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 vq,:.v ". :. :"" :. :: .: .....: ...: .: v::. :::.:}i; v{?{"i:vv: is ::yf:. ::.}" ::::. -:. ::::v. :::: vr: nv::. r:: ::v: .. ..........:. ......-::. ......, .:... h.....1:.. .n.x.. ..:.n: v. : .:....: .. ..:::::::: ". ..... ... v.... ...... n........ ... n... .... .............v .. ...h:.. }.... J....:. v .........::....:.... rv....v ."}... .... v.......................... v:::: vw:.: d".w::.: ii: iiirii: ::>x ". n::: "v. v"v:: ".x "w: .... :. " -:.v...r..;; ..r ., :r. ..:.::.. .. .:... .....: }{.. { .. ............................v.... ..........,......... n..........h..:...,n:....v ....................... :.h.v .. ..:v {.. v .:}t +tiv+: :. ' .'":iti 7: r: ii' -::::::'"V:: : "i' ":v ...".......:.:. ..... ..n........... n.,. v..... n...::..........:.... ...: ......:....... .............. ...............t..............,.... }......................: 4:: ":.. "}......:.. :. ih ::++?".... . Ax{:'::} S"i'C.. v 'v''i:":"::" . ".... k . 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. iw>:.i"':"t>:a:"::"::"r: :":. :":: 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 CUSTOM LEATHER- Your Design or Ours HANDMADE ON PREMISES Open Mon-Fri Sat r I Iam-7pm 11an-5 pm t ! 401= 611 S. Forest Just off S. University 665-5575 S. Forest vil' L. Familius Michiganensis ,.--- Avl' - VILM, I IT'S HARD TO GET FREE CIDER FOR THE 22nd YEAR 1 \- / 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.