Ohio U. TF- The Real Story - Behind the Axe

I genuinely support this cause and I think it is horrible to bash Dauby because he is telling you the truth about college football. You said Indiana, Illinois and Northwestern would all lose money. Well you don't know much about Big 10 football. Those schools all make money and you can check it out online as well. Indiana $5mil, Illinois $11mil, Northwestern $6mil PROFIT for each football team you named. It is a horrible thing that this is happening to a good program with a good history but football isn't the evil here. They fund every sport at the schools that do make money and I am greatful for my colleges football team that paid for my travel and education.

Well if you boil it down to MAC schools, they don't make profits from football, yet they are chasing after the big time at whatever the price. Looking at last years number, Toledo made money, Miami broke even, everyone else did not profit from football (not even close to breaking even).

dauby the douche,

Keiser has run a few more races than the marathon.

Age: 34

Hometown: Cleveland, OH

High School: Kirtland High School

College: Miami University

Goals: Qualify for 2008 Marathon Olympic Trials.

Personal Records:

1500m: 3:50

5000m: 14:13

5-Mile: 23:55

10000m: 29:53

Half-marathon: 1:04:35

Marathon: 2:17:20

not so fast my friend.... how much money does football make at the gate for home games? what about the tv revenue? does this cover all those luxuries? they need to have these luxuries to compete with the other programs in recruiting.

"you guys have the right plan, you just got the wrong man."

don't blame the ad, board of directors or boosters for putting so much money into football. blame the american people who watch so many games on espn and travel to so many games.

lee corso wrote:

not so fast my friend.... how much money does football make at the gate for home games? what about the tv revenue? does this cover all those luxuries? they need to have these luxuries to compete with the other programs in recruiting.

"you guys have the right plan, you just got the wrong man."

don't blame the ad, board of directors or boosters for putting so much money into football. blame the american people who watch so many games on espn and travel to so many games.

Remember, we're talking about the MAC. They are spending all of this money and nobody is going to the games and nobody is watching on TV. These ADs are just trying to be good at football so they can get a job in a BCS conference. Most don't give a rat's ass about the long term success or failure of the universities at which they currently work.

Man, you got me there!!!

A decent marathon runner who has raced on a track! WOW...who in the world would have seen that one coming?!?

It's weird how I referred to this guy as a Marathon runner. You scold me that I'm wrong----YET list his GOAL as Qualifying for the '08 Oly MARATHON trials.

So, now I left sitting here thinking to myself: ARE YOU REALLY THAT DUMB???

Dauby,

For the sake of everyone else...Please shut up. You attack anyone for a having an opinion different than yours and for even voicing an opinion. I really wish you weren't from Ohio. You sound like you're from New Jersey...Prick.

Track & Field coaches, athletes and friends

Please get involved to SAVE TRACK & FIELD

Ohio University is the latest to drop its Men's Track and Field program. Ohio University joins Bowling Green, Toledo, Ball State, Western Michigan, Marshall and West Virginia who all dropped track and field in the last few years.

There are 728 boys' high school track and field teams in Ohio according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association. Of the twelve boys Championships the OHSAA sponsors, track and field has the third most schools sponsoring a team. Only basketball and baseball have more high schools represented in OHSAA than track and field. With the popularity of high school track and field one wonders why this sport is being cut.

One of the reasons Athletic Directors look to cut track & field is that they count indoor and outdoor track and field as two sports. As a result, you can reduce the number of men participating in intercollegiate athletics by 40-50 - twice. It would be my suggestion to drop indoor track and field as a sport but not outdoor track and field.

I feel a college should take a close look at the diversity of a track and field team. A few years ago an African American trustee at a "State University" spoke out loudly about not dropping track and field, as it was one of the main sports that had a large number of African-Americans and minority students on the team. He pointed out how this school's overall African-American and minority student population was low. He stressed to his fellow trustees that it would be a bad policy to reduce the opportunity for minorities. This university kept track and field.

Track & Field is the oldest sport known to mankind. There are more countries participating in track and field in the Olympics than any other Olympic sport. Running is a lifetime sport and we need to do more to get people in Ohio and the U.S.A. fit and healthy

If a university needs to increase the number of women participating in intercollegiate athletics I suggest changing cross-country to cross country/distance running for women and hire an extra coach or two to help expand the program. I am sure with a little effort the coaches can get 40-85 women running in the fall.

What can YOU do?

1) Write the universities Presidents, Athletic Directors and Trustees members to voice your concern, this is especially important if you graduated from the university, recommend students to go to the university and if you or your business donate money to the university. (you can find contact information on the university’s web site)

2) Write a letter to your Ohio congress/senate members and voice your concern. Go to this

site -

http://www.house.state.oh.us/jsps/Representatives.jsp

and type in your zip code to

find your representative –

3) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and voice your concern.

4) Pass this information on to as many friends as possible and ask them to do the same

With YOUR help we can work to SAVE Track and Field !!

Matt McGowan, Editor/Publisher RUNOHIO

http://www.runohio.com

Boise St. competes for talent with BYU and Pac-10 schools (WSU, UW, UO, OSU, etc.)

