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ST_Lawson
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That's where I was getting that idea then. I thought there was some connection or crossover...at least at one point.
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Tere North
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sealhall74 wrote:I thought DI was at least 7 sports for men and 7 for women OR 6 for men and 8 for women.
Somehow, Chicago State getting it done with 6 men and 7 women. Are they getting some sort of waiver?
Track & Field typically counts twice - usually school have both an indoor season and an outdoor season. Somehow they are considered very different (and most, but not all events are the same). That would make CSU actually 7 men and 8 women.
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Tere North
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ST_Lawson wrote:For a school that has football, you need to have more women's sports to help make up for the scholarship differential. You'll see a lot of schools have a women's team in a sport or two without the men's equivalent. For example, none of the Dakota schools in the Summit have men's soccer, but everyone has women's soccer. Also why all the schools have women's volleyball as well.
You actually don't have to have more women's teams than men's if you have football. Western has had the same number for quite a while. But yes, it is far more typical to have more women's teams than men's as it makes much easier to justify gender equality.
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sealhall74
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Tere North wrote:
sealhall74 wrote:I thought DI was at least 7 sports for men and 7 for women OR 6 for men and 8 for women.
Somehow, Chicago State getting it done with 6 men and 7 women. Are they getting some sort of waiver?
Track & Field typically counts twice - usually school have both an indoor season and an outdoor season. Somehow they are considered very different (and most, but not all events are the same). That would make CSU actually 7 men and 8 women.
That is convenient. Not only the same events, but usually the same athletes as well. NCAA reminds me of the IRS with these "loopholes".
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brewer2125
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With everyone on this board saying cut volleyball and cut tennis, no wonder the coaches head for the hills every season. Wouldn't you if you were in there shoes and we know it all alumni were clamoring to cut their program? Geez. Show some support people.

Cutting tennis or volleyball or softball won't resolve much of any budget woes. Cut football instead and you WILL see some real, positive impact to the athletic program's bottom line, and at the same time will likely give some real help to many other programs that don't get the same REAL resources as football (yeah, yeah, yeah, there is an Equility in Sports plan out there at WIU, but save that argument because piecemeal gifts to the womens' programs at WIU don't equal what football gets, period).

Over the past 10 years, WIU football's winning percentage is about .340. The stadium holds over 16,000, yet according to the NCAA's 2014 stats (2015 isn't published yet), only about 4,000 fans actually attend a game at WIU. In sum, the team has lost 2 out of every 3 games over the past 10 years, and about 2 of 3 seats go unused at an average game. This is a clear example of WIU spending (a lot of) good money on a bad product.

No one (except about 80 football players) go to WIU because of football. Cutting football won't have a negative impact on the school - attendance won't shrink. In fact, there is a long list of Division I schools that cut a cash hog like football, and in turn still had good enrollment and at the same time (apparently using money that football as wasting) to turn out a lot of other good athletic programs. For example, UIC, UW-Milwaukee, Bradley, DePaul, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Boston U., Creighton, Gonzaga, Marquette, Pepperdine, and the list goes on and on..... Dropping football will not negatively impact WIU's reputation, which these days is touted as being a good school where you can get a good education without going $120,000 in debt.

If the WIU athletic program is in a financial bind, then it's time to give some serious thought to cutting loose the most-costly losing program at WIU - football. Life at WIU would still go on, and the monies would likely help give a shot in the arm to several other programs that until now have only been getting piecemeal handouts (just so WIU could say that "in the aggregate" the womens' programs received equal treatment).
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brewer2125 wrote:With everyone on this board saying cut volleyball and cut tennis, no wonder the coaches head for the hills every season. Wouldn't you if you were in there shoes and we know it all alumni were clamoring to cut their program? Geez. Show some support people.

Cutting tennis or volleyball or softball won't resolve much of any budget woes. Cut football instead and you WILL see some real, positive impact to the athletic program's bottom line, and at the same time will likely give some real help to many other programs that don't get the same REAL resources as football (yeah, yeah, yeah, there is an Equility in Sports plan out there at WIU, but save that argument because piecemeal gifts to the womens' programs at WIU don't equal what football gets, period).

Over the past 10 years, WIU football's winning percentage is about .340. The stadium holds over 16,000, yet according to the NCAA's 2014 stats (2015 isn't published yet), only about 4,000 fans actually attend a game at WIU. In sum, the team has lost 2 out of every 3 games over the past 10 years, and about 2 of 3 seats go unused at an average game. This is a clear example of WIU spending (a lot of) good money on a bad product.

No one (except about 80 football players) go to WIU because of football. Cutting football won't have a negative impact on the school - attendance won't shrink. In fact, there is a long list of Division I schools that cut a cash hog like football, and in turn still had good enrollment and at the same time (apparently using money that football as wasting) to turn out a lot of other good athletic programs. For example, UIC, UW-Milwaukee, Bradley, DePaul, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Boston U., Creighton, Gonzaga, Marquette, Pepperdine, and the list goes on and on..... Dropping football will not negatively impact WIU's reputation, which these days is touted as being a good school where you can get a good education without going $120,000 in debt.

