Short, gray-haired and in a rancher’s button-down shirt loosened at the neck, as always, university system Chancellor Jim Rogers came to the Board of Regents’ June 22 audit subcommittee meeting with a well-earned reputation. Namely, as that of a man unafraid of conflict, who demands results, even at the cost of friendships and his own popularity.
UNLV Athletic Director Mike Hamrick, a congenial man with the tall and robust stature of a redwood and a full set of finely cropped hair, came to the same meeting. The fiscal analysis report on his department was to be presented before the Board. He has been steady at work the past four years trying to lift the athletic department out of the turmoil in which it has been moiling since the early ’90s.
The meeting came, and it went, and at the end Rogers and Hamrick came together, in dispute. People watched.
By all accounts, it was a brief and unphysical confrontation. Heated words, contested accusations, all stemming from one central issue: Fundraising.
That is, harvesting private donations for UNLV’s athletic teams. In fact, only a critical issue could’ve brought the two distinct men together. And that’s exactly what it was. For, in the competitive world of collegiate athletics, money engenders winning, which in turn engenders money—a time-tested and indisputable cycle outside of which no major sports team, whether it be basketball, football or baseball, can thrive.
And now that the UNLV men’s basketball team accomplished the miraculous last March, having without much money succeeded to the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 and brought about national glory and local camaraderie, the opportunity to enter the prosperous cycle is there.
Better capitalize on it, said Rogers, lest it slip away.
Which would be a tragedy in the eyes of regent Steve Sisolak, who chairs the audit committee and who is a Runnin’ Rebels faithful. And that’s because he believes that successful college teams can have an impact on their city as beneficial as public works such as roads and social programs.
He’s right. As evinced, of course, by the superb basketball teams who played for coach Jerry Tarkanian in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s. They stirred an authentic esprit de corps in town, and they associated victorious basketball in the minds of outsiders with the entire city of Las Vegas itself. That’s the kind of impact a UNLV team can have when successful.
That is, when they have money.
“This is more than a golden opportunity,” says Sisolak: “It’s a platinum opportunity.”
Sisolak says “there’s a tremendous amount of philanthropic individuals out there—it’s just a matter of courting them.”
So the argument of Rogers was that he hasn’t seen Hamrick out in the community, putting in the legwork necessary to harvest the most out of this generous season.
Hamrick, however, has a solid case on which he can stand without diffidence. And it’s supported by numbers:
In the fiscal year 2004-2005, UNLV’s athletic department raised $4.5 million, and in the following year, $7 million. Both tops among Mountain West Conference schools, despite the football team winning a combined four games and the basketball team failing to make the NCAA tournament during those two years. Moreover, private donations have, in total, increased by 29 percent since Hamrick took over in the summer of 2003.
Numbers don’t lie. And therefore when Hamrick says that “we’re in the middle of a fundraising campaign right now; the increase of donations since the Sweet 16 run has been significant,” there is no reason to distrust him. Nor when he says he’s “had breakfasts and lunches with more than 100 donors.” In fact, he’s the man ultimately responsible for turning a $2 million deficit in the athletic department when he took over into a $1.5 million surplus today.
The exact numbers for this fundraising season, however, will not be known until next June.
Yet neither the fiscal analysis presented on this past June 22 nor the athletic department’s plan for moving forward included a quantifiable means to evaluate private dollars raised, says Sisolak. And that’s where Rogers had a problem. For reasons of accountability. If enough money isn’t raised, and, in turn, teams don’t sustain their success, who is to be held responsible?
Hamrick isn’t a man who subscribes to such a school of numbers. He says his perpetual goal is to raise as much money as he possibly can.
Both Hamrick and Rogers held their ground. Then they were separated.
And so when the two men came together this past June it was brief but heated. Because fundraising is an issue worth clashing over, worth being passionate about. UNLV sports, and the city at large, are counting on it.