Regents OK community college sports, but won’t pay for them

Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 11:29 a.m.

The Board of Regents on Thursday approved by a vote of 6-3 intercollegiate athletics at the Community College of Southern Nevada, but chose not to fund the program.

The decision was made in spite of a legislative ban on intercollegiate athletics at community colleges when the system first was created about 30 years ago.

"The time has come," Regent Madison Graves said. "This is 1998."

Chancellor Richard Jarvis expressed the strongest objections to the proposal, which permits the addition of two sports -- one for men, one for women -- every other year.

"If this college were in a stable market and had stable growth, I would support it, but I can't," Jarvis said. "The administrative overhead and the attention it will take (from education) is too much. It will detract from the purpose of the college."

Jarvis noted that CCSN has been growing at the rate of 10 percent per year for the past several years and will continue growing at that pace for several years to come, thus straining the higher education budget.

"This college at this time is meeting the greatest urban access challenge of any in the country today," Jarvis said.

Regents supporting Jarvis' opposition were Howard Rosenberg, Dorothy Gallagher and Nancy Price.

Rosenberg said it was a matter of economics. "We just don't have the money," he said.

Price said the decision was too important to make without further discussion and made a motion asking to delay the vote until a future meeting.

She said a survey of students showing they favored an athletic program was biased because it failed to ask if they favored it over a program that might be more important, such as child care.

Gallaghar said she had not had time to read the study but is concerned with the funding issue.

She said if the board agreed to give CCSN $200,000 to start a sports program, legislators probably would deduct that amount from the next higher education budget.

"I've had several calls from legislators who said 'in your dreams,'" Gallaghar said. "I think legislators don't get mad, but they do get even."

Regent Shelley Berkley, who seconded the motion authorizing the start-up of an athletic program, said she has received calls from legislators who approve of the idea.

"The mission of the community college is to serve the community where it is located," Berkley said. "And this is something the community wishes to have."

Regent Mark Alden made the motion to allow CCSN to begin an athletic program, but added that funding should not come from the state.

The vote was made during the first day of a two-day Board of Regents meeting held at the Desert Research Institute. The meeting adjourned early so that regents could attend a ceremony on the UNLV campus in which Gov. Bob Miller announced the official beginning of a prepaid college tuition program.

Before the meeting broke up Graves said he thought the state should provide funds and indicated he may make that motion at today's meeting.

"I believe it is worth supporting and the state should step up the the plate," Graves said.

The plan is the result of a feasibility study done by a committee chaired by Las Vegas attorney John O'Reilly, which was appointed earlier this year by CCSN President Richard Moore at the request of the regents.

O'Reilly said approving sports at CCSN would make the college a "full-fledged member of the community."

Moore, who said he was honored that the regents supported him in his quest to begin intercollegiate sports, added he would not have a problem with the funding issue.

"No taxpayer dollars will be used," he said.