Bruce Rastetter
The president of the board that governs Iowa, Iowa State and UNI says he fields comments — both positive and negative — about the sports teams at the schools, but Board of Regents president Bruce Rastetter says the board takes a hands-off approach toward the athletic programs at the three universities.
“We do not micromanage the athletic department, but we do have high expectations and we express those to the university president,” Rastetter says.
Rastetter, a University of Iowa graduate, was in Florida for last week’s Taxslayer Bowl.
“Do we like losing football games?” Rastetter asks, answering his own question with: “No…frankly I know one person that’s probably as disappointed as anybody is Kirk Ferentz from last Friday and I would expect, as Gary Barta has said, that there will be improvements in the program and we’ll see that.”
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz after the Taxslayer Bowl.
Barta is the University of Iowa’s athletic director.
Rastetter notes that the University of Iowa and Iowa State University athletic departments operate without any taxpayer funding, so no coach’s salary at either school is paid with taxdollars. A small portion of UNI’s athletic department budget comes from tax dollars, with some student fees supporting Panther athletics, too.