New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer indicated in his State of the State address last month that University at Buffalo and Stony Brook are the top candidates to become the flagship institutions of the SUNY system, a decision that Binghamton University Director of Athletics Joel Thirer said has no effect on and was not rooted in the strength of BU’s athletics program.

“[Buffalo and Stony Brook] both have health and science centers and they’re both big institutions,” Thirer said. “Binghamton and Albany don’t have that with the medical schools and that really sets them apart form the other state universities.”

Paul Vecchio, Buffalo’s associate athletic director for communications, agreed. “To say that athletics is an integral reason [for the designation], I don’t think that would be accurate.”

Stony Brook and Buffalo both field football teams, Buffalo at the 1-A level, but Thirer said that was also inconsequential.

“There are all sorts of schools that are 1-A that are not flagship schools that are state institutions,” he said. “To me the designation really is non-parallel to a choice to play 1-A football or playing football at all.”

There is no funding for athletics that would be allocated along with a flagship designation according to Thirer, but the potential benefit for a flagship school lies in the construction of new physical facilities.

“No, I don’t think so,” Thirer said when asked if BU athletics missed out.

Gov. Spitzer began his statewide tour to promote his $4 billion higher-education endowment fund on Wednesday at UB’s Downtown Gateway. Vecchio, who attended the speech, said a new multipurpose field house could come quicker than expected.

“I think that we’d be shortsighted to say that athletics wouldn’t benefit, because clearly athletics is an integral part of the University of Buffalo,” he said. “We’re committed to Division 1-A athletics, we’re committed to playing at the highest level of NCAA sports … as the saying goes, ‘all boats rise with the tide.’ We’re going to be positively impacted.”

Vecchio said any positive impact its athletic department felt would come out of UB President John Simpson’s commitment to Bulls athletics. “John Simpson has targeted athletics as a part of UB becoming a nationally recognized institution because of the place that athletics holds in the American public.”

Thirer, who said Buffalo’s move to 1-A in 1991 “wasn’t even allowable by the board of trustees of SUNY,” said Binghamton and Buffalo have different priorities. “Buffalo sets their own agenda, and their president and their board of trustees have defined who they want to be and what kind of institution they want to be, and Binghamton and every other school in the system has their own vision.”