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Post by unafied on Dec 4, 2022 7:59:26 GMT -6
Wasn’t sure if this really deserves its own thread since the column may be behind a paywall for some of you, but… Gregg DeWalt has a pretty harsh editorial in this morning’s paper. Basically, he’s saying what we here on this board all know: that the university had no good financial plan for D1, and continues to trail behind almost all of our peers in athletics spending with no clear timeline to change that. Here’s the two most relevant paragraphs, IMO:
Mistakes have been plentiful almost from the start in 2011 when UNA officials made it known they wanted to take athletics to the more prominent Division I level. When the Ohio Valley Conference turned them down early on, there was an opportunity to go all-in on fundraising and facilities upgrades to ensure the athletics had a chance to be competitive from the jump when a conference did issue an invitation to join.
Instead, UNA was ill-prepared when it got the ASUN invitation, and four-plus years later, the results are clear that not a lot has changed. That’s not the fault of the coaches or athletes who have given their all to find success. Instead, blame lies squarely on an administration that apparently doesn’t see the value in having successful athletics.
Pretty damning stuff.
So, with a new football coach coming in, and now this out there in the public eye, will anything be done about it? Does anyone outside of those of us on this board CARE enough to do anything about it?
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Post by brandon on Dec 4, 2022 9:30:14 GMT -6
Wasn’t sure if this really deserves its own thread since the column may be behind a paywall for some of you, but… Gregg DeWalt has a pretty harsh editorial in this morning’s paper. Basically, he’s saying what we here on this board all know: that the university had no good financial plan for D1, and continues to trail behind almost all of our peers in athletics spending with no clear timeline to change that. Here’s the two most relevant paragraphs, IMO: Mistakes have been plentiful almost from the start in 2011 when UNA officials made it known they wanted to take athletics to the more prominent Division I level. When the Ohio Valley Conference turned them down early on, there was an opportunity to go all-in on fundraising and facilities upgrades to ensure the athletics had a chance to be competitive from the jump when a conference did issue an invitation to join.
Instead, UNA was ill-prepared when it got the ASUN invitation, and four-plus years later, the results are clear that not a lot has changed. That’s not the fault of the coaches or athletes who have given their all to find success. Instead, blame lies squarely on an administration that apparently doesn’t see the value in having successful athletics.
Pretty damning stuff. So, with a new football coach coming in, and now this out there in the public eye, will anything be done about it? Does anyone outside of those of us on this board CARE enough to do anything about it? I do, that's the reason I had a talk with Looney... The problem was not moving to D1, but how they are doing it on a "budget". They can still right the ship, they just need to act and increase the budget. Like I said in a previous thread, (at least I hope this is the attitude) we are not just competing with our conference mates, but if we want to be an FCS power, make the dance in basketball, have consistent opportunities for Omaha and so on, we have to compete with Montana, NDSU, UC Davis, and most of the G5 in non football sports. No, money can't buy wins. But it will make recruiting easier, strength, conditioning and recovery easier, game planning easier, coaching hiring easier, and so on. It's a chain reaction... You can tell what sport has had the most funding, softball. Now we need to put that much or more emphasis on the major sports that actually make the athletic department money. It's called investing for a reason. In my opinion, for UNA football to be successful in FCS, a HC salary should be no less that 280k, and that's to start. They should be building a new stadium with no less than 15k seats. (Would we fill it?) We just averaged over 7k with a 1-10 season. I think 15k is reasonable. Basketball needs a coach worth 250k a year to start. Make nice incentives for winning (incentives is for all sports) conference championship, getting in the NIT and more for NCAA. Flowers is nice, but it still needs the entrance blown out, put more floor seats on the entrance end that go up to the top. 5k seats should be the goal. The renovation took Flowers from over 4k to right under 3k. Blow out the entrance, make it extremely nice, and add seats to that end. Baseball needs a new stadium and facilities to match softball. Pay accordingly? I don't know the pay scale for D1 baseball coaches. How do we get this done? Well, show up to any meetings you can and demand it, especially if you are an alum or a "vested" fan (someone who spends money on athletics outside of buying tickets). Become a vested fan. I know money is tight, but I also know that there are people who donate 100$ a year. It's not much, but the more who do it, the better. There are also people who donate thousands a year, And I know from experience, those donors are treated the same as the donors who donate 100 a year. They understand and appreciate the help. The athletic club (sportsman's club) is an excellent way to be vested, meet other passionate fans, enjoy fellowship and voice praises or concerns about the state of the athletic department. (We are pissed about the lack if Gold as well) I will say this, I know for a fact, giving has increased dramatically since going D1.
