Oregon Ducks: One weekend in Eugene for 25 football prospects costs $140, 876. This is the same Oregon that spent $26,000 per locker for football room.
On January 9, 2004, four private jets landed in Eugene carrying six Oregon recruits from Chicago and California. They were a group of 25 high school studs brought in to be housed, feed, pampered and hopefully sold by the Oregon staff.
The twenty-five standouts would stay at a Hilton hotel, dine on made-to-order omelets, chat with some professors, eat steak and lobster, tour the campus and play paint ball.
The total cost of $140, 876 or $5,635 per recruit is typical of what the Ducks do with a $600,000 recruiting budget, which is four times what in-state rival Oregon State spends.
"We can afford it," Oregon athletics director Bill Moos said. And because his department is separate from the university, he doesn't apologize for spending the money it has generated.
On Friday while some met with coaches, others toured the equipment and weight rooms. Later they were all taken to the $3.2 million football locker room. Later it was off to the Oregon Electric Station for steak and lobster, accompanied by each recruits host/hostess, coaches and coaches families. The bill for the 76 total dinners was $5,475.
Saturday morning was breakfast with some professors from various departments at a cost of $3,941 for the 96 in attendance. After meetings and physicals, AD Moos gave a luncheon speech in the players lounge catered for 74 by three vendors for $1,485 or about $20 a person.
After lunch the meetings and tours resumed. Highlight films and meetings with "position" coaches. Then dinner at Autzen Stadium. Oregon jerseys with each recruit's name and number were hanging. Also were full color posters of an action shot of Oregon players, but with the recruit's name computer generated on the jersey as if he was already a Duck.
The group then toured the stadium and the suite belonging to booster and Nike CEO Phil Knight.
Sunday morning was much of the same until the jets began to leave Eugene at 2 p.m.
Did it all work? 12 of the 25 later signed letters of intent to attend Oregon, meaning each commitment cost $11,740.
Wonder how many of those 12 will earn a degree? Does anyone in Duckland care? If your nickname is Ducks and you wear the ugliest uniforms in all of college football, you would have to spend a lot to get someone to come to Eugene for four or five years.
It is such spending though that the NCAA appears ready to curb with proposals banning the use of private jets and lavish meals. If those proposals pass, Oregon's Biggest Weekend Ever might be the last. Some of the waste and arrogance will be replaced by something else. Like potties installed in those $26,000 lockers.
