Athletics and accoutability
Dear Editors,
The recent Athletics and Recreation plebiscite questions requesting more money from AMS students ed clearly. However, no specific amount was established and this is troubling. We need much more transparency and ability from Queen’s Athletics.
First, the University Council on Athletics keeps its minutes secret to all but a very select few. This is an abdication of democratic responsibility. I request UCA, in this academic term, to make all minutes since 1971 available online.
While last year’s athletics review presented lots of financial data, it completely avoids any specific information on the comparable funding of our varsity teams. Again, only a very select few have access to this, yet it is the most fundamental data needed to assess independently the worth and performance of Queen’s Athletics as a unit, as well as the measure of the success of specific varsity teams compared with each other. I challenge Queen’s Athletics to make available, during the current academic term, all of the detailed, specific funding data for all Queen’s sports teams since 1971.
There have been no CIS national championships won at Queen’s since 1992. The entire era of John McFarlane as Athletics Director, from 1995 to 2006, saw a significant decline in many varsity sports, coupled with a new “apartheid” type of funding approach to interuniversity teams, which divided them into “haves” and “have-nots” or “varsity” and “club” status. Yet, overall funding to Queen’s Athletics from all sources has, according to their own figures, almost doubled in this period to over $6 million, significantly outpacing inflation. More money is available, but is directed to the surfeit of overpaid and often underqualified Athletics’ managers, and less to the actual vital people who do the coaching. These managers know how to take care of themselves and each other, within the secret society they have established.
Athletics must do better with their money and be much more transparent. The athletics review, which was criticized strongly from many angles when it was released, essentially leaves this performance question unanswered.
Frank Dixon
ArtSci ’90
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