Former Utah basketball player Andre Miller has donated $500,000 to the U.
Many of us may remember Miller from the 1998 men’s basketball team that went all the way to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. Miller has gone on to play professional basketball in the NBA and is currently the starting point guard for the Denver Nuggets.
This money will go to providing a scholarship for future point guards and finishing the men’s basketball team room.
We commend Miller’s generosity in making this endowment to the U and would invite current students to take the example of alumnus like Miller to heart.
The fact is that all of us receive a subsidized education while at the U-and though we complain that we are underfunded by the Utah State Legislature, our educations are paid for in part by the taxpayers of this state.
Wherever we end up after graduation, we all have a moral obligation to give back to society at large. We may have accrued monetary debt while in school, but we have also built up a social debt because we have benefited from the generosity of others.
Furthermore, the U relies heavily on donations from alumni to operate and improve campus. This means we are all benefiting right now from the contributions of those who graduated 10, 20 and 30 years ago.
Some of us will choose not to repay that debt, and no one will ever know if that is our decision. We would hope, however, that former students, especially those who find themselves fortunate enough to attain professional or economic success in the future, would remember their alma mater and what it did for them.
Miller has donated this money to the U eight years after his graduation because he still feels some connection to this school-it helped him start down his current path of success.
Many may brush aside Miller’s generous donation, saying that he likely did it for tax-deduction reasons.
This may be true; however, even if Miller only donated this money for a tax write-off, he didn’t have to donate it to the U. He could have donated it to any nonprofit organization, but he chose to give back to his former college.
Our educations would be far inferior if not for the current gifts of alumni who graduated years ago. We should commit ourselves to giving back to whatever programs or departments are currently molding our future professional and personal selves.