If the WIU athletic program is in a financial bind, then it's time to give some serious thought to cutting loose the most-costly losing program at WIU - football. Life at WIU would still go on, and the monies would likely help give a shot in the arm to several other programs that until now have only been getting piecemeal handouts (just so WIU could say that "in the aggregate" the womens' programs received equal treatment).
I think we should drop all sports except soccer because it is the only thing we really win at consistently and I do not like soccer so I just will pretend we do not have any sports.
brewer2125
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Certainly another way of coming at this issue.... :)
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I guess that's one option. Another thing to think about is that having football doesn't just mean 80 football players. It also means no marching band (maybe not every member of the band would have gone elsewhere, but a significant number would have...myself included), possibly fewer athletic training/sports medicine students who specifically want to work with football-related injuries, and likely at least a few other students who gave Western another look due to their local HS football star signing to play here.

Another thing to keep in mind...how many of those schools that dropped football and remained/became successful were "rural" universities. It feels to me like the schools that can do that transition well are mostly urban schools.
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brewer2125
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All good points, certainly.

As to the marching band issue, that is a point (and in that regard kudos to the late Dale Hopper, from my era at WIU, which is 1982-1986). Not having been in a marching band, I can't speak to whether any (or many) students that go to Western go there specifically for marching band, or is it a factor that tips the scale, or is not a factor but becomes something the student gets involved with because they are talented in music and want to get involved in some way once they get to WIU. I suspect that for the majority of student musicians, unless there is scholarship money involved, it is more likely to be a bonus rather than the principal factor. But yes, I am speculating on that point.

Athletic training students have many other sports to work with to achieve their academic and "lab" requirements. Those that desire football specific training can still probably accomplish their goal by working with local high school and JC teams (as WIU does coordinate with the local communities in several other respects). Again, I wonder how many athletic training students would go to Eastern, Southern, Northern, solely because WIU would not have a football team.

Not sure how many students pick a school because their local HS football player went there (unless it is the player's girlfriend). Guessing that number is likely to be very low, if not zero.

I am not sure how the urban/rural distinction would make any difference after the program is dropped. All schools have to travel to some degree for their schedules. In that regard, urban schools would actually have it easier justifying having a team because they would be closer to airports most of the time. I can see that the urban/rural distinction could be an issue moreso for the urban school in deciding whether or not to continue having a team because an urban school might be faced with having to shell out the dollars for likely more expensive real estate to maintain or expand a football program.

My point ultimately is not any different than what several commentators and analysts have already concluded, which is that football programs at most colleges and universities are a financial drain, and the size of that deficit dwarfs what most other school teams require for their budgets. I think it would be preferable to try to keep as many different programs alive, rather than maintaining a cash guzzling football program and offering few other sports, especially where the cost of maintaining the football team requires the elimination of a womens' team. That is, if I recall correctly, the exact reason why we have Title IX in the first place - which is to afford women TRULY equal resources and opportunities in collegiate sports. Title IX is not satisfied, in my opinion, by spending millions of dollars on one football team, then taking the same amount of money and sprinkling it over multiple womens' programs, and then saying all these other teams' athlete are being afforded an "equal" opportunity.

With that mindset, if there is any cutting to be made, then there should be a genuine attempt to keep the opportunities TRULY equal - which can be easily accomplished without football (as there is no equivalent on the womens' side). For example, mens golf requires the same resources as womens golf. Same with tennis, Same with track and field. Same with basketball. Same with swimming and diving. Same with baseball and softball. The same with shooting sports (which I understand some WIU alumni are lobbying to add at WIU). The same with gymnastics. The same with bowling. The same with ice hockey. Etc. Etc. So, to me, unless football is turning a profit, which I can guarantee WIU's football team is not in that tiny market with no TV revenue, it should be the first target of any AD budget cuts because cutting that program does not require the cutting of anything else - and because without football, the other programs compliment each other - precisely as Title IX requires.
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ST_Lawson
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brewer2125 wrote:All good points, certainly.

As to the marching band issue, that is a point (and in that regard kudos to the late Dale Hopper, from my era at WIU, which is 1982-1986). Not having been in a marching band, I can't speak to whether any (or many) students that go to Western go there specifically for marching band, or is it a factor that tips the scale, or is not a factor but becomes something the student gets involved with because they are talented in music and want to get involved in some way once they get to WIU. I suspect that for the majority of student musicians, unless there is scholarship money involved, it is more likely to be a bonus rather than the principal factor. But yes, I am speculating on that point.
Not going to dig into everything yet, but just to answer your question, yes, there are talent grant scholarships that are awarded, some of which go to students that are specifically here for marching band. It might be somewhat different now, but I know that a large group of people that I marched with (tail end of Dale Hopper era) came to Western specifically due to the positive notoriety of the marching band.

This is just one specific example, but when I was looking at schools to attend, schools that did not have a marching band were the first ones I cut from my list. I was accepted to U of I, and Western (among others), but decided that I wanted to stay closer to home and that I liked the "corps-style" of Western's band as opposed to the "Big 10-style" of the Marching Illini.
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