Joumal of Sport Management. 1993.7. 263-270 O 1993 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

Operative Goals of Interuniversity Athletics: Perceptions of Athletics

Administrators in Nigeria

Ademola Onifade Lagos State University

This paper examined athletics administrators' perceptions of the operative goals of interuniversity athletics in Nigeria. The study also analyzed the rankings of operative goals by subgroups based on age, educational qualifica- tion, competitive sport experience, and present job title. Data for the study were collected with the Scale of Athletic Priorities (Chelladurai, Inglis, & Danylchuk, 1984), which measures nine operative goals of interuniversity athletics. All groups were congruent in ranking prestige, public relations, athletes' personal growth, and entertainment as the four top objectives. These results were similar to those reported in the literature.

A major crisis facing university athletics in Nigeria is inadequate funding with its attendant problems. Esiemokhai (1991) suggested that the poor economic conditions facing the country are reflected in the population's socioeconomic life including the declining budget allocations to universities. Unfortunately, the declining university budgets have very drastic effects on university athletics, resulting in crumbling sports programs, inadequate sports facilities and equip- ment, understaffing in sports offices, drastically reduced number of competitions, and inadequate funding for financial assistance to athletes including sports schol- arships for the highly skilled student athletes. This state of affairs confirms Inglis and Chelladurai's (1983) statement in the Canadian context that "athletics is often considered to be peripheral or ancillary to a university's main thrust and therefore more vulnerable to budgeting restrictions" (p. 78). The marginalization of interuniversity athletics in Nigeria is more pronounced because all universities in the country are owned by the government.

Another dangerous trend in Nigerian university athletics is the tendency to go to any length to win. This "win-at-all-costs" syndrome is reflected in several ways: Some universities permit nonstudents to represent them in interuniversity competitions; some universities mount remedial programs so as to be able to register nonstudents; and other universities adopt questionable admission proce- dures. Noting a similar trend in American universities, Perry (1987) queried,

Ademola Onifade is with the Department of Physical and Health Education, Lagos State University, P.M.B. 1087, Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria.

264 Onfade

"How is it that such a noble and respected institution as sport could come to this deplorable condition of disease and decay?" (p. 82).

These and other similar trends in Nigerian interuniversity athletics warrant further analysis. The first step in this regard is to identify the priorities of various goals held by university athletics administrators. After all, goals provide the direction for organizational action. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to assess the relative ranking assigned to various goals by top-level administrators of interuniversity athletics in Nigeria.

The focus in this regard was on what Perrow (1961) calls operative goals as opposed to official goals. Official goals, according to Perrow, are goals stated tin global and vague terms to accommodate the preferences of various constituen- cies of an organization. Operative goals are the real goals the organization and its administrators are pursuing. These operative goals can be inferred only through the decisions the administrators make over a period of time (e.g., differential budget allocations to different teams). Because official goals are broad and vague they can be interpreted differently, and different institutions can emphasize specific subdomains within the global goal statements. On the other hand, operative goals have specific emphasis and designate the ends sought through the actual operating policies of the organization. Following Perrow's distinction between official and operative goals, Chelladurai, Inglis, and Danylchuk (1984) have identi- fied nine operative goals in intercollegiate athletics, described in Table 1.

In addition, these authors have developed the Scale of Athletic Priorities (SAP) to measure these operative goals. Using the SAP, Chelladurai and Danyl- chuk (1984) found that the administrators of university athletics programs in Canada rated the objectives of transmission of culture, entertainment, publicity, and prestige higher than the rest.

Table 1

Operative Goals in Interuniversity Athletics

Operative goal Description

Entertainment

National sports development Financial Transmission of culture

Career opportunities

Public relations Athletes' personal growth Prestige

Achieved excellence

To provide a source of entertainment for the student body, facultylstaff, alumni, and community

To contribute to national sports development To generate revenue for the university To transmit the culture and tradition of the university and

society To provide athletic experiences that will increase career

opportunities for the athletes To enhance the university-community relations To promote athletes' personal growth and health To enhance the prestige of the university, students, faculty1

staff, alumni, and community To support those athletes performing at a high level of

excellence relative to athletes in other universities

Note. From Chelladurai (1 984).

University Athletics in Nigeria 265

In view of the difficulties faced by interuniversity athletics in Nigeria, it becomes necessary for university athletics administrators to fully understand what the goals of university athletics in Nigeria could be. This in turn could guide them in the allocation of scarce financial resources. The focus on administrators of interuniversity athletics is consistent with the views of Perrow (1961) and Zey- Ferrell(1979), who suggest that administrators are the dominant group of decision makers who set the operative goals for their organizations. It was also a purpose of the study to compare the perspectives of Nigerian university athletics adminis- trators with those of their counterparts in other countries, more specificalIy, Canada (CheIladurai & Danylchuk, 1984).

