Principles before money

Contemporary higher education is many things to many people, but one thing has not changed over the years. Most colleges and universities still say their core mission is to broadly educate students and to provide a base of knowledge that will help them make sound decisions and choices in life. UTC, in at least one notable instance, has taken that obligation to heart.

The university’s athletic program is no stranger to money woes. That is no secret. The problem has been well documented in the sports pages of The Times Free Press. It is noteworthy, then, that UTC administrators and top athletic officials are willingly giving up what quite likely would be a lucrative source of funds to stand on principle. The decision to forego beer sales throughout the stadium during University of Tennessee at Chattanooga home football games is just that.

Beer currently is sold at Finley Stadium during UTC football games, but only a limited basis. Patrons can buy a brew at the Stadium Club, but can’t take it to their seats. Corporate box owners also can bring alcoholic beverages into their boxes. UTC could change the rules to provide stadium-wide sales because the facility is not located on campus. It elected not to do so. The reasoning is sound.

UTC Chancellor Roger Brown says he wants all UTC athletic events to have a family-friendly environment. Recent history around the country suggests that the widespread availability of beer in the stands sometimes can turn a family-friendly environment into one that is far more threatening. Brown does not want to take that chance, and understandably so. Other schools have chosen differently. Tennessee State in Nashville and the University of Memphis, for example, allow beer sales. Memphis officials, in fact, admit that selling beer is one way to make up revenue shortfalls.

Athletic Director Rick Hart no doubt would like to increase department revenues, but wholeheartedly agrees with Brown’s decision. Hart says that allowing beer sales throughout the stands at home games would send the wrong message to UTC and other students.

UTC, like many colleges and universities and high schools, works diligently to warn students about the illegality of underage drinking and the possible abuses involved. Allowing the sale of beer at games where many underage students are in attendance, Hart says, contradicts and undermines that important message. He’s right.

The decision to limit beer sales comes with a price tag. Beer sales at one University of Memphis game with an attendance of 45,207 last year totaled nearly $115,000. UTC’s crowds, of course, are smaller, but it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure that even a crowd of say 10,000 could produce a pretty penny for UTC’s athletic coffers.

That UTC refuses to seek money from that source honors it mission. Indeed, the school’s decision to publicly put principles — that college sports should be family fun and that messages about underage drinking should be reinforced at every opportunity — above profit is a lesson that reflects positively on the university. It should find resonance both on and off campus.