the collegiate ideal and the tools of external relations: the uses of high-profile intercollegiate...

High-profile athletic programs contribute to the collegiate ideal andare used by many institutions to provide connections to their internaland external constituents.

The Collegiate Ideal and the Tools ofExternal Relations: The Uses of High-Profile Intercollegiate Athletics

J. Douglas Toma

Colleges and universities devote substantial resources to the concurrent tasksof constructing a positive institutional identity and raising their external pro-file. Capturing the attention of important outside audiences—major donorsand annual fund contributors; legislative appropriation committees and tax-paying citizens; prospective students and tuition-paying parents—is often dif-ficult. Nevertheless, it is necessary if the university is to portray itself as worthyof support from these off-campus constituents.

One aspect of the university that often does garner significant notice is theon-campus spectator sports program, particularly the marquee football andmen’s basketball programs at large institutions. These are the teams that gen-erate and receive so much of the attention and revenue associated with inter-collegiate athletics. Spectator sports are commonly portrayed as the front doorto the university; they are what many people on the outside see and what even-tually gets them inside. Especially at larger institutions, these sports are enter-tainment spectaculars that build and fill enormous stadia and arenas, enticetelevision networks to broadcast games to eager national audiences, and attracthundreds of national and local journalists to campus on game day.

The magnitude of these events not only contributes an aura of impor-tance to the campus, but they are the aspect of the university that is most vis-ible to those outside of the academic community. The marquee sports haveevolved into the key point of reference to the university for many importantaudiences, an outcome that the university has fostered through its use of col-lege sports in campus life and external relations. High-profile sports assume

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, no. 105, Spring 1999 © Jossey-Bass Publishers 81

82 RECONCEPTUALIZING THE COLLEGIATE IDEAL

an often substantial role in the personal identity of individuals—particularlystudents—within the university community. They are also an essential part ofthe personal identity of a large group of external constituents who associatewith the institution primarily—if not exclusively—through teams and games.The often intense institutional identification that results from engagementwith spectator sports provides the university with a critical tool in garneringsupport. At schools with high-profile teams, administrators involved in exter-nal relations—admissions, advancement, alumni relations, community affairs,development, governmental relations—orchestrate through college sports theinvolvement in campus life of key constituents that is so important in advanc-ing various institutional ends.

My baseline contention is that college sports are significant in defining theessence of the American college and university. Higher education in the UnitedStates has never been just about the classroom or laboratory, but has embodieda romanticized collegiate ideal where academic endeavors coexist with the pur-suit of campus community through customs and rituals, events and activities,and residence life and recreational facilities. Particularly at institutions with asubstantial number of full-time, traditional-aged students—like most flagshipstate universities and large private institutions—institutional life is often asmuch about student activities and residence life as it is about the productionand dissemination of knowledge. On larger campuses, football and basketballgames serve as a surrogate for the more intimate community-building activitiestraditionally found on smaller residential campuses that are the basis of the col-legiate ideal. Moreover, college sports have particular meaning as carriers of cus-tom and tradition across generations and other social divides.

At the turn of the last century, although some American colleges becameuniversities—grafting the European foci on research and graduate educationonto the idea of the residential campus imported from Oxford and Cam-bridge—they did not adopt the European concept of a university being merelya faculty within an academic building. At the same time, financial support forAmerican higher education remained primarily a local matter. As a result,Americans continue to relate to higher education institutions on a very personallevel. Our conceptualization of the university is both as a community itself andas part of a broader community. Not only do colleges and universities assumea place of great significance in the professional lives of students, faculty, andadministrators, but institutions are important in their personal lives as well.Meanwhile, there is an often intense civic engagement with institutional life.Local external constituents provide institutions with needed financial support,and institutions provide a touchstone for the surrounding community.

What results from our definition of the university as both a communityitself and as part of the broader community is a pronounced affinity for insti-tutions by both internal and external constituents. In Nebraska, for instance,citizens support the state university in Lincoln through their tax dollars, andtheir civic pride in that institution becomes part of who they are as Nebraskans(particularly on Saturday afternoons in the fall). As members of broadly defined

83THE USES OF HIGH-PROFILE INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

university communities, both those on and off campus assume a personal andintense investment in something perceived to be significant. In short, institu-tions become part of our individual and collective identities.

