Washington Post on booster club donations

Author’s note: this is a piece I originally wrote for the Big East section of FanBlogs.com. Most of my football content for the foreseeable future will start either here or there, then migrate to the other site in slightly altered form.

On Saturday, the Washington Post ran a front-page story on the unique tax status of donations to college athletic programs and booster clubs. As I’m sure some readers know (because, if you have season tickets for your chosen university, it likely affects you directly), donations to a school’s athletic fund are considered tax-deductible at 80% of their face value. This involves Tech directly because the big-money focus of Tech athletics has increased greatly under AD Jim Weaver; required non-booster club donations are already in place for club seats in the new South End Zone stands, and when the West stands are renovated, the seats currently occupied by many long-term donors are rumored to become $1500-per-seat exclusives.

The Post gives the topic a mostly-fair treatment, conveying the view that I personally take with my donation to the Hokie Club, and suspect most boosters do as well: “Many donors say the tax deduction is of no consequence to them, that they are proud to donate to schools they love.” The scare quotes around “donation” at a couple points are a bit obnoxious, and given the Post’s known political slant, its exclusive focus on big-money donors in an article about an apparent tax break that all donors receive smells funny to this conservative.

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I Remember

Eric McErlain says in French on his blog what I said in English on my AIM away message, borrowing the motto of the province of Quebec: Je me souviens — I remember.

The night before, all I worried about was whether I could fit my CS 4114 homework into the 1 hour, 45 minute gap between 0930-1045 20th Century Russian History and that 1230-1345 Formal Languages class. That time included two ~8 minute bus rides, since (if I recall correctly) the prof had been inconsiderate enough to require that all homework be typed, rather than scribbled illegibly on a sheet of engineering paper.

I rolled out of bed that morning at about 8:55, stumbled to my computer, and checked my e-mail. Then I popped up IE for my usual morning news fix before hustling to McB 208 to relive the Russian Revolution.

CNN’s down.

The BBC is down.

MSNBC is down.

I thought, but the Internet can’t be down, I got my e-mail — including a couple of subscriptions that were sent 5-10 minutes ago. At this point, I figured something big was up in the news department, so I had my computer try to load the Australian Broadcasting Company’s news site, while I spun 180 degrees to turn on my TV.

Then I found out.

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Intemperate Thoughts: 24 August

With apologies to Neal Boortz for stealing an occasional section header of his for use as the title of this entry…

Surprise of the day: local daily the Richmond Times-Dispatch doing a front-page story on Virginia bloggers, featuring Will Vehrs of Shouting ‘Cross the Potomac, Ben Domenech and Meryl Yourish. Interesting part: Ellen Qualls of Gov. Mark Warner’s office mentioning that they keep track of bloggers for Virginia political insight. I doubt my VT/ACC 3 Stars column got much play, though… you’ve probably got to get above 5 regular readers for that.

Observation from the POÄNG chair: Lileks’s Star-Tribune column today (use cpunks/cpunks username/password if you don’t want to register) hits awfully close to home. It does appear that at least some of my Ikea furniture is made of real wood, though, instead of particle board.

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The More Things Change...

Just a few quick notes about how little some things change in wartime. Read More »

Wartime Media: Choosing Sides

If you’re not already tired of wall-to-wall war coverage, I admire you. But you also scare me a little.

Anyone who has been with me on a trip of some sort knows full well my appetite for news — I’ve been known to consume upwards of four newspapers a day on Wesley Spring Tours. (Right, Amy? ;-)
But when it comes to this war coverage, I have to call timeout after an hour or two. Even last Friday on my way from DC to Blacksburg, with both tactical and strategic situations very fluid, I quit hopping between BBC World Service, ABC News, and WTOP about ten miles north of Harrisonburg. I was better off turning off the radio, rolling down the windows, and enjoying the beautiful Shenandoah Valley spring day I was driving through.

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