Corporate profits support college athletics

Both teams benefit greatly from area business people who donate millions of dollars annually to athletic booster clubs.

“Athletics promotes the quality of life in our community,” said Richard Ollis, president of Ollis & Company Insurors and a regular MSU booster.

Ollis and wife Teresa are MSU alumni and big sports fans. They annually give $4,000 to The Bears Fund, MSU’s booster fund, and buy season tickets for MSU basketball, football and baseball.

Robert W. Plaster, as it turns out, isn’t a big sports fan, even though his name appears on MSU’s football stadium.

Plaster, chairman of Lebanon’s Evergreen Investments, donated millions to help renovate MSU’s football stadium in 1991 and its student union in 1998. He made those gifts, he said, because he couldn’t afford to attend college as a young man, and he wants to help today’s college students.

Plaster also has donated large amounts to Crowder College, College of the Ozarks and SBU.

Plaster and John Q. Hammons are MSU’s biggest donors, though neither would disclose how much they’ve donated over the years.

Hammons presented MSU its biggest single gift ever Feb. 10 when he donated $25 million to help build the $60 million JQH Arena, which will replace Hammons Student Center as MSU’s basketball home.

“Until John Q. made his recent contribution, I think I was the biggest contributor,” Plaster said.

Not all boosters are individuals.

St. John’s Health System is another of MSU’s 3,000 boosters, which in total gave the school $1.7 million last year, not counting special scholarship funds, according to The Bears Fund Coordinator Brent Dunn.

St. John’s spokeswoman Cora Scott said St. John’s gives $10,000 annually to MSU athletics because it partners with the school’s sports medicine program, and because St. John’s supports sports and physical fitness.

Other coffers

No other college in Springfield may have MSU’s $11 million annual athletics budget, but others still raise money through boosters.

Drury University raises $500,000 annually through boosters, enough to cover half of its athletics operations budget, which doesn’t include salaries or scholarships, according to Athletics Director Edsel Matthews.

At Drury, each team has its own booster club and often uses the money to pay for travel. The school’s basketball teams, for example, are going to a tournament in December in the Bahamas.

Matthews said fund-raising efforts have been in full-force for baseball, a program that will cost $100,000 to begin next spring. Boosters will donate half of that money, he said.

SBU Athletic Director Brent Good wouldn’t disclose the size of the Bolivar school’s booster fund, though he said football and basketball receive the largest contributions.

Evangel University Athletics Director David Stair said the Crusaders don’t receive much backing from boosters, though the $10,000 they receive annually helps pay for extra equipment and other needs.