Spectator sports provide a bridge between external constituents and thecollegiate ideal. Many external constituents essentially experience the univer-sity through its football and basketball teams. Intercollegiate athletics not onlyentertains many of the external constituents who are so important in main-taining the university, but also involves them in institutional life in a way thatis meaningful to them. If we are to understand our largest and most prominentuniversities, we must ask how on-campus spectator sports—particularly thehigh-profile sports of football and men’s basketball—coincide with the identi-ties that institutions construct for themselves and the identities that individu-als derive from their institutional affiliations.

I limit my argument here to the high-profile intercollegiate athletic pro-grams at large universities that are the exception rather than the rule across thewhole of American higher education. Most participation in intercollegiatesports occurs with little fanfare. Except for the so-called revenue-producingmarquee sports, varsity teams at larger schools typically receive little attention,even though they account for the bulk of participation at the varsity level. Atthe smaller colleges that represent most of the participation in intercollegiatesports overall, the situation parallels the typical non-revenue sport at a largerschool. None of this is to say that college sports are not meaningful to campuscommunities at smaller schools or that non-revenue sports are not importantat larger universities, particularly for the student-athletes who compete inthem. The difference is in scope. At State U., football and basketball are aregional and national phenomenon, not merely a campus or local one. Smallcollege and non-revenue college sports are rarely the window to understand-ing the campus that the marquee sports are at the flagship state or large pri-vate universities on which I focus.

The work of Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail (1994) on organizationalidentification provides a conceptual framework for understanding this phe-nomenon. In their model, the strength of the positive connections that peopleform with organizations are a factor of (1) the attractiveness of what they per-ceived to be distinctive, central, and enduring about the organization; and (2)the degree to which they believe others view the organization favorably. Per-ceived organizational identity and construed external image are positivelyinfluenced by the level of contact that one has with the organization and thevisibility of one’s organizational affiliation (Mael and Tetrick, 1993; Sutton andHarrison, 1993; Dutton and Dukerich, 1991).

In a study of eleven campuses that are representative of the different typesof universities that make a substantial institutional investment in intercolle-giate athletics, I found that a high-profile college sports program is perceivedby external constituents to be something distinctive, central, and enduringabout the institution, as well as something that is viewed favorably by others.Both outcomes enhance institutional identification, causing people both to be


drawn to campus and to come to know something about the institution, oftensomething positive. These factors represent the collegiate ideal serving thegoals of institutional advancement by increasing the level of contact that exter-nal constituents have with the institution and motivating them to want toenhance the visibility of their organizational affiliation.

Drawing People to Campus

It is essential for institutions to draw external constituents to campus—bothliterally and figuratively—if they are going to assemble the resources necessaryto survive and prosper. The difficulty is capturing the attention of the rightaudiences for the right purposes. One particularly effective tool for reachingthese audiences is through the collegiate ideal in the form of high-profile inter-collegiate athletics. Football and basketball teams garner the attention for aninstitution that raises its overall profile in the eyes of many relevant con-stituents. Intercollegiate athletics afford external audiences the opportunity tobecome directly involved with the institution and provide them with a con-crete reason to support it—even to feel passionate about it. Given the abilityof high-profile spectator sports to engage people in institutional life—supply-ing them with something that they can champion and with which they canidentify—intercollegiate athletics assumes an important position within theoverall identity of the institution as the embodiment of the collegiate ideal. On-campus spectator sports serve to connect key external constituencies with“their” university, both physically and emotionally.

The intersections between external relations, the collegiate ideal, andintercollegiate athletics become clearer using three institutional functionsinvolving external relations as illustrations: governmental relations, develop-ment, and alumni relations. Administrators who work in these areas recognizehow important football and basketball games—the essence of the collegiateideal at many large universities—are in drawing people to campus.

At public universities, intercollegiate athletics offer a useful tool in stateand governmental relations. Each year, the football game between MichiganState and Michigan offers an opportunity for the administrations at bothschools to invite legislators and bureaucrats from the state capital in Lansingto campus (the game is played in alternate years at each school). Once the leg-islators are on-campus, the universities focus on the messages that they haveindividually, and in conjunction with each other, identified as central. Theseare the ideas that they hope will soon translate into buildings and programswith the requisite state support. At Louisiana State, located only a few milesfrom Huey Long’s state capital tower in Baton Rouge, staff from state agenciesresponsible for appropriations to the university are regularly invited to see foot-ball games from one of several enclosed boxes located adjacent to the pressbox. The games are another work day for university officers, who use the occa-sion to build relationships with the bureaucrats and drive home the appropri-ate messages about university initiatives and needs. State legislators also make


use of the access provided by the university through Tiger football game tick-ets, dispensing them to supporters and constituents.

