Where I Stand -- Mike O'Callaghan: Spend CCSN dollars on education, not college sports

MIKE O'CALLAGHAN is executive editor of the Las Vegas Sun and publisher of the Henderson Home News, where this column first appeared.

THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE of Southern Nevada has a valuable role in providing education beyond grade 12. It wasn't developed to produce a new source of athletes for UNR and UNLV. We can let Utah and California provide junior colleges for athletic purposes. Nevada should continue to spend community college dollars on education.

I attended and received an associate of arts degree from Boise Junior College which had a complete array of teams that produced a large number of athletes for four year colleges in the West. BJC has become Boise State University because a four year state college was demanded in that rapidly growing area. There is no vacuum for CCSN to fill because UNLV, law school and all, is already thriving and meeting four year college and graduate study needs.

CCSN, among other values, is designed to meet the needs of local people wanting to improve their job skills, bring their academic grade up to a level they can enter UNLV or some other four-year college, improve their quality of life or seek an associate degree in a specific field or skill. It's a most valuable asset for our community and has been developed over the past 28 years to fill a void felt by our growing population.

We can no long believe at any time that our education is complete. The rapid technical changes in our society won't allow us to get a college degree or job and then plan for a career without meeting changing demands. New skills and the upgrading of present skills are continually being demanded by businesses, government, professions and every segment of our labor market. There's no such thing as a person today completing his or her education unless they aren't planning to progress or no longer want to participate in the society which surrounds them.

Last week the Board of Regents met in Fallon and heard Chancellor Richard Jarvis suggest an increase in student fees for people attending state universities and community colleges. The same session approved asking the 1999 Legislature for $12.7 million to build a dental school. Along with this, the chancellor was expressing a desire for a 35 percent increase in funding for the system during the next Legislature. If he gets a 25 percent increase, he should be happy.

A new law school, dental school, and the upgrading of salaries and established programs are big ticket items no matter what cost game you are playing. Then along comes the suggestion for a study to determine the possibility of intercollegiate or intramural athletics at our community colleges. Like the professional schools and other academic programs, any athletic programs will be money eaters and not money makers.

Certainly there should be little argument about a limited intramural sports program because of its value in some studies. Also intramural programs should be very inexpensive. The same can't be said about intercollegiate sports which are very expensive and would produce little of value for the majority of students studying at CCSN.

The few people advocating an intercollegiate sports program are trying to get it off the ground with private funds. All this will do is get the program started and then the taxpayers and students will soon be carrying the entire financial load on their shoulders. This would be like the original dollars donated by Howard Hughes to start the medical school. It was great seed money but you know who has been carrying the cost for the past 25 years. Not the Hughes Corporation, nor should it be expected to meet continuing costs of an expensive institution.

People with large sums of money or the taxpayers build a facility and everybody cheers. Then comes reality when the true cost of the program going into a building comes to light and must be funded for decades by Nevada taxpayers.

I would suggest that CCSN is doing a good job right now and must continue improving its services to the community. There's no need for a junior college athletic program and all of the trappings that eventually go with it. If they want to have a study to evaluate the need for an intercollegiate sports program, then do it if it will make a few people happy.

When all is said and done, no matter what the study concludes, it won't fly with the men and women making the hard decisions about where the school dollars should be spent.

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