A Gift for Athletics Triggers a Furor on Oklahoma Campus

Boone Pickens’s $165-million donation to Oklahoma State University for athletic facilities is the largest ever to a college athletics program. It will be used to build a $300-million

athletic village that will include practice fields and facilities for soccer, tennis, track, baseball, and equestrian sports, and to finish construction on the football stadium named after Mr. Pickens following a pledge in 2003 to provide $20-million.

But while Mr. Pickens’s generosity is widely praised on campus, his giving has raised concerns about the way the university handles its relationship with the Dallas oilman and investor known for his bids in the 1980s to take over numerous companies.

Some faculty members and residents worry that Mr. Pickens has had an outsized role in helping to select athletic coaches and he is putting pressure on the university to hasten a plan to build the village, which could displace several hundred property owners and renters.

“He’s pretty much calling the shots just like he did in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” says Robert Barnes, a Stillwater resident and rental-property owner whose land might be taken by the university to build the athletic village.

Mr. Pickens, a 1951 graduate of the geology school, says he made the gift to help Oklahoma State’s teams become more competitive in their athletic conference, the Big 12.

David J. Schmidly, the university’s president, says that athletics facilities were among the university’s biggest needs. From 1969 to 1999, the university spent just $11.7-million on athletic facilities, and it is now playing “catch up” with other athletics programs in the conference, he says.

Some students and faculty members wonder if Mr. Pickens has too great a role in shaping the university’s priorities. They point to his close relationships with Mike Holder, the newly appointed athletic director, and Mike Gundy, the football coach, as well as Mr. Schmidly, and question whether the gift has led the university to place too much emphasis on athletics.

“It’s just ridiculous that this person could be so generous and be so resented on campus,” says Bob Darcy, a political-science and statistics professor and head of the Faculty Council. “The administration did everything it could to make it look like Boone Pickens was running the university the way Jerry Jones was running the Dallas Cowboys.”

The university says, however, that while it listens to Mr. Pickens’s advice, it does not always go along with it, nor does Mr. Pickens have the time or desire to meddle in the university’s affairs.

“He’s not a micromanager,” says Mr. Schmidly. “He listens to you and then makes a decision and tells you what he’s going to do.” He adds: “He’s not inclined to put too many conditions on things.”

Frustration with the gift has also been fueled by the property issue. The university plans to build the athletic village on an area of land that now holds about 330 homes and rental properties. It may have to resort to eminent domain if property owners don’t agree to sell. Under eminent-domain laws, government agencies can take property from unwilling sellers on behalf of private developers, including universities, if such land is viewed as promoting the public interest.

The university has been planning to build the athletic village since it began drafting an expansion plan at the beginning of 2005, but Mr. Pickens’s donation has enabled the institution to accelerate its construction plans and buy the land.

Residents whose homes or rental properties will be torn down say the university has ignored other locations where it could build out of a desire to keep the village in one parcel near the stadium.

“They have so much property they could use for this,” says Ann Williams, who owns a house in the neighborhood the university is planning to use for the athletic village.

Residents also complain that they have not been receiving fair offers for their properties and that the company hired to buy the real estate has not been sensitive to the interests of landowners. Residents were sent a letter in early November announcing the plan and telling them when they needed to vacate their houses. Some people were told they would need to leave by June.

‘Total Picture’

In the last three months, the university has been responding to complaints from Stillwater residents. It has postponed from December to March the date it planned to take the expansion proposal to the Board of Regents for approval. The university is also holding forums for students, faculty, and residents to discuss the plan.

Gary Shutt, the university’s director of communications, says the university “could have done better” in handling the issue of buying the land, and should have held discussions with residents before announcing the master plan.

He also says that the university intends to make its payment system as fair as possible. But he says that while the university looked at other locations, the current site offered the only option if the athletic village were to stay near campus.. “We really feel like, for the vibrancy of the university and for the city of Stillwater, it is important to keep the facilities close to campus,” he says.

Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Mr. Pickens, says the location of the village is the “university’s decision. Boone is fully supportive of their plans.”

The furor over the athletic village and the gift have meanwhile stirred frustrations among a few faculty members and residents that the university is focusing too much on athletics.

“They’re talking about spending equal amounts on athletics and academics, but Boone earmarked his gift for athletics and that tail has been wagging the entire dog,” says Richard Dermer, a local business owner and Oklahoma State graduate.

The athletic village is part of a larger expansion plan to improve not only athletics but student life and scholarship. (About $700-million is expected to be spent over five years, of which $255-million will go toward athletics.) University officials and Mr. Pickens say that success in athletics will also help raise money for academics and other university programs.

“I don’t think people are looking at the total picture,” says Mr. Shutt. “Our view is that to be a top-notch facility, you have to be competitive in three areas — academics, student life, and athletics — and this master plan looks at all of those areas.”

Of those areas, athletics had the most need for private donations because it does not receive government support, as do academic programs.

Mr. Pickens, for his part, has donated more than $250-million for programs at the university in his lifetime, and both the stadium and the geology school bear his name.

He is also planning to invest the portion of his gift that the university is not going to spend immediately — about $120-million this year and $20-million in 2007 — in his investment firm, with the expectation that it will generate the entire $300-million needed to build the village.

But Mr. Darcy, head of the Faculty Council, worries that the plan is too optimistic and that the university will not be able to find the rest of the money to pay for the athletic village and will end up focusing its fund raising on athletics for years to come.

He says that the university has had problems before when it sought to raise money for athletics, such as the approximately $50-million in debt remaining on the football stadium.

While he says he is grateful for the gift to athletics, Mr. Darcy remains concerned that other areas of the university won’t have the same chance to grow.

“Ever since Oklahoma State was founded educational excellence has been a low priority, and this whole business just puts an exclamation point behind it,” he says.