Similarly, campus sporting events augment university fundraising. Likeother administrators, development officers are working on game days, build-ing relationships with the potential donors that they are able to attract to cam-pus with the promise of viewing the game from a box while enjoying cateredfood. Placed strategically in the box are major officers of the university poisedto discuss key fundraising and resource needs when the right opportunity pre-sents itself. At the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, certain prospectivedonors are invited aboard airplanes chartered to take teams to away games.Development officers also use away games as an opportunity to mobilizepotential donors in those areas, inviting them to games and events surround-ing them. The recent Northwestern participation in the Rose Bowl coincidedwith a blitz of development activity in Southern California.

Alumni associations, where fundraising typically involves more peoplegiving less money, also typically adopt a high profile at football and basketballgames. In fact, at some schools, it is difficult to find a well-attended alumnievent that is not somehow connected with athletics. The hospitality tentspitched in parking lots outside of football stadiums provide the contact withalumni that is critical to enhancing alumni participation in the life of the uni-versity.

It is essential for institutions to draw external constituents to campus—both literally and figuratively—if they are going to assemble the resources nec-essary to survive and prosper. Drawing these people to campus makes it morelikely that they will be drawn into campus, making an eventual successful “ask”(whether for state appropriations, major gifts, or annual fund contribution)more likely. Attracting important external constituents to the events sur-rounding games in the high-profile spectator sports that are the essence of thecollegiate ideal is a key tool—perhaps the key tool at large institutions—avail-able to university administrators seeking to build relationships with thesegroups. Even less direct engagement in campus life can yield similarly positiveresults for the university. Simply following teams and games from afar drawsexternal constituents into university life in a way that enhances institutionalidentification and facilitates support.

Positive Perceptions of the Institution

Spectator sports events not only attract the attention and participation of keyexternal constituents in institutional life; they also help to allow them to cometo consider the university in positive terms. The interests of university facultyand administrators often coincide with enhancing the reputation and profile ofthe institution. As in business, a positive identity of which people are aware isthe pipeline through which resources flow. The basic assumption is that neitherlegislative appropriation committees, nor tuition-paying parents, nor annualand major donors, will want to contribute to an enterprise that is perceived to


lack significance. Accordingly, the paramount goal for any university adminis-tration is to use the tools available to improve the perception of the institution.

The key external constituencies to whom colleges and universities attemptto spread coherent and positive messages outlining institutional missions andinitiatives are sometimes skeptical. Universities operate under norms that areoften peculiar to people outside of academe and are not especially accessibleto lay audiences. Moreover, specific programs—research in the humanities, forinstance—that are at the essence of the university can be controversial and aresometimes difficult to explain to external constituencies.

Intercollegiate athletics offers the institutional advancement communitythe opportunity to use goodwill generated from something that is institution-wide to sell specific programs and initiatives to the key external constituentswho must back them financially. On-campus spectator sports are apparent andaccessible—and typically popular. Football and basketball teams and gamesallow advancement officers to portray an often otherwise impersonal—andsometimes even unpopular—university with a human face. Spectator sportsconnect external constituents to “their” institution and provide them with afeeling of (often) intense pride about it.

Of the many illustrations of the role of high-profile spectator sports inenhancing institutional identity, one of the most interesting is the role ofsports in admissions—certainly for undergraduates and perhaps even forgraduate and professional students—in bringing institutions to the attentionof prospective students. The appeal to prospective students is the collegiateideal. They are not drawn to an institution by the prospect of participating asstudent-athletes—a recruiting device used commonly and successfully atmany smaller institutions—but by the opportunity of membership within alarger community of loyal fans. In other words, through an appeal to the col-legiate ideal. Institutions use spectator sports in defining the institution rela-tive to others for prospective students.

College sports is part of what makes a large state university unique andattractive to those enrolling. Mass sporting events also make the large, seem-ingly impersonal university seem more accessible to potential students. One-third of the photographs in the poster-size viewbook produced for prospectivestudents by the University of Michigan in the past three years involve peoplewatching intercollegiate athletics in some way. Admissions officers at LouisianaState University and Northwestern University reported that applications forundergraduate admissions increased by roughly one-quarter in the year fol-lowing dramatic positive turnabouts in football. At Northwestern, prospectivestudents from across the country were bombarded with stories in both thesports and regular media that portrayed the school in the most positive way.Northwestern became the model of blending academic rigor, athletic success,and good citizenship, and that has translated into more interest in the school.

