As Eastern students recover from the biggest sporting event of the year, the university ponders what is the best way to fund its athletic programs.

There is no doubt the program will get its funding, but it is simply a matter of where the revenue will come from. Will the university continue to fund the department of athletics through state appropriated dollars, or will it dedicate those funds to academics and ask the study body to pick up the tab for its athletic programs?

If the university does ask the students to pay for sports, the students should get something back in return they want, because judging by attendance, the students don’t particularly care for the games.

Eastern has 22 sports programs to fund.

Twenty-two sports is a pretty impressive number especially considering the following statistics:

University of Illinois-Champaign Urbana (21 sports); Northwestern University (20); North Central University (19); Milikin University (18); Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and Northern Illinois (16); Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and Illinois State University (15); University of Illinois-Chicago (14); DePaul University and Western Illinois University (13); Bradley University and Chicago State (12) and Loyola University (11).

Eastern has more sports than any other school in the state, which probably puts the university pretty high in the nation. How is this so, considering Eastern doesn’t have as large of a budget as U of I, NIU, SIUC or some of the private schools in Illinois?

The answer is simple. The athletics programs are just a reflection of the university’s academic program. Eastern is a liberal arts school, which is a nice way of saying we don’t do anything exceptionally well, but we are exceptional at doing a lot of things.

This doesn’t make Eastern a bad school or mean it doesn’t have some terrific programs, but Eastern doesn’t have anything in particular the public associates with it. U of I has engineering and agriculture. Northern has business and computer information and technology services. Southern has its law program.

Athletics are a great way for a university to earn recognition and bring funding to the institution. Eastern’s athletic programs have randomly brought the school into the national spotlight, like in 2001 when the men’s basketball team went to the NCAA tournament, or last year when Tony Romo won the Walter Payton Award, or recently when a product of Eastern, Sean Payton, was offered the coaching job with the Oakland Raiders.

Those examples are all well and good, but Eastern has nowhere near the reputation as Gonzaga when it comes to sports. Gonzaga is a private university in Spokane, Wash., with fewer than 4,000 undergraduates, and its men’s basketball team has not only appeared in the last three NCAA tournaments, but it has won tournament games.

Why can’t Eastern do this?

Let’s follow Gonzaga’s example. One reason its basketball team is so successful is it doesn’t have one of the biggest drains on a small school’s athletic budget: football.

This doesn’t mean Eastern should cut football, but think about this, 30 percent of the school’s athletic scholarships go to football.

Cut back on those scholarships and invest in other areas, such as facilities.

Lantz Arena holds back Eastern in several ways. Its low capacity keeps Eastern from moving into a more nationally recognizable conference. It prevents Eastern from booking big concerts that U of I, Southern and Illinois State routinely bring to their campuses.

Eastern can keep doing what it’s doing and continue to blend into the landscape, or it can try to build a couple sports into something that will make the university stand out and be known for.