What is the first thing you think of when you hear the name of a university?

Ohio State? Texas? Alabama? Football.

North Carolina? Duke? Kentucky? Basketball.

The power and popularity of sports has been a staple in the growth of many top-tier institutions across the nation.

The University of Miami benefited from its football program tremendously. During their football team’s surge to prominence in the 80s, the following sales of tickets, merchandise and bowl-payouts saw new buildings springing up all across the campus with money generated by the athletic department.

You can take a gander at the brochures and pamphlets that go out to prospective students. If that media is coming from a school known as an athletic powerhouse, you can bet they’re going to flaunt their players all over it, almost throughout most of the media.

But why?

It’s the culture. Everyone loves a winner. When someone’s winning, people want to be a part of it. And all of the hoopla of rivalries, bragging rights and school pride generates even more cash flow for the school.

It’s seriously that important. If your school doesn’t have solid academics, chances are your sports teams are getting beat down and have a reputation of being beat down. Name one school that has a reputation for consistently fielding top competitors in big sports like football and basketball and has a sub-standard academic reputation. Some power schools are notorious for poor grades from their athletes, but I can bet you anything that the general student population won’t reflect it.

The cash builds residence halls, student centers, laboratories, recreation facilities, you name it. This is a prime argument for those advocating for student-athletes to be paid along with their scholarships for the sake of their talent generating cash and their images being marketed all over the country, sometimes worldwide.

Think of that investment.

Let’s say you give a kid a football scholarship, and eventually he wins the Heisman Trophy and leads your football team to a National Championship victory. That’s more exposure for the name and logo of a school during the fall than some top companies, without shelling out nearly as much cash for advertising.

The payout for last year’s national championship game was $21.2 million.

That’s one hell of an investment.

The strength of a school walks hand-in-hand with the prominence of its athletes. Because chances are, without the talent and coaching, the rest of the school will reflect the shabbiness on the scoreboards.

Joshua Bryant can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].