The athletic department will embark on an aggressive fund-raising campaign to fully endow the costs of the men's basketball program, Athletic Director Joe Alleva announced Friday.
The Duke Basketball Legacy Fund is banking on the national recognizability of coach Mike Krzyzewski and his team to eventually raise tens of millions of dollars for the athletic department.
The campaign's goal is to endow basketball's 13 scholarships, coaches' salaries and other costs. The athletic department hopes that once those costs are fully endowed, it will ensure the future stability of the basketball program as well as free up additional money to be spent on Duke's other varsity programs.
Although athletic department officials said the fund may not have an actual monetary goal, the basketball program's operating expenses in 1997-98 were $1,818,780, according to data Duke reported to the federal government.
At the University's endowment spending rate of 5.5 percent, paying for these expenses alone would require a fund of about $33 million.
"It's smart business as far as taking our athletic department's No. 1 asset and using it to build a more financially secure base by building an endowment for scholarships, for salaries and also at the same time, to build the program for the future," said Mike Cragg, who will leave his post as sports information director to head the Legacy Fund.
In addition to endowing the expenses of the basketball program, the fund would also help pay for facility improvements, including any future renovations to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
To gain legacy status in the fund, a donor must give a gift of $1 million. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported the total goal for the program as $100 million, although Cragg denied that figure.
"It's not going to be a program where we measure success or failure based on an exact dollar figure," said Cragg. "It's a matter of planning for the future and what's best for Duke in the context of making our athletic department better. And in turn, basketball is an important part of our whole university. The money we raise for this and the stability of the program makes it better for everybody."
All money raised through the Legacy Fund will contribute to the University's ongoing capital campaign.
Peter Vaughn, director of communications and donor relations for University Development, does not believe that this new fund will detract from the University's other on-going fund-raising efforts.
"It's sort of a win-win situation for the University," Vaughn said. "That's a terrific program, and that's fine with us that people support it, and we expect that they do.... The basketball program has been there before, and people have given to other athletic needs and other University needs."
Krzyzewski will be the fund's main draw, using his national prominence to solicit donations.
"What it ultimately does is in 5-10 years, or whenever Coach K ultimately decides he's not going to coach anymore, the success of Duke basketball is not going to be based on one person's magical ability to make a program," Cragg said. "It's going to have a secure future, or a less riskier future.... We're building an infrastructure for our department that's pretty different than before."
Richard Rubin contributed to this story.
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