The Michigan Daily-Thursday, September 10. 1981--Page 13-D
Canham manages Michigan
'toy store'
In 1968 Don Canham was appoin-
ted to the position of athletic direc-
tor at Michigan, only the fifth man
in the school's history to attain that
position. Thirteen years later he is
widely recognized as one of the most
successful athletic administrators
and promoters in the nation. A
former NCAA high jump champion
at Michigan and coach of the
Wolverine track team for 19 years
(during which it captured 12 Big Ten
titles), Canham has guided the
development of the athletic depar-
tment to the point where its
revenues now exceed $10 million per
annum-and it keeps growing.
Daily Sports Editor Mark
Mihanovic was able to squeeze his
tape recorder into Canham'sfurious
schedule in an attempt to find out a
little more about the- man who
presides over the Maize and Blue
money-making machine.
Daily: You've said many times that
the job of athletic director is getting
tougher and tougher. How does it get
tougher?
Canham: It just gets more detailed.
In the last six years, we've doubled the
size of our program. We've added 11
sports for women to the 11 we already
had for men, so you've doubled the
problems and compounded the finan-
Oial worriep that you had even before
you started a women's program.
Daily: What is the single most dif-
ficult task that you perform as athletic
director?
Canham: Trying to keep everybody
satisfied. You've got the University
community, who worries about over-
emphasis, and you have the coaching
staff and the athletes, who worry about
under-emphasis and the competitive
aspect of the thing. I guess the most
serious problem confronting everyone
s admissions at the University of
Michigan ... how we can be com-
petitive with other institutions with our
admissions policies make it a very dif-
ficult situation.
Daily: What is the athletic depar-
tment's financial status right now?
Canham: Financially, we're one of
the few schools in the country that are
self-supporting. I don't know of any
school anywhere that supports as much
of its program as we do. We support 100
percent of it. A lot of schools ... the
utilities are paid for by the institution,
for instance. Or the maintenance are
paid for by the institution. Or salaries
are paid for by the institution. That's
not true here. I have to raise enough
money to pay for my own lights in this
office. From that standpoint, we have a
very difficult time. But on the other
hand, it gives us autonomy that we
don't have at other schools. For instan-
ce, we're hoping to build a women's
Jointhe
sports
Oestaff
One of the most important
decisions that an incoming
University of Michigan student
must make involves his or her ex-
tracurricular life-whether he or
she will have an active one, and if
so, what direction it will take.
On the Michigan 'campus, one
may choose from as diverse a
group of activities as could
possibly be hoped for. I can think
of none, however, that provides
more opportunity, experience,
flexibility, and sheer pleasure
than working on The Michigan
Daily sports staff.
OPPORTUNITY -Come into
our office on Monday and see
your by-line in Tuesday's edition.
You can't do things much quicker
than that.
And don't feel that you
must know a great deal about
journalism or reporting to join;
most of our staffers didn't when
they first came in. We all learn as
we go.
EXPERIENCE-Interviewing
players and.-coaches, discussing
newspaper policies, writing
columns, working under deadline
pressure . . . it's all valuable,
whether journalism is your bag
or not.
FLEXIBILITY-Spend as
much time as you want at the
Dailv. Ynu can write nne stnrv a
gymnasium for women's sports, and if
we were not a separate operating unit
and did not raise our own money, I don't
think there's any chance we could ever
do that because I think the chemistry
building, or a law building, or an
engineering building should and would
take precedence. But we will probably
get the women's gymnasium built
because we are raising our own money
to do it.
Daily: Would you ever want the
other activities, with the exception of
basketball. Basketball is self-sufficient
here, and our golf course is self-
sufficient. But nothing else is.
Daily: Hockey?
Canham: We hope that hockey will be
this year. The reason we got out of the
other league (the WCHA) is we were
losing money.
Daily: How well do you feel the Title
IX investigation developed?
Canham: Well, it's been over with for
half on that sport, too.
Daily: Do you think there is any
possibility of Michigan being found
guilty of any violation?
Canham: I have no idea whether
there is or not, and frankly, I'm not sure
they have any jurisdiction over us,
anyway. We do not use federal funds,
and since when does the government
tell one how to spend money that they
don't provide?
Daily: Are you satisfied with the
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hockey players last fall. Are you
satisfied with the way they were
resolved?