This "fight" is purely in vain. Despite the fact that football may cost and lose ungodly sums of money, it's still the most popular sport on campus for the most part. Alums and fans aren't congregating on campus several weekends in the fall to watch the xc team compete. How many home xc and track meets have typically been on OU's schedule every year and would the combined attendance equal even that for a single home football game or even a single home basketball game? Even if no admission is made from t&f and xc, it's pretty clear that you piss off a LOT less people in making cuts in xc and track than you would by making cuts in football. I'm as big of a fan of distance running as anyone else here, but we really need to realize that outside of the BCS powerhouse conferences no non-revenue sport is safe, at least until gender equity and the NCAA minimum varsity sport limit are met, and so long as the NCAA doesn't look to start lowering the minimum varisty sport limit for D1. I see this type of thing continuing to happen all over until eventually the NCAA competition in xc and t&f in D1 is between programs from the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, ACC, and Pac-10 and maybe a few other lower tier conferences made up of the handful of other surviving programs. All other programs will have to drop to D2, D3, or club sport status or simply cease to exist outside of memory. That's the current trend and there's nothing in sight to stop it, certainly not a letter-writing campaign full of righteous indignation.

You are a stick in the mud!

Atleast they are trying to get something done while you sit and let collegiate track and field die.

What I don't understand is why the MAC seems so much more affected than other conferences of a similar level. Can someone explain?

Good to hear from Coach Parks (a true legend in the MAC).

Because the MAC is trying to spend the same money on football as the Big Ten without the same 70-100,000 gate revenue and big television contracts.

The MAC games are always on my local FOX sports Ohio. They usually come on first and in deciding whether to watch a football game with Akron and Ohio U. or any of them, I usually flip around to some fishing show or over to see how fat that little girl from the Cosby show is getting on "That's So Totally Raven".

They are trying to compete without the resources at the moment that the big football conferences have. Ohio University hired a Nebraska coach and they have to pay the big money. Those guys don't come cheap.

And they have had success in football with teams in the top 20. To get in a big bowl and hit the big money they are willing to do anything.

The MAC conference seems to think they have the potential to soon break into the national exposure for Basketball and Football as the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC and PAC 10. They are willing to sacrifice whatever costs it takes to give them that shot.

Their schools can't don't have the revenue to support a real college athlete program and still put the money out to get the football recruits they need to succeed.

So 9:15-9:20 runners might have to walk on somewhere else with track programs or they can look at some good D2 or D3 programs. I doubt that the entire MAC has much of an impact towards "killing Olympic sports" in this country.

Anyone with a future past high school as a professional runner either would be ready to go pro right out of high school or would be heavily recruited by a school safely supported by a lucrative football budget.

If people want to protest this than they should do it big. Not writing letters to the converted on Letsrun.com.

They should do something like the Delta's did on "Animal House" when they lost their fraternity and all got kicked out of school when they were on double-secret=probation. I would love to particpate in something like this.

I propose getting about 200 people together for a protest at the next home football game. Do it near the local TV truck so it might get some airplay. Put a few crosses down, get a guy that looks like Jesus wearing an Ohio University track uniform and put him up there with a sign, "We Died for Your Bonus, Coach Solich"

Got to make it big and get some notice. Emailing the AD and talking on here won't get any notice. Maybe a riot could break out and get on ESPN Game Day and the next Sunday Morning they might talk about it on The Sports Reporters on ESPN.

Wrong. They are trying to get the impossible done. It's time to embrace a new era and come up with a new system that fits it better. You, on the other hand, are useless and support wasted effort.

Except that they will have lost momentum if they wait until even the first home game next fall. That's why the AD timed this announcement for January, so that no potential fall-out would come about during football season.

Doomsayer wrote:

This "fight" is purely in vain. Despite the fact that football may cost and lose ungodly sums of money, it's still the most popular sport on campus for the most part. Alums and fans aren't congregating on campus several weekends in the fall to watch the xc team compete. How many home xc and track meets have typically been on OU's schedule every year and would the combined attendance equal even that for a single home football game or even a single home basketball game? Even if no admission is made from t&f and xc, it's pretty clear that you piss off a LOT less people in making cuts in xc and track than you would by making cuts in football.

Doomsayer is making some good points here.

I often wonder why Track and Cross Country Coaches seem to lack the vision to really market their competitions as "events", the way football does. Going to a football game is an event - there is always more to do than just watch football.

We haven't come up with ways to make it interesting. Even in the past years, I've not been able to go to a local meet anymore because of the boredom. Watch a race, sit for 15 minutes, watch a race, nothing for another 15 minutes. God it is painful to sit through a track meet! and I'm a fan.

If you want support and attendance at something, make it interesting.

Bowl Games and such.

I can't find the article and don't care to spend all day looking. There was an article back in December I believe, in mlive.com about the MAC.

Basically it said each school in the MAC paid $150,000 to for the conference to be part of the 3-4 bowls that the MAC has ties in with. This way the bowl is financially solvent and it is backdoor way around the minimum $750k pay out required by bowls.

Don't forget that going to a bowl means you also are responsible for your allotment of tickets that don't get sold. So, Western Michigan was responsible for 10,000 tickets to the toronto bowl. That mean's they paid face value for those tickets, what they don't sell, they eat financially.

So if they only sold 4,000, and had to eat 6,000 more at a guess of $20 a ticket, that's $120,000, plus the $150k they played to be in the bowl, so already $270,000 is lost. Team and personnel travel had to eat up another $150,000, so that's $420,000 eaten up. The conference gets a chunk so another $150,000 to $200,000 gone. your're basically breaking even, assuming they got the full payout.

So think of all the make schools that paid $150k and didn't even make a bowl game.

I think you are right on with not blaming football.

Football has come to the forefront of society the last 10 years, replacing baseball as America's sport.

Football is football. You can't do anything about it-except to stop watching it-which I like to watch it.

I blame the Olympic and National organizers. We as a country could have made Track a major attraction after the 1984 Olympics....but failed. And then again in 1996-much lesser scale-but if it started in 1984 by the Olympic and National Organizers--we would not be in the predicament we are in now.