Temple U cuts SEVEN sports

but imagine, their football team might impove to 4-8 in the next 5 yeas!

Had signed a few stud distance guys and probably more to come. Heartbroken for those kids.

Look, this is a bad day for track and for Temple, but that doesn't give you the right to spew racist bullshit like this.

harsh but true wrote:

temple grad wrote:

get rid of 7 sports so we can give 85 stupid black kids hundreds of thousands of dollars to play bad football... what a joke

Sounds terrible but I agree. Graduation rates for high-major basketball and football teams are atrocious. 4 years of undergrad I saw three basketball players charged with felonies, five expulsions, and only half the players graduate. Meanwhile I was a respectable DI runner, got great grades, and currently in medical school.

dont blame it all on them wrote:

Us college coaches need to step up our game and start bringing something tangible to the table or this trend will continually worsen. If you have used the excuse of "let our results do the talking" then you have no clue how the world works. Lets wake up and do something to make this sport a crowd pleaser/money maker.

Temple is cutting programs with significant fixed costs and zero revenue ie track. If the university is in financial trouble, it can't support a sports program like that. Yes, turning track into a moneymaker would change everything, but how do coaches do that? The only *realistic* thing I can think of is to sink major efforts into private fundraising - alumni clubs and so on.

I'm glad I ran at a non-football school. If I was a prospective athlete I would avoid colleges with football programs. There are plenty of strong programs out there without football weighing down the other sports. The school I went to gave a shit about all their sports. We had an elite university chess team, soccer, and lacrosse teams. Our bball team made the NCAA tourney and men's xc won conference twice. A fantastic swim and diving team. All this was possible because football wasn't draining the Athletic dept. All this possible in division 1.

What school is this? Tip: it's in adjacent state to the on temple resides in and has a well regarded engineering priogram and is 10 mins from a major city.

Another tip, walk on standards include a 4.26 mile and 1.58 800m.

College coach's opinion wrote:

It's only a matter of time before most D1 schools sponsor only football and basketball (which are their main sources of revenue) and enough women's sports to balance out the scholarships for Title IX. The only way there will be more is if there are NCAA or conference minimums to maintain their affiliations. D1 athletics are a business and they are going to keep narrowing their investments to the sports that generate revenue. What has happened at Temple (and other schools) is going to become a more and more frequent occurrence.

Most D1 schools lose money on all their sports. Especially football. And depending on how you do the accounting, by 'most' I mean all but a handful.

There's a tendency to try to fit these decisions into some kind of rational model. The fact is that these cuts are usually made by incompetent university officials who are making outsized salaries while failing to raise money. So, to make it look they're serious and business minded to their boards, they do what is typical of serious and business minded people (who have read a few pages of a few Jack Welch books...) they fire people.

The reason that U presidents supposedly draw the big salaries they do is that they are under huge pressures to raise money in order to fund programs. Most don't, though. And most are, unlike these sports, supposedly, never held to account for it.

Here is an irony - Mid America Conference (MAC) has plowed big $$$$ into football the last decade.

By defeating Northern Illinois U. (NIU) last night in the MAC championship game, Bowling Green State U. (BGSU) just cost the MAC conference an $8 million payout and a possible Heisman Trophy finalist.

Incredibly bad business decision on MAC's part to allow BGSU to win.

College coach's opinion wrote:

It's only a matter of time before most D1 schools sponsor only football and basketball (which are their main sources of revenue) and enough women's sports to balance out the scholarships for Title IX. The only way there will be more is if there are NCAA or conference minimums to maintain their affiliations. D1 athletics are a business and they are going to keep narrowing their investments to the sports that generate revenue. What has happened at Temple (and other schools) is going to become a more and more frequent occurrence.

As a college coach, you should know that there is already a minimum amount of sports per gender per semester that an institution has to have in order to compete in the NCAA.

temple grad wrote:

am I wrong? I know not everyone on the Temple team is black, but the majority of D1 football players are and most of them are worthless academically. Face facts.

so white people can't be stupid?

Non-revenue men's sports get crushed between the huge numbers in the football program and Title IX. Men's sports like track, volleyball, baseball, gymnastics, wrestling, golf, tennis and more will have a hard time surviving at a lot of DI schools. But other schools where football is not much of a revenue sport will drop it in favor of maintaining a bigger palette of athletics. Tiny DIII schools will be sustaining more sports than the marginal DI schools.

SOMEBODY GET BILL COSBY ON THE HORN!

Didn't he run at Temple? Serious runner, too! Had a track scholarship, and has stayed involved. I haven't read this whole thread. But seriously, Cosby could do a well-marketed benefit in Philadelphia and they could raise the money to restore the program.

Somebody needs to reach out and light a fire under him. Not faulting the dude for not being on top of this -- but maybe he could do something?

starmiler wrote:

SOMEBODY GET BILL COSBY ON THE HORN!

Didn't he run at Temple? Serious runner, too! Had a track scholarship, and has stayed involved. I haven't read this whole thread. But seriously, Cosby could do a well-marketed benefit in Philadelphia and they could raise the money to restore the program.

Somebody needs to reach out and light a fire under him. Not faulting the dude for not being on top of this -- but maybe he could do something?

bippity bippity bop shuwop duwop zib zob zoobidy doo

2 fast 2 funeral

U mich?

So Temple axes mens T&F and keeps XC? What distance runner of any repute is going to want to run XC in the fall when there is no intercollegiate indoor track or outdoor track to compete in at Temple? Temple's XC will suck, which will provide administrators the reason to cancel XC too in a couple of years. And Temple's administrators are probably well aware of that. Sad. So very sad.....

I don't mind the football bashing but the decision goes the other way on some occasions: Hofstra, Iona, LaSalle, Northeastern

http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2009/11/football.html

Following an extensive review process, Northeastern University has elected to discontinue its intercollegiate football program. The decision is consistent with the university’s strategic approach to prioritize programs and invest in signature strengths.

“Our goal for athletics is to achieve sustainable excellence in all areas,” said Athletic Director Peter Roby, who made the initial recommendation, which received the strong support of the university administration, the president, and the Board of Trustees. In an open letter to the Northeastern community, Roby continued, “We do not define success merely through wins and losses. Instead, we recognize that success comes from creating a positive student-athlete experience. The primary motivation for this decision was based on the significant obstacles to providing this experience for our football players.”

More & more colleges are investing in soccer, particularly since they have women's soccer and can share facilities.

Football is institutionalized, and has a history of pulling the school together, even at the high school level.

Football isn't going away.

Northeastern's decision has been a good one, and it follows the decision by BU to do the same. One thing that is unique about these two schools is that they do have revenue generating sport, men's ice hockey. I think both can look at the improved success of the athletic department and draw a line directly towards the elimination of football, although it makes Harry Agganis' statue a little out of place.