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Post by ekusteve on Dec 4, 2022 9:44:52 GMT -6
What helped kick start athletics giving at EKU IMHO was the Athletic Department having its own development staff separate from the University development staff.
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Post by roaringsince96 on Dec 4, 2022 12:06:31 GMT -6
Our endowment is double or triple most schools. I know that money is earmarked, but should it used differently too? I liked the football lockers asked for donations. One of the few times athletics has asked for something. Opportunity a plenty, can’t be lazy with those opportunities.
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Post by brandon on Dec 4, 2022 12:21:25 GMT -6
Our endowment is double or triple most schools. I know that money is earmarked, but should it used differently too? I liked the football lockers asked for donations. One of the few times athletics has asked for something. Opportunity a plenty, can’t be lazy with those opportunities. I still don't fully understand the endowment thing... If endowment is indicative of budget (probably not) then we should be able to out pace JSU easily...
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Post by unalions on Dec 4, 2022 13:21:09 GMT -6
Our endowment is double or triple most schools. I know that money is earmarked, but should it used differently too? I liked the football lockers asked for donations. One of the few times athletics has asked for something. Opportunity a plenty, can’t be lazy with those opportunities. I still don't fully understand the endowment thing... If endowment is indicative of budget (probably not) then we should be able to out pace JSU easily... From what I know and read, they are two different animals. I’m not fully understanding it all either but this article sheds some light on it. Basically, that money is invested to earn interest and those earnings are used to fund whatever the donor earmarked it for like a specific scholarship or faculty position. Nowadays, the biggest college athletics programs have endowments of their own. www.ednc.org/perspective-why-cant-colleges-use-endowments-to-fill-budget-gaps/Here’s info about how the athletics endowment works at Texas. texassports.com/sports/2021/2/22/endowments
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Post by unafied on Dec 4, 2022 14:14:46 GMT -6
At the risk of not respecting the paywall, I’ll post one additional paragraph from that article…
“Currently, the athletic budget is capped at 6.25% — a number that still has not been reached — of the overall university budget. That pales in comparison to the institutions the Lions are recruiting against and puts the Lions behind the proverbial 8-ball even before they get started. For example, UNA spent a little over $9.9 million on athletics in 2021 according to collegefactual.com, some $6.5 million less than cross-state rival Jacksonville State.”
Now keep in mind the university already claims we are the lowest-funded four-year in the state… something I still don’t understand, other than the long history of the Shoals’ worthless politicians probably not fighting for our share of the pie. So we’re already starting with less, and then athletics only gets a max of 6.25% of that. I’d like to know why that 6.25% number exists, and if it’s possible it can be raised.
UNA now seems to be larger enrollment-wise than JSU, so I have a hard time understanding why they seem to have (relatively) so much more than we do.
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Post by brandon on Dec 4, 2022 15:09:31 GMT -6
At the risk of not respecting the paywall, I’ll post one additional paragraph from that article… “Currently, the athletic budget is capped at 6.25% — a number that still has not been reached — of the overall university budget. That pales in comparison to the institutions the Lions are recruiting against and puts the Lions behind the proverbial 8-ball even before they get started. For example, UNA spent a little over $9.9 million on athletics in 2021 according to collegefactual.com, some $6.5 million less than cross-state rival Jacksonville State.” Now keep in mind the university already claims we are the lowest-funded four-year in the state… something I still don’t understand, other than the long history of the Shoals’ worthless politicians probably not fighting for our share of the pie. So we’re already starting with less, and then athletics only gets a max of 6.25% of that. I’d like to know why that 6.25% number exists, and if it’s possible it can be raised. UNA now seems to be larger enrollment-wise than JSU, so I have a hard time understanding why they seem to have (relatively) so much more than we do. I can answer the last part. JSU, is not afraid to go in very deep debt to do things like building a baseball stadium, football facilities and so on. UNA, would rather accumulate the money first. And that's not just in athletics. To my knowledge, UNA owes nothing for facilities that have recently been built. As far as how they run the budget, I don't have a problem with not going into debt. What I have a problem with, is knowing we have the money to have a top notch athletic department, but not letting them have more than the 6.25%. UNA can afford to build a very nice stadium and give higher salaries to coaches. It's not the athletic departments fault, and Kitts can't just say, here is more money. It has to be voted on. So I say, get everyone you know and start pestering the crap out of them until they cave.
