CU to Raise $100 Million For Athletics

Throughout its history, Columbia University has faced questions about its lack of success in Ivy League sports. Now, the athletic department believes it has an answer.

Two weeks ago, the department unveiled its groundbreaking initiative toward providing a solution for the University’s storied athletic futility. The program, entitled The Columbia Campaign for Athletics: Achieving Excellence, is part of the University’s broader Columbia Campaign, a $4 billion initiative that was first brought forth last September and will be carried out through December 2011.

The $100 million athletics campaign is unprecedented in scale and is geared towards improving the aspects of a program crucial to generating athletic success. According to Dianne Murphy, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Physical Education, these goals can be summed up in three simple words: “People, places, programs.” In short, the campaign is directed to improving facilities, advancing the recruitment of athletes and coaches, and increasing the University’s athletic endowment.

“This is a transformational initiative,” Murphy said. “It’s a huge opportunity for us to really bring our athletics program up in line with all the excellence that is at Columbia.”

The campaign’s most significant component is the $70 million goal toward the renovation of athletic facilities. While Columbia’s location in Manhattan provides certain advantages, the city also presents the challenge of limited real estate for sports complexes. While ideas have been bounced around for years concerning building a floating stadium on a barge on the Hudson River, the department has taken the pragmatic route. The facilities improvements will include the construction of a new sports center at the Baker Field Athletics Complex, where the 14 outdoor varsity sports that compete at Baker will find their new home.

In addition to moving teams north, the facility’s overhaul will consist of relocating every aspect of the 14 sports, from administrative offices to strength and conditioning to athletic training. According to Murphy, the value of such off-campus renovation will manifest itself in on-campus benefits.

“The linchpin of our facilities piece is a new sports center,” Murphy said. “That gives us an opportunity to give our other varsity teams that compete here more space for recreation and campus fitness. This is just as important as anything we’re doing for athletics.”

The campaign has already raised around $46 million, highlighted by the $5 million donation by Robert Kraft, CC ’63, owner of the New England Patriots, which was announced two weeks ago at homecoming at the newly named Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium.

Since the beginning of her tenure at Columbia in November 2004, Murphy and her staff have worked toward addressing the needs of the athletics program. With the help of University trustees and other donors, the team founded a strategic plan to jump-start the program’s overhaul.

The department was simultaneously assessing athletic facilities, talking to both current and former student-athletes, and working closely with a consulting firm, Canon Design, to develop the Facilities Master Plan for Athletics.

During the period in which the athletics campaign was being developed, the University-wide Columbia Campaign was going through a “quiet phase” and was not announced to the public until 18 months later. In June 2006, the athletic department met with University President Lee Bollinger and University trustees to solidify the athletic campaign and begin the “quiet phase,” which consisted of raising enough money to begin the campaign and beginning renovations, such as the new artificial turf at baseball’s Andy Coakley Field and at Columbia Soccer Stadium.

Rounding out the facilities aspect of the initiative will be the construction of a new boathouse for the crew team, renovation of the existing Gould-Remmer Boathouse, and the construction of a new tennis clubhouse, as well as modernizing the Marcellus Hartley Dodge Physical Fitness Center on campus.

The next step in what Murphy describes as the three building blocks for establishing a successful athletics program is the investment in student-athletes, coaches, and administrators, which carries a $20 million goal. According to Murphy, the strategy behind this is simple: “Top student athletes want to play for the best coaches.”

Included in this investment will be the endowment of coaches, an area in which Columbia significantly trails the rest of the Ivy League. Like the endowment of professorships, these positions will represent the highest honor a coach can achieve and will free up University dollars that would normally have been spent on a coach’s salary.

The remaining $10 million will be put toward establishing and investing in individual endowments for the University’s 29 varsity teams. In addition, this money will be spent on the advancement of recruiting and training technology and improving the Office of Enrichment Services, which provides opportunities in career development and leadership training to student-athletes.

For her part, Murphy is optimistic about the campaign’s potential to enhance the athletics program.

“Not only is athletics going to benefit,” she said, “but the entire University is going to benefit. This is not a pie-in-the-sky plan; this is a systemic plan that addresses all of the issues from a holistic approach. This is a plan that can be accomplished.”