University Hires 72-Year-Old Man with No Experience for $50 Million

The University of North Carolina has much of which it can be proud. If you go to its website, you will see that it boasts over 230 years of public service, having been the first public university in the United States to award degrees starting in the 18th century. Under its “Academics” tab, it boats, “UNC-Chapel Hill is a global leader known for its innovative teaching and ground-breaking research.”

Here is the university’s mission statement:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, serves North Carolina, the United States, and the world through teaching, research, and public service. We embrace an unwavering commitment to excellence as one of the world’s great research universities.

Our mission is to serve as a center for research, scholarship, and creativity and to teach a diverse community of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to become the next generation of leaders. Through the efforts of our exceptional faculty and staff, and with generous support from North Carolina’s citizens, we invest our knowledge and resources to enhance access to learning and to foster the success and prosperity of each rising generation. We also extend knowledge-based services and other resources of the University to the citizens of North Carolina and their institutions to enhance the quality of life for all people in the State.

With lux, libertas — light and liberty — as its founding principles, the University has charted a bold course of leading change to improve society and to help solve the world’s greatest problems.

Did you notice what is not mentioned in the mission statement? Sports. Sports is no part of the university’s mission, except, at a level not worth mentioning expressly, as an adjunct to teaching and learning. And yet, as the College Football Staff of The Athletic (of The New York Times) reports, the University has committed to a five-year, $50 million contract with Bill Bellichick (left), one of the most successful NFL Football coaches in history. Mr. Bellichick has never coached a college game.

Why is the University expending so much money on something that is no part of its mission? According to Bubba Cunningham, the University’s athletic director, the aim is to get the football team from eight or nine wins a year to ten or eleven. Is it worth spending $50 million on that goal, or would the money be better spent to enable underserved communities access to the University’s vast educational resources? The University could respond with a paraphrase of one of Jesus more problematic aphorisms: “For ye have the poor always with you; but Bill Bellichick ye have not always.” Oh, come now. If it weren’t him, you’d be spending $50 million on some other football coach.

Stewart Mandel, writing for The Athletic, provides reasons to think the strategy might not work. His reasons have to do with Mr. Bellichick’s temperament, his inexperience in recruiting, and speculation that high school students might not be impressed by a guy who coached Super-Bowl-winning teams when they were in middle school and are more focused on how much they will be paid.

But my real question is how Mr. Bellichick will contribute to the University’s mission — you know, all that Lux, Libertas stuff. Here’s his approach to college coaching: “If I was in a college program, the college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that had the ability to play in the NFL. . . . It would be a professional program — training, nutrition, scheme, coaching and techniques that would transfer to the NFL. It would be an NFL program at a college level. . . . ” There is then some mention of “life skills” that will serve the athletes “regardless of whether they’re in the NFL or somewhere in the business.” The business?

Universities face serious challenges. There is talk of an enrollment cliff as a small generation comes of age, young men opting out of college, tuition rises, and the terms of educational loans becoming more onerous. Small colleges may collapse under the pressure, and public universities are shutting down departments due to financial constraints. And yet, there is no lack of resources when it comes to sports programs, which do not, I repeat, do not generate income for their universities as a general rule.  Even in the so-called “power conferences,” most university athletics programs lose money. 

Given the general tone of suspicion of elites and mistrust of institutions, this is an especially hard time to promote support for public education. But we need support for public education. We need for universities to tout their research and professional-training programs with the energy and enthusiasm that they devote to college athletics. Get rid of of the university administrators who think they are running a business and replace them with people who understand the educational mission and can communicate to the legislatures and alumni who control the purse strings. Our future — not only the future of the universities — but our economic and civil well-being, depends on it.