Method

Subjects

The research instrument was administered to all athletics directors in all 45 Nigerian universities offering physical education as one of their degree programs. The total population returned the questionnaire in usable form for a 100% return rate. All subjects were males.

Instrument

The instrument comprised two sections with the first part eliciting background information from the subjects on sex, age, academic qualification, job title, and previous sports experience. The second section contained the Scale of Athletic Priorities (SAP) (CheIladurai et al., 1984). The SAP lists 36 criterion statements, each preceded by the statement, "A criterion to be considered in determining the degree of financial support for intercollegiate athletic (university sport) team is that . . ." The subjects were to rate each criterion statement on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from not important to very important. The internal consistency estimates were reported to range from .75 to .86 (M = 32) for administrators and from .66 to $0 (M = .78) for students, and the test-retest reliability estimates were reported to range from .62 to .83 with a mean of .73 for the students (Chelladurai et aI., 1984). For the purposes of this study, five physical education academic professionals and 30 students confirmed that the SAP was suitable for use in Nigeria.

Statistical Analyses

The primary concern in the study was to examine the priority of operative goals of athletics administrators and to determine if the subgroups based on age, sex, previous sports experience, educational qualification, and present job differed in subjects' rankings of the nine operative goals. Accordingly, repeated-measures ANOVAs folIowed by the Scheffe post hoc analysis were performed on the data of the total sample and each of the subgroups.

Results

The means, standard deviations, and rankings of the operative goals for the different subgroups under study and for the total sample are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Means, Standard Deviations, and Rankings of Objectives by Subgroups

Age Educational qualification Competitive sport Present job

All subjects 25-35 36-46 46+ Bachelor Master PhD Yes No Dept. head Ath. dir.

Objectives n = 45 n = 6 n = 2 4 n = 1 5 n = 1 3 n = 1 5 n = 1 7 n = 3 1 n = 1 4 n = 1 5 n = 30

Prestige M 5.44" 5.48" 4.98" 5.45" 5.17" 5.10" 4.97" 5.23" 5.25" 5.45" 5.21 SD 1.29 0.92 1.23 1.19 1.18 1.04 1.33 1.10 1.26 1.29 1.32 Rank 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Public M 5.31" 4.94' 4.08" 5.01" 4.94" 4.55" 4.37" 4.79" 4.65" 5.25" 5.26"

relations SD 0.85 1.01 1.22 1.32 1.06 1.39 1.30 1.04 1.06 1.29 1.47 Rank 2 4 3 2 2 2 3 3 2 2 2

Athletes' M 5.25" 5.27" 33.8" 3.96 4.85" 4.20" 4.61" 4.84" 4.59" 4.05 4.79" personal SD 1.07 1.30 1.07 1.71 1.28 1.08 0.91 1.25 1.24 1.32 1.16 growth Rank 3 3 4 5 3 4 2 2 4 5 3

Entertainment M 5.24" 5.34" 4.14" 4.59" 4.51" 4.22" 4.1P 4.70 4.85" 4.54" 4.43" SD 1.19 1.23 0.94 1.10 1.32 1.37 1.61 1.42 1.38 1.14 1.03 Rank 4 2 2 3 4 3 4 5 3 4 4

Career M 4.06 4.63 3.63 3.19 4.14 4.00 3.19 4.78" , 4.56 5.10" 4.26"

opportunities SD 1.36 1.46 1.52 1.33 1.32 1.08 1.11 1.41 1.38 0.98 0.96

Rank 5 5 7 8 5 5 8 4 5 3 5

(cont.)

Table 2 (cont.) 2 $

4 3=

Age Educational qualification Competitive sport Present job g All subjects 25-35 36-46 46+ Bachelor Master PhD Yes No Dept. head Ath. dir. g

0 Objectives n = 45 n = 6 n = 2 4 n = 1 5 n = 1 3 n = 1 5 n = 1 7 n=31 n = 1 4 n = 1 5 n = 3 0 5

3 %

Transmission M 4.00 4.50 3.98 4.40a 3.79 3.97 4.07 4.24 4.06 3.92 3.97 3. P,

of culture SD 1.90 1.20 1.37 1.28 1.16 1.46 1.32 1.41 1.22 1.52 1.39 Rank 6 6 5 4 8 6 5 6 6 6 7

Achieved M 4.66 4.02 3.90 3.48 3.88 3.27 3.75 4.04 3.79 3.80 3.75 excellence SD 1.33 1.27 1.16 1.45 1.29 1.26 1.29 1.46 1.48 1.14 1.26

Rank 7 7 6 7 6 8 6 7 9 7 8

National sport M 4.46 3.56 2.14 3.94 3.84 3.91 3.12 3.30 3.89 3.70 4.02 development SD 1.48 1.30 1.44 1.25 1.35 1.42 1.12 1.27 1.48 1.01 0.90

