Every day college athletics resembles professional sports more and more. With billions of dollars being spent on facilities, equipment, marketing efforts, broadcasting contracts and recruiting, there is a fine line between the amateur level and the pro level. Heck, the NCAA grossed more money in 2004 than the NBA did.

Today we find out that the University of Oregon has hired alumnus and key donor Pat Kilkenny as the school's new athletic director. Kilkenny is the former chairman and majority shareholder of San Diego based Arrowhead General Insurance Agency. He sold the company last year.

I can live with the fact that Oregon wanted to think "outside the box" when searching for an AD to replace outgoing AD Bill Moos, who reportedly wasn't on the same page as Oregon's sugar daddy, Phil Knight. The university wanted someone who could get along with their donors and take their facilities and athletic development to the next level.

Here's where things get a bit weird though. Kilkenny has ZERO experience running an athletic department. Its great that he can fundraise and is a solid businessman, but there is much more to running an athletic department. The other odd thing about this hiring is that sources tell me that during Oregon's search for an AD, the search committee told prospective candidates that the university was only interested in candidates with Division I AD experience on their resume. Hmm.

Kilkenny put up much of the funding for the nearly $2 million settlement agreement with outgoing Oregon athletic director Bill Moos.  

Kilkenny has also been a key donor in the university's stalled arena project. A project that has not gotten the buy in from Phil Knight...yet. I have no doubt with Kilkenny leading the charge that he'll rally Knight and the other donors to raise the money needed to build the new arena.

To get the ball rolling, Kilkenny has even paid $1.5 million in planning costs for the proposed basketball arena to replace McArthur Court.

Some people might even say that the relationship between Pat Kilkenny and the man who hired him, University of Oregon President David Frohnmayer goes beyond the typical donor - university President relationship. If you look at Kilkenny's bio on the Arrowhead General website it mentions that one of the major recipients of funding from Kilkenny's AGIA Foundation is the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund...which just happens to be founded by the Frohnmayers. Intriguing.

Kilkenny may be just the guy to lead the University of Oregon's Athletic Department where it needs to go in the next two years, but to say his hiring isn't surprising would be an understatement. You could also throw in the word "alarming".

Kilkenny has agreed to a two-year pact, the salary for which he will donate back to the university. That money amounted to $166,385 under predecessor Bill Moos in the most recent calendar year. Nice gesture and fitting for a multi-millionaire.

My main concern is this. Will Kilkenny's hiring start a trend? More and more athletic departments are being run like Fortune 500 companies anyways, so will university Presidents start hiring multi-millionaire donors in order to have those donors bring in other donors and more dollars and thus develop better facilities, better brand awareness and ultimately an athletic department that will be a cash cow? This doesn't sound at all like amateur athletics to me. And guess who will call the shots in that scenario? It certainly won't be the university Presidents - it will be the donors writing those big checks who will essentially own the athletic department - inside and out.

For anyone who doesn't think that university donors call the shots, just look at this hiring today. It used to be that the donors worked behind the scenes and simply wrote the checks. Now they're sitting in the AD's office in the driver's seat with the keys to the athletic department.