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Post by northalaspectator on Dec 4, 2022 16:43:01 GMT -6
Back in 2011 when the BOT voted to go D1 the Athletic Student fee was $14 per semester hour and the voted to increase it up to an additional $8 so that would be $22 per semester hour. I don’t know if it is that now or not. My understanding is that they said that said that would never increase regardless of the cost and future BOT members couldn’t vote to change that.
So either Student enrollment has to keep increasing or some other form of funding.
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Post by unafied on Dec 4, 2022 16:52:40 GMT -6
At the risk of not respecting the paywall, I’ll post one additional paragraph from that article… “Currently, the athletic budget is capped at 6.25% — a number that still has not been reached — of the overall university budget. That pales in comparison to the institutions the Lions are recruiting against and puts the Lions behind the proverbial 8-ball even before they get started. For example, UNA spent a little over $9.9 million on athletics in 2021 according to collegefactual.com, some $6.5 million less than cross-state rival Jacksonville State.” Now keep in mind the university already claims we are the lowest-funded four-year in the state… something I still don’t understand, other than the long history of the Shoals’ worthless politicians probably not fighting for our share of the pie. So we’re already starting with less, and then athletics only gets a max of 6.25% of that. I’d like to know why that 6.25% number exists, and if it’s possible it can be raised. UNA now seems to be larger enrollment-wise than JSU, so I have a hard time understanding why they seem to have (relatively) so much more than we do. I can answer the last part. JSU, is not afraid to go in very deep debt to do things like building a baseball stadium, football facilities and so on. UNA, would rather accumulate the money first. And that's not just in athletics. To my knowledge, UNA owes nothing for facilities that have recently been built. As far as how they run the budget, I don't have a problem with not going into debt. What I have a problem with, is knowing we have the money to have a top notch athletic department, but not letting them have more than the 6.25%. UNA can afford to build a very nice stadium and give higher salaries to coaches. It's not the athletic departments fault, and Kitts can't just say, here is more money. It has to be voted on. So I say, get everyone you know and start pestering the crap out of them until they cave. I can appreciate being fiscally responsible, especially as a public university. I think Gregg’s point in the article is what we’ve all been saying all along: they are trying to do everything on the cheap yet still reap the benefits of being able to call themselves D1 (such as increased enrollment). So do the people in charge, whether it be the president or the BOT or whoever, not care about being successful athletically? Or, were they simply this naive about the resources it would take to be anything other than a bottom feeder? I hate to beat the dead horse, but the stadium issue is not something that just happened overnight. It’s just baffling that we sit here five years into being D1 and there’s still no announced plan. We could’ve built one 15 years ago and it wouldn’t have been too soon. Is it all because they “don’t want to spend the money”? Being frugal doesn’t mean you never spend money. You just spend it wisely. Nobody who cares about UNA would’ve ever thought spending money on that was unwise. In fact, I’m mostly of the opinion that facilities are the better option to spend money on than coaching salaries. Not that you want to consistently pay too little, but we all know that the salary often doesn’t match the results you get. Obviously it would be nice to eventually be above-average in both. I agree completely with you, though. We definitely need to demand more from the university leaders. Unfortunately we can’t really “vote with our wallets” if that just gives them all the more reason to not invest in the program.
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Post by brandon on Dec 4, 2022 18:06:43 GMT -6
Back in 2011 when the BOT voted to go D1 the Athletic Student fee was $14 per semester hour and the voted to increase it up to an additional $8 so that would be $22 per semester hour. I don’t know if it is that now or not. My understanding is that they said that said that would never increase regardless of the cost and future BOT members couldn’t vote to change that. So either Student enrollment has to keep increasing or some other form of funding. That is to supplement what the 6.25%... The student fees don't have to change in order for the school to give more money to the athletics budget. At least that's how it's explained to me... Ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorships also go into the budget, albeit, that's liquid and changes from year to year.
