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[QUOTE="Hoo's That, post: 4111227, member: 3609"]
While it may have made you fell better to post that, it just plain isn't true.  Those states have laws which prohibit tax money from going to athletics.  They keep saying Saban is the highest paid state employee in Alabama.  Well, he only receives $100K from the state (so he's an employee of the university and the president of Bama can fire him if necessary) and the rest of the $7MM comes from donors.  It's a state budget line item that was revealed by a newspaper from info in a state Freedom of Information release.  I would imagine there's a similar set-up for Brian Harsin at Auburn.  If you were an Auburn fan you would not want one dime of state money going toward building a player pleasure dome for Bama and vice versa.  Same holds true for Georgia (Georgia Tech) and Clemson (South Carolina); that's why those laws are on the books.  Bear Bryant was given state trooper protection by the legislature because he was being mobbed on the field after games.  The Auburn fans got into a lather about it and forced the legislature to give trooper protection to Shug Jordan as well.

Donors fund everything at those schools.  And, in most cases, they are more willing to give money to football than to the academic side of the house.  It got to the point that Auburn nearly lost is accreditation because an athletic megadonor on their Board of Trustees was orchestrating so many other things, including, IIRC, getting the president fired.
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