It's time for U football, basketball to spread, not hoard, the wealth

Congress passed the Higher Education Act in 1965. There were amendments approved in 1972, including Title IX, offering equal opportunity for women to participate in athletics.

This was not some crazed liberal idea. It was signed into law on June 23, 1972, by President Richard Nixon.

It is amazing that 43 years later, we still have college athletic administrators, media boosters and fans of high-profile men's sports reacting to the principles of Title IX as a burden.

The University of Minnesota athletic department has been the subject of a federal investigation into gender discrimination since January. The embarrassment level for the university on gender issues reached a new level in the past week, as athletic director Norwood Teague's track record as a serial sexual harasser was revealed.

The Board of Regents took away the power from President Eric Kaler, the person who hand-picked Teague as the athletic director in 2012, and decided to hire outside investigators to look into what has been going on in Gophers athletics.

It should be hoped that this will go beyond an attempt to dig up more dirt on the now-resigned Teague and put all the problems with women's athletics and men's nonrevenue sports at his feet.

The investigation also should direct the regents to reach some type of conclusion as to whether it is really necessary for the football and men's basketball programs to be such hogs when it comes to devouring the revenue generated by TV and ticket sales for those sports.

The longtime Big Ten members received a check for $32 million from the league office for their share of 2014-15 revenue. Almost all of this is based on football and men's basketball.

Those programs should celebrate the ability to pay for athletic opportunity for hundreds of students in myriad men's and women's sports, rather than try to figure out how to spend more and more of those millions on themselves.

Even at a place as large as the Twin Cities campus, athletics should be a communal activity. As the Big Ten money rolls in, the initiative at the university should be, "We have the resources to add women's lacrosse,'' not, "We might have to make cuts elsewhere to put even more back into football and men's basketball.''

The biggest whopper told by the "all that matters is football'' crowd is that football pays for itself.

There was $289 million spent to build an on-campus football stadium that opened in 2009. Forty-eight percent of this falls on the taxpayers through the state of Minnesota. An additional $91 million came through public fundraising (including $35 million for naming rights). Tapping boosters and corporations for $56 million for a stadium to assist the football program put a dent in other fundraising campaigns by the university.

Also: Students are paying a $25 yearly fee over 25 years to help with the financing.

Football pays for itself?

We missed it when the football office cut the check for $289 million for an on-campus stadium. We're still waiting for the football office to cut the check for $30 million to pay for both a new practice facility and a "football performance center.''

Amid this, coach Jerry Kill has maneuvered another $1.8 million for the four years that were remaining on his contract. He got that contract 18 months ago and received a $900,000 raise at that time.

Who cares that the new money still would leave Kill's salary in the mid-level of Big Ten football coaches? It takes quite the ego to lobby for another $1.8 million when the university is dealing with the Title IX issue and is out beating up on corporations and boosters for more huge donations for football (in particular) and athletics in competition with other needs at the Twin Cities campus.

We were informed on the Star Tribune sports pages this week that one reason for Kill to get a new raise is that men's basketball coach Richard Pitino received a $400,000 bump — and the salary of a football coach entering his fifth season should not be in such close proximity to a men's basketball coach entering his third.

This theory doesn't address the issue that Pitino's raise came after a season in which he got the least out of his team and had four players leave the program for various reasons (including criminal). Teague's excuse was that a raise was needed to convince Pitino not to take a serious look at the Alabama job, interesting since Alabama had no intent of taking a serious look at Pitino.

At the time, I thought the fraud of a raise for Pitino was the dumbest thing Teague could do. I had no idea how far off that theory could be.

Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500. preusse@startribune.com