OT: Lavish College (football) athletic facilities out of control?

There's a paywalled article in yesterday's Chicago Trib about college athletic facilities being out of control. The poster child for the article is Clemson. Thankfully, Michigan gets nary a mention.

On the one hand, it sounds like sour grapes from some reporter with another agenda. We're in a free market, after all. Boosters and colleges can spend money however they want.

On the other hand, some of this stuff seems over the top. To wit,

The people in charge of Clemson University's athletic department have not settled on a design for the miniature golf course they are building for their football team, but they know it will have just nine holes, not 18. That will leave room for the sand volleyball courts, laser tag, movie theater, bowling lanes, barber shop and other amenities planned in the $55 million complex that South Carolina's second-largest public university is building exclusively for its football players.

And again,

Clemson, whose undefeated Tigers are one of four teams in this year's College Football Playoff, is building a football complex with an aspect school officials tout will be the first of its kind: a "players' village" entertainment wing with attractions more commonly seen in arcades and theme parks than on college campuses. "I am pumped," Coach William "Dabo" Swinney said in a video the school released promoting the new building. "It is going to be the epitome of Clemson: fun, special, unique. It's going to be the best in the country, without a doubt."

Of course, the writer lines up the required opposition quote, a guy named Gurney who heads up the "Drake group." (never heard of them).

Clemson's new facility likely will be the best for just a matter of months, critics of college sports said, until the next school decides to transform a corner of its campus into what Drake Group President Gerald Gurney terms "day spas" designed to entice teenagers. "This is all about pandering to the fantasies of 18-year-olds. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the mission of a university," said Gurney, whose organization advocates an overhaul of commercialized college sports in America. "What's probably next down the line is a floating river attraction. ... Why don't we have a roller coaster?" said Gurney, who has worked in athletic departments at the University of Maryland and the University of Oklahoma, where he now teaches. "It's embarrassing that we're even discussing this."

What do you think? I guess I don't have a problem with Universities opting to have great facilities for their athletes. Food, weight training, medical facilities, rehab, indoor fields, locker rooms, academic study facilities, all make sense to me. But does there come a point where it really is just wretched excess?

To be fair, college campuses have changed a lot since the time I was a student in the 70's. Crummy dorm food, lack of air conditioning, few amenities, are a thing of the past, I guess. But I don't know what the future holds, and for sports teams, how much is too much. Something seems out of kilter.