IN 1999, an obscure basketball team from the heart of wheat country in eastern Washington became the Cinderella squad when they toppled well-heeled, long-standing universities to win a berth in the Elite Eight NCAA basketball tournament.

It was a dazzling feat that thrust the city of Spokane into the national spotlight. Sports commentators broke out maps to locate the city as they scrambled to find adjectives to describe Gonzaga University - the "little team that could."

What no one expected was the surge of students applying to Gonzaga University following that 1999 season. Three years ago, 3,713 students applied to be in the 2003-2004 freshman class - more than double the 1997-1998 numbers. For the 2006-2007 freshman class, enrollment hit 6,500 and applications are still coming in, according to admissions personnel at Gonzaga.

As more students apply, the caliber and quality of those students has surprised university administrators, who are seeing higher SAT scores, higher grade-point averages and an interest in the university that goes far beyond athletics.

Mike Roth, athletic director for Gonzaga for the past 20 years, said donations to the school have also increased dramatically since 1999.

TEAM'S SUCCESS BOOSTS STATUS
"Although there are many factors that have affected increased enrollment, overall, the basketball team's success really has had an impact on the institution as a whole," said Roth. "Athletics can have very positive affects on the status of an institution. As a result, the giving levels have gone up, the number of benefactors has increased and the quality of students coming to the school has increased."

Roth said the impact is known as the "Flutie Effect," named after former Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie. Twenty-two years ago, Flutie threw an improbable touchdown pass to upset the national champion, the University of Miami, snatching the national title for the small regional school. The victory captured the nation's attention, and the following year, Boston College saw a nearly 30 percent increase in admission applications.

Roth said the Flutie Effect draws more attention to a private institution after a successful sporting event, such as basketball, football, baseball, track and field or other significant athletic endeavors.

POSITIVE IMPACT OF EXPOSURE
"It has a very positive effect on the school that isn't just about sports," Roth said. "Suddenly, we are getting applications from other parts of the country that we've never received before."

Gonzaga's recent basketball win against the University of North Carolina Tarheels - the No. 2 team in the country - has some observers predicting another standout year and, possibly, another Flutie-style boost for admissions. In the past eight years, Gonzaga's basketball team has appeared in the Sweet 16 NCAA basketball tournament four times - nearly as many appearances as larger and better-funded public universities across the country. As one national sports announcer commented, "Gonzaga is no longer the Cinderella team - they are for real and are here to stay."

But some doubt the Flutie Effect, pointing to conflicting evidence and to other factors that affect a college's applications for admission. Several years ago, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported a survey of 500 college-bound seniors. The survey showed that more than 70 percent of the students were not influenced by their school's athletic accomplishments. And when Duke University won the national basketball championship in 1993, applications actually dropped the following year, according to Duke officials.

Jeff Phelps, financial director of university relations at Washington State University, said public universities who are part of a division, such as the PAC-10, already enjoy a level of national awareness.

"WSU has looked at the ebbs and flows of athletic success," Phelps said, "and we are not able to draw a conclusive correlation between the success of our sports program to an increase in our admissions."

However, Phelps said he suspects the Flutie Effect is likely a factor for smaller, less visible colleges and universities because it puts them in the national spotlight - something they have less access to than larger state universities.

"There are so many factors involved with admissions and sports," Phelps said. "Intuitively, I would guess when you have three hours exposure on national television, it raises the awareness of your school and perhaps your program offerings."

Admission officials at the University of Washington agree: Success on the field or court may positively affect admissions but nothing that can be conclusively linked to the Flutie Effect.

For smaller, private universities and regional colleges, athletic programs are expensive and opportunities for national television exposure are limited. When some universities make a move to a higher, and more visible athletic bracket, it does not always pay off, particularly if the teams don't have the athletes to compete in a tougher division. In recent years, the University at Buffalo (New York) moved its athletic teams to the higher-profile Division I bracket, only to lose a majority of games and watch admission applications drop.

In the late 1990s, Gonzaga University refused to drop into a lower division basketball bracket to play smaller and similarly-funded teams. Mike Roth helped lead the charge to keep Gonzaga in a higher division, despite the fact that the university was struggling financially.

"You have the opportunity within Division I athletics to get tremendous national notoriety," Roth told the Wall Street Journal two years ago. "People outside a school's community can't tell you who won the Division III national championship in any sport."

But a university needs more than the national notoriety garnered by big-time athletics. It also needs a visionary leader. At Gonzaga, that would be the Rev. Robert Spitzer, the school's president, said Dale Goodwin, public relations director for the school. When Spitzer arrived at Gonzaga in the summer of 1998, he implemented a program, "Momentum 2003,"to bolster contributions, admissions and the caliber of students.

"Between Father Spitzer and the success of Gonzaga's basketball team, the two coincided to the benefit of the university," Goodwin said.

Goodwin said the average grade-point average of high school seniors applying to Gonzaga is up from 3.6 to 3.7, and SAT scores are up from 1100 to 1195. While the percentages may seem small, they are statistically significant for Gonzaga, whose numbers have been somewhat static for years.

Both Goodwin and Roth said the number of nationally-televised basketball games on major networks or ESPN helps tremendously in the university's efforts to showcase its academic and athletic programs. This year, Gonzaga has four nationally-televised games. There will be more if they return to the NCAA basketball tournament's quest for the national championship.

A REAL EFFECT
For Gonzaga, the Flutie Effect is real. So is the school's commitment to academic  excellence. And the two are not mutually exclusive: A study published on the U.S. Sports Academy Web site found that prospective students apparently associate high academic quality with a university's athletic success. Researchers Jeffrey Lucas of the University of Maryland and Michael Lovaglia of the University of Iowa also suggested that a program's success, unrelated to money actually spent, may lead to increased student applications, which in turn enables admissions departments to be more selective in their acceptances.

Former Gonzaga University Dean of Admissions Philip Ballinger, now dean of admissions at WSU, once resisted the tie-in between sports and general admissions. Not anymore. Gonzaga's winning basketball team was the turning point.

"I've become a believer," Ballinger said.

Christina Kelly is a Spokane-based writer and Washington CEO Magazine's wine columnist.