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Politics won't be Eckerd sport

The school president halts a plan that paid the sports department for GOP political activities.

By CURTIS KRUEGER and JOE SMITH
Published October 25, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG — Eckerd College Wednesday put an abrupt halt to an unusual athletic department fundraiser: organizing students to campaign for Republican candidates.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” said Eckerd College president Donald R. Eastman III.

Athletic director Bob Fortosis dropped the arrangement Wednesday evening after discussing it with Eastman. The department should not make similar arrangements again, Eastman said.

Under the arrangement, a political consultant would pay the athletic department for the students’ work, which included stuffing envelopes. Fortosis declined to say how much the department would be paid.

The students, who were donating their time, have been gathering at Fox Hall on campus this week with the staff of the state Republican Party and working on behalf of state Senate candidates Kim Berfield and Ronda Storms, and possibly others.

Fortosis said it was a way to enhance Eckerd’s sports programs. He said he’d do the same for Democratic candidates.

“It’s completely nonpartisan —- we don’t as a college take a political position,” Fortosis said.
 But Berfield’s Democratic opponent, Charlie Justice, disagreed.

“I don’t know that there’s much apolitical about working for a partisan candidate,” Justice said. “I think that’s just not accurate. That’s the nicest way I can say that.”

It’s common for college students to volunteer for campaigns and causes, but it’s unusual for a school to be paid to organize students to do the work.

Eastman, who learned of the arrangement from a St. Petersburg Times reporter, said he’s confident the work was intended to help the athletic program, not favor one political party.

Fortosis stressed that the work was voluntary and that Eckerd officials made it “very, very crystal clear that no one is obligated.”

“I don’t think that’s enough,” Eastman said. It is difficult for a student to say no to an authority figure such as a coach, he added.

“I have no doubt that if we had to do it again we wouldn’t get involved,” Eastman added.

Some student athletes said they did the work because they were asked.

“We have been filling out envelopes. I’m not sure what it’s all about. I’m not sure about the American political process,” said John Fletcher, a sophomore soccer player.

Fletcher is from Uxbridge, England, and can’t vote in the Nov. 7 election.

Neither can Eckerd freshman Luke Sheekey, a soccer player from London.

Sheekey said “more or less all of the athletes” were doing the work. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m so busy with class.”

Randy Nielsen, a partner in Public Concepts in West Palm Beach, said his consulting firm sends millions of pieces of mail on behalf of the Republican Party and was looking for help stuffing envelopes.

The program started recently after former Republican state Rep. Gaston Cantens, whose son plays on Eckerd’s basketball team, was speaking to a GOP official about the need for student volunteers. He said he passed along the number of Eckerd’s athletic department.

[Last modified October 25, 2006, 21:35:09]