Cal has a much stronger tradition of faculty self-governance than Rutgers, and faculty at Cal even think they have an obligation to pay attention to campus governance. But the faculty largely realizes that, even so, athletics is just too entrenched to remove even when the program is bleeding money.
I would like to believe that athletics and academics go together, but I often find it hard to persuade myself. Would you consider LSU, Clemson, Ohio State and Alabama to be the leading academic institutions in this country? Of course not.The leading schools are the Ivy League schools, at which athletics doesn't play much part.(When was the last time the Harvard-Yale game was nationally televised?)
Stanford, Michigan and Duke would not be much different academically if they didn't have leading athletic programs (although Stanford is pretty mediocre in "money" sports, and Duke really has only the basketball team, although the footbal team does show signs of lfe.)
Athletics is important, not because they help the school's academics, but because they create community at the campus (there's nothing like being with thousands of fellow fans rooting for a team), and so they bring people together. They are also helpful at a state university in building support among legislators and voters. That doesn't require a "leading" program, but it does require one that is at least competitive. We now have, apparently, such a program in basketball, and, under Schiano, we are going to have one in football sooner than the pessimists think.
