BYU football: Endowment is a big part of scholarships

PROVO — During the 1950s, Stanford University conceived an idea that BYU senior associate athletic director Brian Santiago calls "brilliant."

Stanford began endowing its athletic scholarships, a move that has paid huge dividends in the ensuing decades. It's a concept BYU has begun to implement in recent years.

"It's a big priority," Santiago said. "It frees up so much operational funds. Millions of dollars of our budgets go to pay for scholarships. If we can endow the scholarships — that's our vision for the athletic department — it frees up millions of dollars that we pay for scholarships every year."

During the weekend of Sept. 3-4, eight All-America quarterbacks, and legendary coach LaVell Edwards, will return to BYU to hold a few events in hopes of raising $1 million to endow four quarterback scholarships, which cost $250,000 each year.

"This has been something in the works for over a year," Santiago said. "It's more than just a little reunion. It's way bigger than that for us. This is getting people who have made a huge impact on BYU to get them back and involved philanthropically and help us raise money for the future. Each endowed scholarship pays for one student-athlete in perpetuity. Scholarships are paid for off the interest of the endowment. We're really, really excited about this."

BYU currently has nine fully endowed athletic scholarships and 45 partially endowed scholarships in a variety of sports. Aside from the financial benefits of endowments, though, are the feelings they engender between generations of boosters and athletes.

"The magic of it is, when you go to Stanford, you go to the athletic building and it's a powerful thing. The family or individual or company that endows the scholarship is actually matched up with a student-athlete," Santiago explained. "You're actually providing a connection between the past and the present. The student-athletes know who the family, individual or company is that's responsible for their scholarship. There's a way to connect the current student-athlete to someone else. It creates an incredible philanthropic cycle. That's a powerful thing as we try to raise money to help us chase the vision of the athletic department."

The ultimate vision is to endow all of the athletic scholarships at BYU. "With the right efforts, we can make it happen," Santiago said. "We're passionate about it. We love that these former quarterbacks are seeing the vision and want to be a part of it."

Santiago emphasizes that this effort is designed to transcend sports and touch other parts of campus as well.

"The endowments aren't just for athletics but campus-wide," he said. "It's all part of being completely aligned with the mission of the university."

e-mail: jeffc@desnews.com