Most prospective students are likely to know something positive about theuniversity outside of intercollegiate athletics. However, high-profile spectatorsports may be the only point of reference to the large university for many


residents of local communities, taxpayers in a state, and people in the nation-at-large. For example, what do most people across the nation know about theUniversity of Michigan? Perhaps only that the school has enjoyed some suc-cess in football and basketball. Most have little idea about the high ranking ofmost academic departments on the campus. The kids that we see at the airportin Kansas City or the shopping mall in San Diego wearing the maize and bluehats and jackets—claiming Michigan as part of their own identity—likelyknow little about the flagship state university beyond the famous winged hel-mets and the first bars of “The Victors.” What they do know about is the col-legiate sports aspect of Michigan, and their hats and jackets do much to raisethe national profile of the institution. What is perhaps more interesting is thateven in the state of Michigan, citizens may know little more. Similarly, howmany people across the country (at least those outside of academe) would haveeven heard of Duke or Clemson or Tulane were it not for college sports? Howmany would ever hear anything about the states of Alabama or Nebraska orUtah were it not for the success of the football and basketball teams at theirstate universities? In contrast, how many people outside academe, even inChicago, know anything about the University of Chicago, an institution thatno longer participates in high-profile intercollegiate sports?

Even for those with simply a passing interest in sports, teams participat-ing in intercollegiate football and basketball at the highest levels becomehousehold names. It would be difficult for any Nebraskan—or even mostAmericans—not to know something about the recent national champion Corn-husker football team. The team simply receives too much attention in toomany places to go unnoticed. Even the person in Omaha who is indifferent tosports probably knows something about the Nebraska team, given the profileof the team in the state. If the non-sports fan does not hear about the Corn-huskers through the sports page or a sportscast, he or she will probably hearabout them by reading the front page, by viewing the regular newscast, in anynumber of social settings, or even at the office. With that kind of pervasivenotice, how could the team not become a significant aspect of the identity ofthe university? The point is underscored by the fact that the academic sides ofso many of our large state and private universities look alike to many people,while different college football and basketball teams have unique identities.The academic programs at the University of Nebraska, Clemson University,and the University of Connecticut are very similar; however, the Cornhuskers,Tigers, and Huskies are distinctive.

Whether or not one supports the idea of high-profile intercollegiate ath-letics, it is difficult to deny that college sports matter greatly in the public lifeof the university. Football and basketball are a significant component of theoverall identity of schools that invest heavily in these activities. Perhaps thoseconstituents outside of the traditional university community are less signifi-cant in the life of the institution than are those on-campus who contribute tothe life of the university more directly. Still, these are the taxpayers to whompublic universities must appeal, however indirectly, for support. They are the


prospective students or their parents. They are even the potential donors, bothmajor and minor. Consequently, universities quickly recognize the value ofimparting their messages externally and come to value the tools that allow forthese messages to be heard. The bottom line is that managing institutionalidentity—however difficult that may be—becomes increasingly important ina climate of ever-increasing competition for static resources, and athletics offersa rare tool to enhance profile.

Concluding Thoughts

It is difficult to deny that sports—not just college sports, but all sports—areimportant in society. Because so many people are paying attention, intercolle-giate athletics has become an especially important institutional function whenschools make a heavy investment in sports. Athletics is a part of the university,however, that has seemingly very little to do with its fundamental purposes.How does football or basketball, when played at the highest level, contributeto research, teaching, and service—the reasons that society supports universi-ties? How does anything associated with the collegiate side of institutional lifeconnect with the academic side of the university that must be its core. Thispotentially dangerous disconnect alone offers reason to study the connectionsbetween athletics, collegiate life, and identity at our large universities.

Spectator sports—like all things collegiate on campus—are an image-building tool that must be used cautiously. If all that people know about a uni-versity is its teams, then the institution is relying upon something that is bydefinition inconsistent with its purposes for existence. Therefore, in order toreceive the consistent support for which it hopes, it is critical that a universitymake the appropriate connections between athletics and academics. It is notonly the right thing to do, but it is a necessary thing to do. Athletics may getan institution in the door—like the door-to-door salesperson—but unless thereis something else to sell, the university will go away a failure. No universitywants to be known as the type of “football factory” that sacrifices academicintegrity for success on the playing field. Those at schools that have had seri-ous problems in their football or basketball programs report that scandals inthe athletic department do not necessarily undo strides made in bolstering aca-demic reputation. However, they do suggest that these difficulties represent aserious distraction from the business of building the other aspects of the uni-versity. These troubles can also damage the community building that is theother basic intra-institutional use for high-profile intercollegiate athletics.

