Calhoun vs.Krayeske

Now, some thoughts after several emails asked me about the Calhoun incident. Here is the exchange.






The shot Ken Krayeske took at the beat writers was unprofessional. Calhoun's response was also unprofessional and he ignited the situation.

Still,with Krayeske, it's obvious he doesn't think sports is important. He can have that view, but he should have had more facts to arm himself with next time he confronts a coach about a salary. He came across just as an activist, not a journalist. And, having been in press conferences that have gotten hijacked, that was not the setting for it and was passive aggressive (if you want to incite the coach, do it one-on-one).

On a news level, it failed most tests. The story wasn't Calhoun's salary in spite of budget deficit. It was "Activist freelancer/blogger enrages coach." Krayeske became the story and generated publicity. There was no news. The news was Calhoun yelling, not the subject matter.

That's bad journalism. He injected himself in the story, and never really got his question answered. Instead of a perfectly appropriate story about UConn athletics having budget cuts or not, we get a "Coach lambastes reporter."

It's fine to make ripples with your reporting, that is what good journalists do. But, do it with facts and support, not with theatrics and setting. Krayeske wasn't being a journalist, he was being an agitator. Big difference.

I don't think the issue he brings up is pointless however. It's worth discussing, but we have to do is take off our sports glasses (take off the t-shirt) and take off our populist Utopian sentiments that we should be paying the "teachers, firefighters, cops and professors more because what they do is really valuable." Please, let's operate in the real world for once.

Once we removed the sports homers, and the anti-sports contingent we can get an honest look at the situation.

This is about value.

What does Calhoun, Auriemma and Edsall bring to the university?

Krayeske assumes that Calhoun's salary somehow is undeserved and that he should take a pay cut, or even not get it, because there is a budget deficit. He has a problem with this because he thinks that taxpayer money can be better used somewhere else.

What Krayeske is ignoring is that the elite sports programs have raised the profile of UConn to heights it could have never reached. That has allowed the university to thrive as an academic university. UConn has gone from a regional school to a national school based largely on the success of the hoops programs almost 20 years ago. Sure, academics have come a long way but it was the euphoria generated by "Huskymania" that fostered an advantageous environment for this to develop.

Let's ignore the fact the hoops programs bring in a net profit(important point, he pays his own salary,who else does that?) and we will look at additional value that elite sports programs give.

I was a student at UConn in 1995 and I was smack in the middle of the UConn 2000 project that was soon folded into a UConn millennium. This was an unprecedented investment in infrastructure for the university by Connecticut and it was expensive. The results have been better students and a higher profile.

How does that happen? If the taxpayers in-state didn't feel apart of the university why on earth would they agree to build this infrastructure? Why did the state feel the need to invest in its university? I would say that athletics played a major part in this. They have an emotional attachment to the university and it has become a source of pride.

What the sports programs have done is make people not associated with the university care about it in-state and bolster the name of the school out of state. Athletics can be used as a marketing tool to sell the university.

Calhoun, in this sense, is perhaps the most indispensable coach to a university in the entire country. Perhaps Coach K is equally as important at Duke. Calhoun has met more, quite frankly, to UConn than anyother coach in the country.

The quality of student at UConn has risen dramatically the last 10 years. Out of state students coming to UConn has also dramatically risen. Folks, they aren't initially interested because of the physics building.

It's marketing, its promotion, it's about raising the value and profile of the university. It also allows alumni to stay connected with the school and that raises donations to the school. This increases the endowment etc.

Calhoun's job is one of the great sports building jobs in NCAA history in any sport. He is as important a coach as any other coach in the United States to his school. You can make a case that the value Calhoun has given to the university means he is under compensated.

There is a reason most non-ivy league schools aspire to have great athletic programs. They learned long ago the importance of competing at an intercollegiate level. It raises the academic and prestige of the school.

What happened on Saturday is someone who is stuck in a narrow mind set who doesn't understand the impact that Calhoun has had on the University of Connecticut or the relationship of intercollegiate sports to the university community. There are many people who think sports is overemphasized at the collegiate level and they may be right. But, to attack Calhoun because of it is a bad choice.

He is case No. 1 at how athletics can improve a university's reputation and academics. Look no further folks. If I wanted to write a book on athletics raising academics and reputations of a university you probably start in Storrs.

As far as the yelling, Calhoun should have been better. He made the story because he yelled at Krayeske and that became the story. It was a sordid affair on both sides.