Editor,
The TV ads featuring Lobo Louie and his Lobo floozy accurately convey the tackiness of the partnership between the University of New Mexico Athletics Department and the Route 66 Casino Hotel. How did an institution of higher learning end up with the gaming industry as a roommate?
Sadly, these organizations have become soul mates. Intercollegiate athletics in America today has a bad case of gambling addiction. I do not refer to fans wagering on games. I refer to institutions that throw good money after bad in hopes of hitting that elusive jackpot — a championship.
Few, if any, NCAA Division I athletics programs cover their costs, especially if indirect subsidies for physical plant and utilities are factored in. Yet programs and their boosters insist on spending more and more for coaches’ compensation, sumptuous facilities and player recruitment. They say they want to “reach the next level.” Their behavior resembles that of a problem gambler who, in placing ever-higher stakes to recoup his losses, succeeds only in reaching the next level of penury.
Just as the family of a problem gambler suffers from the diversion of limited resources away from essential needs, so the academic communities of Division I universities suffer from the diversion of limited resources away from their basic educational mission. Teaching, learning and research are starved as money is lavished on games.
Viewed from this perspective, Louie and the floozy are perfect for each other. If only the Route 66 Casino Hotel offered a program to combat the kind of gambling addiction that afflicts Louie’s school and others like it across the country.
Hugh Witemeyer
UNM Professor Emeritus