Rank 8 8 9 6 7 7 9 9 8 8 6

Financial M 4.22 3.03 2.38 2.98 2.89 2.88 3.80 3.89 3.96 3.37 3.27 SD 1.27 0.99 0.89 0.93 1.05 0.88 1.34 1.30 1.1 1 1.21 1.10 Rank 9 9 8 9 9 9 7 8 7 9 9

F ratio 36.74" 14.63* 30.1 2* 29.31 * 15.24' 17.86* 26.02* 34.54* 20.13* 24.59" 23.87*

Scheffe 0.62 0.74 0.84 0.96 1.01 1.20 1.40 1.32 0.97 0.85 0.90 critical value

"Top-ranked objectives whose means did not differ from one another. *p < 0.01.

The F values from the repeated-measures ANOVAs and associated Scheffe's criticaI values are also presented in Table 2.

The repeated-measures ANOVAs showed significant differences among the means of the nine objectives in the total sample as well as in all the subgroups (see Table 2). Further analysis with the Scheffe post hoc analysis revealed that overall, the different groups as well as the total sample rated prestige, public reIations, athletes' personal growth, and entertainment as the most important set of objectives that did not significantly differ from each other.

However, the objective, career opportunities, was included in the top- ranked set of objectives by the administrators who have had previous competitive sport experience and by those who are athletic directors and heads of physical education departments. Transmission of culture was included in the top set of objectives by older administrators (47 years of age and above). This finding shows that there are apparent differences among subgroups in their relative rankings of the nine objectives, but the Spearman's rho rank-order correlations between different pairs of the relevant subgroups were all significant and ranged from .67 to .89 with a mean of .78. From these results, it can be concluded that the different subgroups in this study were homogeneous in ranking the nine goal objectives. Prestige, public relations, athletes' personal growth, and entertainment were the four top-ranked objectives. One interesting point in this finding is the fact that the total sample as well as the subgroups all ranked prestige as the topmost goal.

Discussion An attempt was made in this study to identify the goal orientations of athletics administrators in Nigerian universities who were grouped by age, educational qualification, competitive sports experience, and present job on the ranking of the goal objectives.

The athletics directors ranked prestige, public relations, athletes' personal growth, and entertainment as the top objectives. This finding is consistent with that of Inglis and Chelladurai (1983). The finding is also similar to that of Chelladurai and Danylchuk (1984) except that their subjects included transmission of culture in the most important set of objectives. In contrast, the Nigerian athletic administrators in this study, although not rating transmission of culture high, included entertainment as one of the four most important objectives along with prestige, public relations, and athletes' personal growth. Our findings contradict Kenyon (19851, who argued that it is important to feel the presence of universities in a society and that universities should be the center in the development of culture through sports.

The goal orientation of our subjects is in line with the contention of Chelladurai and Danylchuk (1984) that athletes' personal growth provides indi- vidual benefit, public relations and prestige provide institutional benefits, and entertainment provides benefit to members of the university community. That the goals rated by athletics administrators in this study benefit both the institution and students is consistent with the belief that university athletics program objec- tives should benefit both the institution and student body (Chelladurai, 1985). The present findings, however, contradict the contention of Matthews (1974), who suggested that intercollegiate programs should consider the needs and interests of

University Athletics in Nigeria 269

the students to be paramount and that the success of such programs should not be measured in terms of the prestige they give to the university.

With some administrators in this present study, a corollary ranking includes career opportunities. This finding is not surprising because there is a very strong working relationship between the academic departments of physical education and the athletics offices in Nigerian universities. In fact, many of the academic staff still serve as honorary coaches. Consequently these academics would expect participation in sports to increase career opportunities for their athletes after graduation. It is noteworthy that national sport development and financial objec- tives were the two lowest rated objectives. This finding is in line with the findings of Chelladurai and Danylchuk (1984). The finding is supported by Onifade (1990) and Jeroh (1988), who argued that Nigerian universities are not serving as expected-as a factory for producing national athletes. The argument is based on the fact that in the 25 years of the existence of the Nigerian University Games Association (the body responsible for planning and organizing university games), the games have not been able to produce athletes who can represent the country at international competitions. Instead the country has mainly relied on outstanding student athletes in foreign universities. The low ranking of the financial objective in this study is understandable because sport represents an integral part of educa- tion in Nigeria and is largely financed from central university funds.

In summary, the operative goals of prestige, public relations, athletes' personal growth, and entertainment were rated as the top four objectives by the total sample and each of the subgroups. Interestingly, the goal orientations of these athletics administrators in Nigerian universities were similar to those of their counterparts in Canada. Presumably, the athletic imperatives are more domi- nant than cultural or cross-national influences.

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