Judy Rose, Athletic Director, UNC Charlotte

      Charlotte Rotary’s guest speaker was Judy Rose, Director of Athletics at University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  Ms. Rose is a member and incoming president of the National Association of Athletic Directors and serves on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).  Ms. Rose reported on the structure of governance of the NCAA and provided an update of the most salient issues facing the NCAA at the moment.  These issues are: amount of money spent by universities on intercollegiate athletics, especially for salaries of coaches of men’s football and basketball; and graduation rates for athletes.  To address the first issue, Ms. Rose stated unequivocally that college athletics is big business.  UNCC’s athletic program has an annual budget of $7.5 million.  This represents one university in the Division One AAA athletic program (with no football).  The cost for a football program alone is $8 - $12 million.  A Division One A university on average will have an annual budget of $30 million for its athletic program.  Many of the larger sports universities have a significantly higher annual budget for their athletic programs.  The annual revenue for the entire Division One A program is $4 billion.  The annual expenses for the same division are $5.1.  That results in a significant deficit that is being subsidized by the university.  This deficit is increasing by $300,000 per year every year.  Of the 200 members of the Division One A universities, forty did not run a deficit last year.

      In addressing graduation rates, Ms. Rose stated that it takes approximately four to five years for a student athlete to complete his/her degree.  This is lower than the national average for all students, which is five years.  Of all university sports, men’s basketball has the lowest graduation rate of 34%.  The graduation rate of African-American basketball players is 24%.  A reform movement has been underway to address this, and two changes have been made in the NCAA policy.  First, university admission will be made easier for athletes by the elimination of an SAT/ACT cap requirement.  An athlete could have a 400 SAT score but carry a 3.5 grade point average on core courses and be admitted into the university.  Second, the athlete must make significant progress toward his/her grade point average for graduation.  This requirement has been increased from 25% in the second year to 40% and then 60% and 80% in the respective third and fourth years.  Ms. Rose speculated that coaches would be very pleased with the first change in admission requirements of athletes but not pleased with the progress toward degree requirements.

     Head Table: Ed Wadsworth, Selena Rogers, Jim Woodward, Ken Poe, Brenda Lea, David Erdman, David Anderson.

     Visiting Rotarians & Guests-Pete deWitt; Health & Happiness-Russell Ranson; Club Education-Jack Smylie; Song-Carroll Thomas; Invocation-Ken Poe.

*    *   *

Did You Hear...

è Rotary Foundation Banquet, November 16, 2002. 

è Polio Eradication Update
Club Pledge:               $54,000
Received To Date:     $10,415
Representing:     40 members

è Leland Park made Paul Harris Fellow presentations to Tyson Bennett, Henry Bostic, Ken Poe, and Sadler Barnhardt.

è Clothing will be collected for Crisis Assistance Ministries during the month of November.  Members are asked to bring donations to a club meeting or call Jim Adams for pickup.

Click here for photos of this Meeting