Dear Mr. Winze,

Our circumstances as a private university in Texas appear different than
with state universities in Wisconsin. Your assessment of the relative
interest in and commitment to Olympic sports shared by football orientied
Athletic Directors probably sizes up the situation there and here. You may
well add basketball oriented AD's to the list. Although I enjoy football
and other so-called major sports, I am quite certain that at state
universities especially NCAA Division I -AA and Division II, most
intercollegiate sports drain resources from the university. At Texas
Wesleyan University intercollegiate athletics rises to an important aspect
of the collegiate experience. But no higher. I may be alone in this, but I
firmly believe that intercollegiate athletics should never be allowed to
become an obsession. It should succeed as a healthly diversion for the
college as well as the broader community of alumni and friends. The
university that finds itself obsessed with its athletic programs to the
detriment of the academy, fails. The university that fails to understand
the healthy mix of sport and student life misses a great opportunity to
enrich the whole collegiate experience. We are trying to find that healthy
balance.

Athletic directors often attempt to intimidate university presidents by
taking their case to alumni and the press. But since I played professional
baseball for ten years, fired an athletic director who attempted an end-run
to the Board of Trustees, and do not in any way resemble "Casper-milk toast"
I have managed to channel the energy of our athletic directors and their
coaches to become more integrated in the broader life of the university.

Frankly I didn't ask the AD for his assessment of Table Tennis. As
president I decided to start table tennis as a sport, but placed it under
Student Life not Intercollegiate Athletics. Eventually it will feature as
one of the normal NAIA sports, but for now we placed it under the Vice
President for Enrollment and Student Life.

We funded the program on the same terms as all our NAIA athletic team
sports. We give the Table Tennis coach an operating budget based upon his
success recruiting talented students with the capacity to graduate. His
goal is 24 full time students. We provide travel and expenses and
scholarships for the current 17 member team at the rate of 17% of the net
tuition revenue derived from students who enroll at Texas Wesleyan and who
play table tennis. If Wisconsin state universities were to implement the
same cost/benefit formula all except the University of Wisconsin would be
forced to close football and basketball programs. In other words I fund
athletics on the same formulae that I fund academic disciplines asking the
question, "Would this student attend Texas Wesleytan University but for
participation in Table Tennis?" I fund the entire athletic program on that
formula, and provide scholarships for athletes on the same basis as for
academic programs that do not possess sufficient scholarship endowment to
sustain themselves.

Our goal is to etablish Texas Wesleyan University as the top college in the
nation for undergraduate/graduate students to attend and play table tennis.
We expect the coaching staff to maintain twenty-four full time students on
the team. Our hope is to reach 100% graduation rate among the table tennis
team, and for Wesleyan to see men and women on the US Olympic team as well
as Olympic Teams from other countries will give enormous lift to our
university located as it is in a football state, and across town from the
very large and extremely wealthy, TCU.

Our top player is Eric Owens. Eric graduates this spring with a 3.9 grade
point average. He is a very bright student, a gifted athlete and a great
ambassador for the university. Eric will conduct research at the University
of Houston next year before entering Medical School the following year. He
is a great example of the wonderful young men and women, national and
international, who puruse education with gusto and perform at very high
level in their sport. The key, if there is one: convince university
president's of the great publicity, increased rates of graduation among
athletes and new markets for students at low cost. If the president's at
Wisconsin universities don't act, please give my name to every table tennis
player you know. Texas is warm and sunny. Our college is located in a
wonderful city, Ft. Worth, Texas. Our table tennis team plays against and
beats Princeton, Stanford, Cal-Berkeley and all others. We are the National
Collegiate Table Tennis Association Champions in multiple divisions three
years consecutive. And, we offer athletic scholarships for table tennis
players even though the NAIA does not recognize it as a inter-collegiate
sport.

Our Coach Christian Lilliroos enjoys great success and now wants us to build
a training complex and competition arena designed expressly for our future
table tennis Olympians who want also to study at Texas Wesleyan. If he will
agree to share that space with our Women's Vollyball team (Elite Eight in
2004), he just may get his wish!

Come to Texas and check us out!

Dr. Harold Jeffcoat President of Texas Wesleyan University.
http://department.txwes.edu/tt/

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This letter was sent to the Chancellors of all the Wisconsin State Universities except:
UW La Crosse ( They turn out new Phy. Ed.. teachers with knowledge of table tennis.)
UW Milwaukee ( They have the Wisconsins only intercollegiate team.) Click Here