obie7661
01-05-2007, 05:14 AM
COLUMBUS, Ohio — "We're a large-thinking institution," Gene Smith says.
The words come not as a boast from the Ohio State University athletics director but as a quiet statement of scarlet-and-gray-wrapped fact. From the campus — the nation's largest with an enrollment of almost 52,000 — to the more than 101,000-seat football stadium and the top-ranked team that plays there, there's nothing modest about the 136-year-old school that sits hard by the Olentangy River.
Monday night brings a potential exclamation point: a shot at a second perfect football season and national championship in five years. Beat No. 2-ranked Florida in the Bowl Championship Series title game in Glendale, Ariz., and the Buckeyes will claim their eighth title overall.
They're hardly alone in doing football right, of course. But no other big-name school dotes, and spends, more on sports across the board. In an era when some universities have pared their athletics menu out of budgetary concern or to move toward gender equity (cutting men's sports to ease the male-to-female disparity), Ohio State puts a colossal 36 varsity teams on the field, court and course and in the water. That's 16 more than the average in NCAA Division I-A...
Complete article:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2007-01-04-ohiostate-finances-cover_x.htm?csp=15
The words come not as a boast from the Ohio State University athletics director but as a quiet statement of scarlet-and-gray-wrapped fact. From the campus — the nation's largest with an enrollment of almost 52,000 — to the more than 101,000-seat football stadium and the top-ranked team that plays there, there's nothing modest about the 136-year-old school that sits hard by the Olentangy River.
Monday night brings a potential exclamation point: a shot at a second perfect football season and national championship in five years. Beat No. 2-ranked Florida in the Bowl Championship Series title game in Glendale, Ariz., and the Buckeyes will claim their eighth title overall.
They're hardly alone in doing football right, of course. But no other big-name school dotes, and spends, more on sports across the board. In an era when some universities have pared their athletics menu out of budgetary concern or to move toward gender equity (cutting men's sports to ease the male-to-female disparity), Ohio State puts a colossal 36 varsity teams on the field, court and course and in the water. That's 16 more than the average in NCAA Division I-A...
Complete article:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2007-01-04-ohiostate-finances-cover_x.htm?csp=15