Between The Horns: Occupy Vikings

It’s election season again at Portland State. You might not think the outcome of student body elections has an impact on athletics, but you’d be wrong. This year’s elections could be a turning point in the future of student sports. Your contribution to Viking athletics and what kind of say you have in its future hangs in the balance.

Earlier this year, something unusual happened. The Associated students of Portland State University student fee committee, an elected student group that decides where to put your student fee dollars, cut their multi-million dollar commitment to athletics. They then withheld that budget until the athletics department developed a system to track student attendance at games.

Current SFC Chair Mart Stewart-Smith described it as a first step in a process to determine how valuable athletics are to the university and to hold athletics accountable for their creeping year-on-year budget request increases.

That process can’t continue without the support of future administrations, though, and this year’s election will be a referendum on that choice.

I don’t have any doubts, personally, that athletics is valuable to Portland State.

Sports are one of the few common factors in the diverse student experience here. As we’ve discussed previously in this column, the Vikings have the capability to bring in large crowds and have done so before.

Viking athletics offers local athletes the chance to compete who might not otherwise have had that opportunity, and the results have sometimes been spectacular. Offensive lineman Dustin Waldron, from Pleasant Hill, Ore., who spent his entire college career here, was just signed to the Miami Dolphins. He joins Reggie Jones from Seattle and Jordan Senn from Beaverton in the lists of Northwest players the Vikings have sent to the NFL.

It isn’t just football, either. Portland native Ime Udoka used Viking football as a springboard to get to the NBA, and this year record-breaker Karene King went from Portland State to running internationally for the British Virgin Islands. These athletes raise the profile of our university and city every time they set foot on a field.

The SFC is right, though, that athletics should be held to a higher standard. The $3.5 million students put into athletics every year shouldn’t be a blank check. With tuition rates skyrocketing and the future of student grants and loans in jeopardy, that money is more precious than it ever has been. Tools for tracking student attendance will be important in understanding how to avoid the pitfalls that cratered student attendance in the last couple years.

Many ASPSU and SFC candidates have made statements about their commitment to athletics. It’s important to scrutinize these statements before you vote.

The most important thing you can do, though, is to engage ASPSU after the election, when the newly minted representatives are finding their policy footing. In particular, you need to express your desires as students to the SFC, because you can be sure they will be hearing early and often from the athletics administration.