IS IT JUST $UPPORT? : Athletic Officials Say Buck Stops There, Not With Boosters

At the tables down at Julie’s, long identified as a hangout for USC partisans, or a similar gathering place on the Westside frequented by UCLA supporters, power lunches are in progress.

The talk is often provocative, such as, “Let’s buy out so and so’s coaching contract so we can get the croquet program back in shape.”

Or, discussions concerning the university in question may deal with the money package needed to hire a coach, who will restore a particular sport to a previous place of eminence.

Some of these people are organized. They are members of booster, or support groups for USC and UCLA. They donate money to the athletic departments. Some want a say in what is done with it.

Their donations are appreciated and school administrators listen to their opinions. But they are not policy makers, according to school officials, nor are their donations accepted for the specific purpose of, say, hiring, or firing a coach.

“I’ve never gone to the boosters for money for coaches, and I’ve been (at UCLA) for close to 40 years,” said Bob Fischer, a former Bruin athletic director and now an adviser to the athletic department.

There has been speculation that some boosters got together with the intent of buying out Walt Hazzard’s contract before the UCLA basketball coach was fired.

“That has never happened here to my knowledge,” said Peter Dalis, UCLA’s athletic director. “I can guarantee you that the boosters are not running the athletic department.”

Dalis allowed, though, that money could be specifically pledged to augment a coach’s salary, but said that donation would be used at the discretion of the athletic department.

As for money still owed on Hazzard’s contract, it becomes a budget item. It could be paid off at the regular rate, or a settlement could be reached.

“That’s negotiable,” Dalis said.

It is rare, though, that UCLA ever carries a deposed coach on the books.

Hazzard was the first UCLA coach fired, at least in a major sport, since football Coach Bert LaBrucherie was let go at the end of the 1948 season.

Billy Barnes, UCLA’s football coach from 1959 through 1964, didn’t have his contract renewed. Technically, he wasn’t fired, UCLA officials say.

Dalis said that the lion’s share of operating the athletic department comes from gate receipts, television money and private donations. Such booster clubs as Sportsmen of the South, the Coaches’ Roundtable and Bruin Bench and Hoopsters are the supporting agencies. Their donations, if itemized, are presumed to be tax deductible.

Would their support go so far as leasing a jet to fly Larry Brown to Los Angeles and back to Kansas when UCLA was negotiating with him for the basketball job?

“The leasing of the jet didn’t come from private donations,” Dalis said, “That was just the cost of doing business.”

It has also been speculated that some coaches are provided with housing, presumably from boosters, as an inducement to take a particular job.

Dalis said he has not been involved in any such deals with coaches, adding that the university has a program for the recruitment of faculty that allows for housing, for mortgage and relocations. That program is available through the chancellor’s office.

“When you’re trying to hire some of these doctors for a lot of money in Michigan, or wherever, and you want them to come to L.A., you’ve got to provide them with some sort of housing allowance,” he said. “We’d probably be eligible to talk to the chancellor about that.”

Fischer said he could only recall one instance in which a coach was helped with housing.

“That was after Brown was hired in 1979,” he said. “He had no idea where he was going to live. So a number of alums bought a house and rented it to him. After he left, the house was sold and that was the end of it. The alums made a small profit, which was donated to university.”

There was a time, though, in the ‘60s and ‘70s when UCLA didn’t solicit financial support from booster groups.

“It was against the philosophy of J.D. Morgan,” said Fischer of the late UCLA athletic director.

“He who pays the piper calls the tune, as the old saying goes. J.D. didn’t want any interference from people who might say, ‘We’re kicking in all this dough and we want to have a voice in who the next coach will be.’ ”

“It was a golden era then. We didn’t have to share with the conference as far as television money was concerned. The money we were getting from the boosters was insignificant and we didn’t need it.

“Pauley Pavilion was a gold mine. We could bring in somebody and give them a $10,000 guarantee and make a profit of $50,000 for one game. And we had 18 games.

“Then there was an inflationary period from the late ‘70s to the early ‘80s, travel costs, hotels, and we had to go out and raise a lot more money.”

Said Dalis: “Morgan didn’t need the money. We only started raising $300,000 to $400,000 about 1981. Now we’re up to $1.5 million annually. That puts us in the lower third.”

USC, a private school, got a head start on UCLA, a state school, in the area of fund raising through booster clubs.

Nick Pappas, a former associate athletic director and now a consultant to the school in fund raising, started the network of Trojan Clubs.

From one club in 1956 in the downtown area, the Trojans have spread to the suburbs, with 18 now in existence.

There is also the Cardinal and Gold, whose members pay $1,500 a year for preferred seating at the Coliseum and some other perks.

Scholarship Club members, 70 at the last count, practically pay for the cost of a grant-in-aid, each with a gift of $15,000. An athletic scholarship at USC costs the athletic department $16,800, considerably higher than a grant-in-aid at UCLA.

Then, there is the endowment project of soliciting funds for positions on the football team. That tab is $250,000 per position, and Pappas said the 22-member team is almost completed.

Part of the interest alone on $250,000 pays the scholarship fee for a position, with the rest being put back into the principal. That’s a lifetime team.

So boosters are involved at USC, but Pappas said that their function is to support the school, not to dictate policy.

“It is made plain to board members of the Trojan Club and Cardinal and Gold that you don’t hire, fire, or make policy,” Pappas said. “If you don’t like it that way, your money will be returned.”

USC Athletic Director Mike McGee said that virtually all of the club donations are specified to support athletic scholarships.

As for operating costs of the athletic department, football gate receipts and television pay for almost everything and support the non-revenue sports, including the women’s program.

Like UCLA, USC seldom fires a coach before his contract expires. When Ted Tollner was released in 1986, he was the first football coach fired since Jeff Cravath in 1950.

USC reached a settlement with Tollner, but alums didn’t contribute to his buyout, according to McGee.

“People don’t donate to that, nor has it been suggested,” McGee said. “We wouldn’t indulge in that.”

McGee said there is a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I rule that a university must pay a coach’s salary, adding that money can’t be paid directly by a booster club to a coach.

As for housing, McGee said: “There are arrangements in the profession where universities will have certain benefits for coaches. Institutions have certain long programs for faculty and staff. But they are not created uniquely for (athletic) programs.”

For example, McGee leases a house that is owned by the university, as John Robinson did when he was the school’s football coach.

McGee has an advisory council on athletics, but he said it’s not a policy-making group.

“We share basically everything with them. They’re a response and advocacy group, if they’re so inclined,” he said. “Even though they don’t make policy, we try to keep them apprised before policy is implemented.”

Obviously, booster groups are vital to the financial structure of an athletic department to some degree, but, at UCLA and USC at least, they seemingly don’t have as much clout in decision-making as some would have you believe.

“You hear about it and read about it, but you don’t see it happen,” Fischer concluded.