Head vs. Heart when you are a "fan"

Yes, my bad. I meant to say she was at several OSU games during the 2015-16 season. I think we would have signed her had she indicated she wanted to come here during the April, 2016, signing period. She didn't, and instead decided to draw out the signing process to draw more attention to herself. So it goes. We will be fine with Destiny. 

I agree with you on drawing out the signing process.  Her recruitment process was unusual to say the least.  I think thats why (if true) Scott backed off of recruiting her.   She is quoted as saying (regarding Oregon State) I don't want to be a piece, I want to be the piece.

I do not deny that Phil Knight has donated generously to Oregon athletics to a point that all athletic programs have been lifted.
What I argue to those that point to that as THE FACTOR in success at Oregon in any sport, is that ignores all the other factors that play into results on the field.
I am sorry, but the fact that Paul Westhead could not recruit better players to Oregon before, during and after the construction of Matt Knight arena tells you something about how much facilities CANNOT do to get good players.  Oregon had ALL of the advantages in facilities while Westhead was coach but none of the success.  Even Coach Graves had an uphill climb in his first two seasons to produce a winner or recruit top notch players.  Graves was fortunate that local Lexi Bando decided Oregon was a good place to be.
As for the Nike connection ... I can be completely honest when I say the folks at Nike would much prefer to have qualified employees that contribute to their bottom line than to care for one minute what school is listed on the diploma.  Oregon has a degree program in Sports Marketing that was started in the mid-90's.  THAT program feeds more qualified candidates to businesses like Nike than ANY of the athletic programs.  And before you say "Yeah, but the athletes get a great shot at endorsement contracts from Nike" ... again Nike marketing cares about the "reach" and "impact" that their professional athletes have to contribute to the success of the marketing effort much more than they care about the alma mater on their jersey.
Sorry.  It may be convenient to say that recruits sign with Oregon because of Nike, because it seems obvious.  But that naive assessment of a global enterprise and how they do business is really short on logic in the real world.
I would be interested to see evidence to support your claim of "... a very LARGE PIPELINE into the business world of athletics that runs through uofo ..." - without reference to graduates of the Sport Marketing Degree program.
Note:  A couple of facts ... the Cas Center was not financed by Uncle Phil.  Some of the improvements have come with his help.  The baseball complex is from the work and money of Pat Kilkenny.  Kilkenny put together a group of donors for this project.  I would assume that Knight gave some money, but he is not listed in any specific reference to building the baseball field (his is listed in everything else he has financed).  Jane Sanders Stadium (softball field) was financed by the Sanders family as a tribute to the late Jane Sanders.  Again, I can assume that Knight contributed, but nothing I have read lists him as a donor to the project.  The Jaqua Center for athlete educational support is available to all athletes, and certainly is not a competitive advantage based upon the existence of the same type of facilities at every Pac12 school (including OSU).

I really enjoyed the original posting - the notion that college athletics tries to dress itself up in the respectable cloak of amateur athletes competing for the love of the sport and their school is directly in conflict with the fact that there is a monopolistic, cynical, big business driver called the NCAA calling the shots......and actually, in my mind, it feeds into and simplifies the business goals of the NCAA for there to be a system of schools that are always "on top" and the "have not" teams that are regularly losing to those aforementioned "haves".

I think what drew this discussion away from that initial thesis was the last line of the OP - the one indicating the 'ucks are in the "have" bucket due to Uncle Phil. The 'uck apologists engaged (and actually supplied some well-reasoned arguments) to support the fact that WBB is behind the power curve of other 'uck programs in leveraging a combination of good/ethically challenged coaches, eye-popping facilities, and perceived access to Nike support of various sorts to rise into the ranks of the "haves". Disclaimer - I write this paragraph with open bias as a Beaver fan. That doesn't take away from the main premise of the thread, which in my mind is:

I wonder if spending caps or more enlightened administration in favor of level playing field competition by a revised NCAA could return college athletics to the initial premise of amateur athletics. I don't know if we can turn back the clock. In my mind, there are some endeavors that should not be monetized, or done so only in some tasteful manner, but your mileage may vary. In the meanwhile, I too choose to ignore the fact that the NCAA has monetized the sports to the point that it has become a magnet for shady characters and practices, and disrupted the notion of a level playing field......I try to dwell on the OSU success stories, and ignore the rest, but when you see the disparity in facilities, salaries and sugar daddies, or read the stories on some of the shady characters, it sometimes gets hard to do so!