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Post by roaringsince96 on Dec 4, 2022 20:54:56 GMT -6
We need to be structured in our decision making. The logo changes, yet where can anyone buy the new logo? I had some friends recently ask me how you buy the new logo. I think there is one men’s long sleeve shirt available at the bookstore with the new logo? All our merchandise should be available based on our team logos and colors, which is quite off from our fight song. If we wanted the new logo to take off, where is the marketing behind it? I just bought 2 new magnets and a home banner. The magnets are the old UNA purple and gold, which I like, but didn’t have an option for new logo. I also bought the banner that has the old Lion and North Alabama in bright yellow, far from gold. All our teams need to look the same, with same school colors. All our fan merchandise need to resemble the team colors and logos. It’s not that hard. Small piece of it the pie, but revenue would grow.
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Post by ladigahills on Dec 4, 2022 22:37:07 GMT -6
At the risk of not respecting the paywall, I’ll post one additional paragraph from that article… “Currently, the athletic budget is capped at 6.25% — a number that still has not been reached — of the overall university budget. That pales in comparison to the institutions the Lions are recruiting against and puts the Lions behind the proverbial 8-ball even before they get started. For example, UNA spent a little over $9.9 million on athletics in 2021 according to collegefactual.com, some $6.5 million less than cross-state rival Jacksonville State.” Now keep in mind the university already claims we are the lowest-funded four-year in the state… something I still don’t understand, other than the long history of the Shoals’ worthless politicians probably not fighting for our share of the pie. So we’re already starting with less, and then athletics only gets a max of 6.25% of that. I’d like to know why that 6.25% number exists, and if it’s possible it can be raised. UNA now seems to be larger enrollment-wise than JSU, so I have a hard time understanding why they seem to have (relatively) so much more than we do. I can answer the last part. JSU, is not afraid to go in very deep debt to do things like building a baseball stadium, football facilities and so on. UNA, would rather accumulate the money first. And that's not just in athletics. To my knowledge, UNA owes nothing for facilities that have recently been built. As far as how they run the budget, I don't have a problem with not going into debt. What I have a problem with, is knowing we have the money to have a top notch athletic department, but not letting them have more than the 6.25%. UNA can afford to build a very nice stadium and give higher salaries to coaches. It's not the athletic departments fault, and Kitts can't just say, here is more money. It has to be voted on. So I say, get everyone you know and start pestering the crap out of them until they cave. JSU baseball stadium was paid for by a one time donation of 2 million dollars. JSU football stadium expansion is financed and built by the Jacksonville State University Foundation. JSU finances aren’t being used.
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Post by unafan002 on Dec 5, 2022 0:46:53 GMT -6
I can answer the last part. JSU, is not afraid to go in very deep debt to do things like building a baseball stadium, football facilities and so on. UNA, would rather accumulate the money first. And that's not just in athletics. To my knowledge, UNA owes nothing for facilities that have recently been built. As far as how they run the budget, I don't have a problem with not going into debt. What I have a problem with, is knowing we have the money to have a top notch athletic department, but not letting them have more than the 6.25%. UNA can afford to build a very nice stadium and give higher salaries to coaches. It's not the athletic departments fault, and Kitts can't just say, here is more money. It has to be voted on. So I say, get everyone you know and start pestering the crap out of them until they cave. JSU baseball stadium was paid for by a one time donation of 2 million dollars. JSU football stadium expansion is financed and built by the Jacksonville State University Foundation. JSU finances aren’t being used. JSU’s baseball stadium cost 7.5 million.
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Post by ladigahills on Dec 5, 2022 6:18:38 GMT -6
JSU baseball stadium was paid for by a one time donation of 2 million dollars. JSU football stadium expansion is financed and built by the Jacksonville State University Foundation. JSU finances aren’t being used. JSU’s baseball stadium cost 7.5 million. Early in the summer, the program received a combined private gift of $2 million, the largest ever made to Jacksonville State University. That gift kick-started a campaign for private funds to help finance the park, which will be built around the existing Rudy Abbott Field at the corner of Rudy Abbott Highway and Pennsylvania Avenue. The school didnt have to foot the bill.
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