Canham: I oughta be ... I handled
'em myself. The Michigan Daily did not
show any honesty at all in that case (the
hockey incident), and we all resent that
very much. For them to turn on their
own students is terrible, I think. They
knew the story was blown way out of
proportion, and they would never
retract what they had written. From
that standpoint,tIam not happy with
what happened there at all, But from
the standpoint of the team and the way
they came out of it, I am. They're
terrific young men, and they had a par-
ty and messed it up one night. And The
Michigan Daily wanted to crucify them
for the rest of their lives, which was
stupid.
Daily: What role do you feel that in-
tercollegiate athletics should play in a
student's education, and do you feel
that role is well-served here at
Michigan?
Canham: I've always felt that
athletics is not a character-builder ..
its main purpose is not to build charac-
ter, as you hear a lot of people talk
about. It does build a lot of character,
but that's not the main purpose. I think
the main purpose of it is it's a toy store.
It's fun. I see nothing wrong in the
world with having 30,000 students sit out
and have a ball on a Saturday afternoon
in the Michigan Stadium. It's a dimen-
sion that's added to their collegiate life,
I think, that's extremely important. It's
a way to let off steam, have some fun,
and make some great acquaintances,
and be happy for the young halfback
who sits next to you in class when he
scores a touchdown.
I have always said that, more than
anything else, college athletics must be
entertainment. It must be fun for the
student body and for the faculty. And
our record here is that we have always
taken care of the student body and the
faculty first. We have never had a day
when a student couldn't get a ticket for
anything here, and that's not true at a
lot of schools.
<I think the main purpose of it (intercollegiate athletics)
is it's a toy store. It's fun. I see nothing wrong in the world
with having 30,000 students sit out and have a ball on a
Saturday afternoon in the Michigan Stadium . . our
record here is that we have always takens care of the
student body and the faculty first. We have never had a
day when a student couldn't get a ticket for anything here,
and that's not true at a lot of schools.'
-Don Canham
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situation to change to the point where
the Michigan athletic department was
not an autonomous body?
Canham: I would not work in a
situation where I merely had to go to
the University and say, 'Here's my
budget, give me the money.' That's no
fun. I'm much more interested in
rolling the dice than that.
Daily: How do you respond to
criticism of the Michigan athletic
department as nothing more than a
football giant?
Canham: I don't respond to criticism
of any kind. Nine times out of 10, it's
somebody that's uninformed com-
pletely. When they criticize the football
program at Michigan, they're out in left
field somewhere. We are graduating
100 percent of our seniors this year in
football. That's unheard of. Very few
schools have the graduation rate in
football that we do. If you stop and
analyze what football does here, you
don't criticize it. And the
knowledgeable people, from our regents
on down, do not criticize our program,
at all because they realize full well that
the football program is supporting all
a long time, and we have not heard
anything back. I have mixed emotions
because I do not think the people that
were here knew what they were doing.
Athletics was completely foreign to
them. When you start counting shower
heads and the length of the shag rug on
the floor in locker rooms, you just don't
have the broad picture. I am concerned
about the groups that are going around
the country investigating various
schools because I don't see any athletes
among 'em or any people that have any
knowledge of what it really takes to
field athletic teams.
Now if they wanna criticize Michigan
because we are not providing equal op-
portunity, I don't think they know what
they're talking about. We have 11 teams
for women and 11 for men. That is equal
opportunity. We do not spend equal
dollars. We spend a million-and-a-half
dollars on football. We don't spend that
much money on women's sports, and
we're not going to. The million-and-a-
half we spend on football will provide
six million dollars worth of revenue,
and the day a women's sport can
provide six million dollars worth of
'revenue, we'll spend a million-and-a-
Michigan athletic program as it exists
right now?
Canham: Ecstatic about it. It's
terrific, the best in the country. How
can you get any better than that?
Daily: Over the past couple of years,
there have been two well-publicized
controversies involving the Michigan
athletic department that stick out in my
mind: the suspension of five football
players in the spring of 1980, and the
hazing incident involving several
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IT'S HARD TO GET FREE CIDER
FOR THE 22nd YEAR
1 \-
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usually native to North Americ
Behavior characterized by a
peculiar excitability in the fall, and
-
a.
Football '81 and That Means the Barrel Is Out Again,
With FREE CIDER at TICE'S MEN'S SHOP on Home
Game Saturday Mornings.
It Also Means Levi Cords, Jeans, and Flannel Shirt
negative feelings about buckeyes.
Its bright blue and yellow attire
comes from a place called Ulrich's.
Ulrich's: Michigan souvenirs for the whole family.