October 11, 2001-Vol33n6: Letters

VOLUME 33, NUMBER 6

THURSDAY, October 11, 2001

Bureaucracy governs athletic department policies

To the Editor:

I am a UB professor who runs on an almost daily basis. Although I occasionally compete in master's track meets and road races, I run primarily for the health benefits.

When I visit other universities, I have always been welcome to use university tracks. For example, like anyone else who wishes to do so, I can use the well-maintained tracks at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., or at UCLA in Los Angeles. I do not need a permit, and I do not even need to work or study at these universities to use their facilities.

However, I cannot even use the practice track at UB, the university where I teach, without being threatened, yelled at and driven away by university police.

On Wednesday Sept. 12, a little after 6 p.m., I began a workout at the practice track adjacent to the new student-residence complex. I have noticed that this track frequently is used by UB students, and I have run there several times in the past few weeks.

But on this day, I was driven off the track by a rude and threatening UB police officer who refused to answer any of my questions about why the track was "closed"—despite the fact that the east entry to the track is always wide open. At one point, the officer told me that if I asked him any more questions, he would immediately arrest me. The only information he did give me was that this was the official policy of the athletic department.

One might think this is an isolated problem, but some of my other experiences with the UB athletic department in the past two years include being told, as a new faculty member, that I could not visit the UB gym at all—even if I paid a fee and showed my faculty ID—unless I was accompanied by a current gym member; being physically attacked by a referee during an intramural basketball game and being told that UB would not replace my new basketball after the same referee caused me to lose the ball—he threw it across the gym during his temper tantrum and I was unable to retrieve it.

Are these the signs of a university that encourages people to maintain a healthy lifestyle, or are they signs of a university so entrenched in bureaucracy that it has lost sight of its mission of service and education?

I know that some dedicated and wonderful people work for the athletic department, and I obviously do not wish to condemn everyone associated with this large and diverse department. However, when it comes to my experience with those who make the important rules, it is all too clear that bureaucracy, rather than fitness or education, is their primary priority.

Brett W. Pelham
Associate Professor of Psychology