One of the cornerstones of winning championships at the collegiate level is recruiting. In some sports, that means traveling across the country to entice potential Buckeyes. In other sports, it can mean scouring the world for talent.
Ohio State requires its athletic department to pay out-of-state tuition for out-of-state athletes, which is unusual in college athletics.
Although the practice is expensive, it gives OSU a recruiting advantage over schools that do not cover out-of-state tuition.
“When a coach can go anywhere and offer a full scholarship and say, ‘We’ll cover your full tuition,’ that’s significant because a lot of schools don’t do that,” said OSU athletic director Gene Smith.
In addition to setting OSU apart, covering out-of-state tuition could contribute to success in Division I athletics, he said.
“Paying out-of-state tuition is a way for teams to remain nationally competitive. It’s hard to imagine a team that would maintain itself as a national power with kids from just one state,” said Scott Rosner, associate director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative and a lecturer at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. “So as enormously important as it is to keep Ohio kids going to OSU, you still aren’t going to win a national championship without an influx of out-of-state athletes.”
Ben Jay, senior associate athletic director for Finance and Operations, said that in the 2009-10 school year, out of the 1,076 student-athletes in OSU’s 36 varsity sports, 567, or about 52 percent, were from out of state. That number includes 104 international athletes.
Smith said several of OSU’s sports rely on international talent.
“We’re going to recruit around the world, just like our institution does,” Smith said. “We want to be the best (athletics) program in the country and be an example for the world.”
For the department, paying for the scholarships is a tall task.
In the 2009-10 school year, the OSU Athletic Department spent about $14.5 million on athletic scholarships. That number is about half of the $29 million the department raised for 2008-09.
Of OSU’s 36 varsity sports, only football and men’s basketball are profitable. Smith said football brings in about 46 percent of the department’s revenue, while men’s basketball brings in around 21 percent.
When pressed on whether he would consider cutting some of the sports that are losing money, Smith made his feelings clear.
“One of the worst things in sports is standing in front of kids, many of them have eligibility remaining, and discontinuing their sport when you’ve recruited them to come here,” Smith said. “We have a lot of things we would cut before we would get to cutting kids’ opportunities. I would almost cut our staff down by a third before we get to that. I don’t think we’re ever going to get there.”
In an interview with The Lantern in April, OSU President E. Gordon Gee said he would consider cutting non-revenue sports only if the athletic department was experiencing a budget shortfall.
“As we take a look at the economics of it, if we start running a deficit, then we’ll start thinking about” cutting sports, Gee said.
Some states reduced or eliminated the need for tuition reimbursement because they footed the bill or partially covered the cost of the course. However, the economy is forcing states to slash their budgets, and tuition waivers have been on the chopping block.
The North Carolina General Assembly recently cut tuition waivers for out-of-state student-athletes, according to a press release. For colleges such as the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, that means athletic programs will be tasked with covering out-of-state tuition fees for athletes who receive a full athletic scholarship. However, that does not mean athletic directors are taking winning any less seriously.
“It is clear that the out-of-state waivers have had a favorable impact on the Seahawks,” said Kelly Mehrtens, former UNCW Director of Athletics, last June in a press release. “Moving forward, our goal is to continue improving our opportunities to win by recruiting the best student-athletes locally, nationally and abroad.”
Whether it’s operating in the black or the red, the OSU Athletic Department is championship-oriented.
“I’m a believer, as is President Gee, in if we’re going to sponsor the sport in Division I, we want to be successful at it,” Smith said. “We want to graduate at high rates and we want to win. Otherwise, put it in intramural recreation, or make it a club sport. At the end of the day, here, in our department, we’re about winning championships.”
