Ever since the University of Washington let it be known that they were seeking $150 million from the state to help with the cost of remodeling Husky Stadium a number of hard core Cougar fans have gone overboard trying to derail the plan.
The truth of the matter is that whatever is good for the University of Washington is good for Washington State. You can also say that whatever is bad for the University of Washington is also bad for Washington State. The Cougars are about to find out the definition of bad…very bad.
A Senate Bill is being introduced which would strip WSU of all state subsidies for athletics and removes the right for the school also to collect activity fees from students to support athletics. The passing of this bill would bomb Pullman figuratively speaking back into the Stone Age as far as athletics are concerned.
You put that all together in one slick package and it means WSU will not be able to remodel Martin Stadium and they won’t be getting the $2 million per year from the state that they use to balance the athletic department budget. The WSU athletic department would run at a severe deficit without that subsidy. In fact their membership in the Pac 10 would be put in jeopardy.
What this will do is force WSU to cut sports programs and move more football games to Qwest Field in the search for money to balance the budget. Scott Woodward should take it a step further and pull out of negotiations to move the Apple Cup to Qwest Field. The move benefits WSU a lot more than it benefits Washington. Let WSU do whatever it wants with their part of the series but keep Washington’s half of the games at Husky Stadium.
The WSU administration has been officially neutral on the stadium issue but one of their trustees has been very active in getting SB6116 blocked. He even hired a plane to fly over the State Capitol extolling legislators to vote no.
I really have no pity for the WSU administration. They could have nipped it all in the bud. While they are publically neutral they looked the other way while the misguided euphoria to “Huck the Fuskies” was building. Let them figure out how to run a Pac 10 athletic department in the middle of nowhere without a subsidy. Let them try to remodel Martin Stadium without student activity fees.
An even better idea is let the three morons who started this entire pile of poop dig into their own pockets to fund Cougar athletics because they are so adamantly against public funds being used to support sports.
If I was the President of Washington State University I would be doing what should have been done six months ago and that is getting on the phone with these idiots and tell them to cool it. Their actions are jeopardizing the future of the Cougar athletic department.
The whole thing is extremely silly because as we all know it isn’t a new tax. It is the extension of an old one that works very well. Nobody feels it because for the most part out-of-towners are paying it when they visit. This tax was designed to fund and maintain sports facilities in King County. Extend it and let it do what it was designed to do and that is improve the quality of life in the Puget Sound area.
Extend it and put thousands of construction workers back to work rebuilding Husky Stadium and Key Arena. This is the best public stimulus plan in the entire state because over half of the cost will be paid by private donation. I think it will be pretty hard to every get that type of deal again. To me it is a no brainer. Unfortunately people with no brains are making the decisions on this.
The battle cry we heard from Senator Ed Murray in Olympia this week is this is war and if you are a Cougar supporter be very afraid of what you are asking for…you have put yourself in line to get a lethal dose of it yourselves.