Given the importance college sports assumes in both community-buildingand raising the university profile, the potential exists for the messenger itself tobecome part of the overall message, and perhaps even to overpower it. It canbe a tricky proposition to rely upon intercollegiate athletics to tell the story ofan institution devoted to activities in classrooms and in laboratories that are farremoved from the playing field. For many in society—including those on whosesupport public higher education relies—State U. may primarily embody a team.


These same people are likely to have some sense that State U. is a “good school,”but that message rarely comes across as often and clearly as the “good place”identity fostered through spectator sports. Institutions run the same risks inusing college sports in building campus community. The messenger and themessage may be sufficiently intertwined that the messenger becomes the mes-sage, and that is when the scandals so often associated with an imbalancebetween athletics and academics arise.

The importance we often attach to intercollegiate athletics underscores thelimited control that colleges and universities have over the way people receivethe messages that they attempt to relate. That means that shaping or reshapingidentity is a difficult proposition, even under the best circumstances. Theadministration at the University of Nebraska may want to talk about the excit-ing applied research being done in the agricultural engineering department thatmakes it relevant, or about its achievements in minority student recruiting thatmake it progressive. But many more people are much more interested in Corn-husker football than in these other programs and activities. Similarly, these samemessages are often equally difficult to project to groups on campus, as thosewho attempt organizational change will attest. The best for which most institu-tions can hope is that people somehow receive their message—even if it is dur-ing the “this is State U.” commercial included during half-time of televisedgames—and they integrate enough of it to equate the institution with some-thing of value.

Another explanation for the disconnect between athletics and academe maylie in the traditional rationales offered for intercollegiate athletics versus the realityof college sports on our campuses. Long-standing justifications for high-profile col-lege sports include making much-needed money for the university and buildingcharacter among student-athletes. These stated rationales ring hollow, particularlytoday. Only a small handful of the schools that support high-profile athletics pro-grams are making more than they contribute in state money or student fees. Sim-ilarly, the character-building argument may apply to non-revenue or small collegeintercollegiate sports, but it has little to do with high-profile football and basket-ball programs at our largest universities. The scandals that seem to dog many ofthese programs represent but one example of the consequences of the disconnectbetween athletics and academe. Clearly, the moral victories associated with effort,self-improvement, and sportsmanship that may mark some small college and non-revenue sports have little meaning within the high-stakes worlds of high-profileintercollegiate football and basketball.

Intercollegiate athletics serves an important purpose within the univer-sity, both in fostering the on-campus community associated with collegiate life,and in providing a vehicle for advancing institutional goals with important off-campus constituents. College sports are a significant, but overlooked, aspectof the American university. If we are to understand the places that invest inhigh-profile athletics programs—our largest and most important universities—we must appreciate the ways in which intercollegiate athletics coincide withthe identities that campuses define for themselves. The utility of athletics in


advancing institutional ambitions is undeniable, but there are potential dan-gers involved when universities define their identities around a construct thatis often so far removed from the academic activities rightly at the center of ourhigher education institutions.

References

Dutton, J. E., and Dukerich, J. M. “Keeping an Eye on the Mirror: Image and Identity inOrganizational Adaptation.” Academy of Management Journal, 1991, 34, 517–554.

Dutton, J. E., Dukerich, J. M., and Harquail, C. V. “Organizational Images and MemberIdentification.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 1994, 39, 239–263.

Mael, F. A., and Tetrick, L. E. “Identifying Organizational Identification.” Educational andPsychological Measurement, 1993, 52 (4), 813–824.

Sutton, C. D., and Harrison, A.W. “Validity Assessment of Compliance, Identification, andInternalization as Dimensions of Organizational Commitment.” Educational and Psycho-logical Measurement, 1993, 53 (1), 217–224.

J. DOUGLAS TOMA is assistant professor of higher education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and visiting assistant professor and senior research fellow at the GraduateSchool of Education and Institute for Research on Higher Education at the University ofPennsylvania.

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