $200,000, that does not make them a better coach. And, other coaches in the MAC, who get paid much, much more, don't have necessarily better records."
PD: You are hiring coaches with three- and four-year contracts, which again is under the norm. The trickle down of that is, opposing coaches and schools use that to recruit against you. It puts coaches at a big disadvantage.
LL: "The other side of that is Geno Ford, who had a five-year contract and walked away from that, two weeks after telling everybody, 'Oh no, this is my home, I'm here to stay.' We gave him a five-year contract and he walks. The length of the contract, I don't think, keeps somebody or doesn't keep somebody. If Notre Dame wants our basketball coach, or Ohio State wants to steal back our football coach, there is nothing I can do.
"The other piece of this is, the coaches have their own ideas about this. It's not like we say, 'We'll only give you a three-year contract.' And they say, 'Please give me five.' It's a conversation. . . . Men's basketball coach (Rob) Senderoff, a good guy, he felt very comfortable with a three-year contract.
"He had a 21-11 season, which is good, but he didn't get to the dance (NCAA Tournament). So it wasn't the best year ever. Had he got us to the dance, I'm sure he would have been in Joel's office saying I'd like an extension of my contract and a bump in my salary. And we probably would have said yes. He'll have another shot at it this year.
"We want to keep good talent. When (Jim) Christian left, there was no way we could have kept him. And he didn't do so well after he left. Geno, don't get me started on Mr. Geno."
PD: From Kent's standpoint, looking at the recent basketball success at Ohio University, in regards to the MAC's presidents initiative with basketball, considering this can reap a big financial reward, that seems to fall right in your wheelhouse. How do you see that going forward?
LL: "Basketball has always been a stronghold for Kent State. The last couple of years have not been that great. If you look at the last 30 years we have always been a good basketball school, and we will be again. Senderoff needs a couple of years to build his team, to build his coaching staff. And we really need this basketball practice facility, it's one of the ways we can commit to basketball in a serious way, and not just throw the money at Rob, who is well compensated, by the way."
PD: MAC football bowl affiliations have not been what you liked in the past. Your football team could be in one of those bowl games this year. Has your opinion changed?
LL: "It's kind of like having twins. Nobody wants to have twins. But if you have them, you might as well appreciate them.
"If we get to a bowl game, and we do well, we will appreciate it. We will make it a big success. We'll bear whatever financial costs that will be. But the league, the MAC, is trying to subsidize some of that, whoever goes to these bowl games. We shouldn't be punished for being successful.
"And I have been critical of this. I just think bowl games that are too far away just cost too much. Planes, trains, automobiles, it's too much of a burden on the kids, the students, the coaches and the fans. I'd rather that we be closer."
PD: It seems like conference realignments have had a big impact recently, but at the same time, the MAC appears to be stronger, because of it.?
LL: "We do. I mean, I could see one or two teams trying to bolt. But you can't speculate. You never know what anyone is going to do. But we're in a good, cohesive league. A good conference, that has been pretty stable for a long time, too. I think (the MAC) is tighter.
"People are like, 'Let's hang on to each other. We're brothers in this together.' Over the years we keep looking at Navy and Army. We talked about some teams in Virginia, but at the end of the day, we're pretty stable as a conference. Adding UMass, was nice. Although I don't think they're happy now that Temple is out. But I think they will stay."
PD: Anything you would like to address that we did not touch on, in terms of athletics?
LL: "My last thought is I'm concerned about the future of intercollegiate athletics. The purity of sport. The commercialization of the student-athlete. If they want to have minor leagues they should start minor leagues. I don't think we should be paying athletes. They're getting a terrific education.
"The TV networks are what is driving all of this. Billions of dollars are at stake. It's becoming about the money.
"America has grown increasingly supportive of sports. Money is driving so many of these decisions with the top 60 teams. . . . It is no longer about locations, or natural rivalries. But when your rivalry starts to be with somebody from California, it's not a natural rivalry. There is so much money at stake, the NCAA is really controlled by about a dozen universities.
PD: I'll end it there. Thank you.
Justin Masterson gets the start for the Indians today at 1:35 against the Red Sox in Boston. The game will be televised on SportsTime Ohio and broadcast on WTAM/1100-AM.