Go Beavers!

So let's return to the concept of the NCAA administering a level playing field.
In the context of ANY women's collegiate sport there is virtually no NET monetary value derived by either the NCAA or the schools from the biggest (by attendance and TV viewership) sports.  Tennessee and Connecticut being the rare exception, it is more often you will see average attendance for a college women's basketball near 1500 than you will see 4,000.
The cost for a woman's collegiate athletic scholarship is the same as a man's scholarship (again let's remain focused on the basketball model).

Certainly the value of an education at Duke or Stanford is higher based upon the institution, so naturally when they offer a scholarship to a woman to play basketball they will have that advantage.  In this instance I cannot imagine the NCAA can set limits for value of a scholarship.

Few women basketball players find the opportunity to play professional basketball.  And their compensation for this career is such that schools would rarely compete on the basis of "sending a player to the pros" as a recruiting factor.  Juxtaposed to the men's game this is a major difference, both monetarily and as a factor in recruiting.  Not only would it be a waste of time to have the NCAA regulate women's basketball for this factor, it simply is not an identified problem in recruiting and/or an advantage for any particular school at this time.

What does that leave us with for the NCAA to regulate to "even the playing field" in women's collegiate basketball?

Coach's salaries
Spending on women's specific facilities
The number of assistant coaches
The amount of academic support (measured in dollars invested or hours of tutors available)
Housing

Coach's salaries.  Why not control them?
1.  Because those salaries currently are substantially behind what a male makes for the same work.
2.  Because you want to encourage great coaches to enter the women's game
3.  Because you cannot control the cost of living in various geographic or metropolitan areas (it cost a lot more to live in LA than to live in Pullman)
4.  Merit - in most cases people believe that performance merits pay (some coaches are really good and deserve lots of money; others not so much)

Spending on women's specific facilities - fact is few schools have women specific basketball facilities.  The courts and other physical plant items are shared with men in nearly all cases.  So, even if the NCAA wanted to control this in some way they have the legacy and planned facilities that are in place at places like Kentucky that will be available to their women regardless.  And again, women's basketball is not a revenue generator so there is not some pot of money for women's only facilities that would then need to be controlled to level the playing field.

The number of assistant coaches - again you want people interested in coaching women's basketball at the collegiate level.  And you need a staff to help the women get better.  Not something I see the NCAA controlling in the short term (note the change in football to ADD an assistant).

Academic support - it makes absolutely no sense to limit spending on this for women.
 
Housing - on-campus dorms or off-campus subsidy.  You could attempt to control this, but once again you run into the geographic cost-of-living inequity.

Can you suggest exactly what you expect the NCAA to control to "level the playing field" in women's collegiate basketball?

Perhaps if you read my points (a) (b) and (c) and responded to them in total, rather than just picking one of the three points out in order to strengthen your own position, you might be more "sure" of what my argument is.

Go Beavers!

Way to to disect and pick some points and brush over others.  I mentioned that if any organization gets an infusion of cash in one area, they can divert funds that would be spent in that area and spend those funds in another.(Thus effectively spending more on both)  The fact that PK did not spend one dime (if true) on the Cas does not mean there wasn't more capital available for that project because PK spent money elsewhere.

Thank you for reminding me of the name of the Jaqua Center.  If you think that is "average" as the same type of all PAC-12 facilities...man you need to get out more.  And yes, it can be used for by ALL athletes.  So if that facility is "nicer" or "more opulant" than other school's athletic dept. academic centers, then it by nature becomes a recruiting ADVANTAGE for say...the women's hoops program.

You can deny the NIKE/uofo connection and say it is because of the sports marketing dept.  Could the sports marketing dept be there because of NIKE?(especially since the program, as you stated, started in.....drum roll please....the mid 90's)  Look, do I wish OSU had the advantages of a PK...hell yes I do.  For someone like you 85 to try to downplay ALL of the advantages...both tangible and intangible...that PK and the company he grew are to uo is really weak.  It lends itself to the saying..."He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple".