Men's and Women's outdoor track

[ZachTheZip]

Congratulations to the Men and Women Zips teams who both won MAC championships earlier today.

[72 Roo]

Can any member of the nation give a recap of what kind of event the MAC Track championships were? How did the track look with the new seating? Was it filled? Was the weather good, bad? If there was a crowd, did they get into it? Did it reflect well on our athletic program and the university as a whole?I'm hoping it was a resounding success. The men and the women sure rose to the occassion. Congratulations to them and coach Mitchell. The few pictures I saw on GoZips.com gave the impression that the event was staged well. The stands in the background of one picture looked good. I thought it was a class act to have flowers along the infield of the track. The podium for first, second and third places gave the impression this was a first class meet.Finally, do we now have the venue that can support more serious and prestigious meets? Ones that will draw crowds and maybe a little revenue? I hope so. Our track program continues to be a great source of pride and I'd like to see them shoot for the stars.Well done Zip tracksters!

[johnnyzip84]

When I saw the picture of the Men's 100 finish in the Sunday Beacon Journal, I noticed the winner was a UA freshmen by the name of Phil Ferguson. That caught my eye because of another Phil Ferguson who used to do the sports on Channel 23 back in the day and now performs numerous tasks for WNIR, notably the news during Bob Golic's afternoon show. I was listening to Steve French this morning and it turns out that the younger Phil (Jr) is the sports/newscaster's son. Frenchie went on to emphasize that Phil Jr is only a freshmen and that he has only been running track for a relatively short time. His 10:47 (personal best) time apparently qualified him for the NCAA regionals.What more can you say about Coach Mitchell? His tenure has been nothing short of magnificent.

[Zipmeister]

So do you think we have the talent this year to finish better than we did in last year's NCAA outdoor championship? (men 67th with 2 points, women 62 with 1 point) Don't get me wrong, a MAC championship is nice, but the talent gap between the MAC and Division 1 competition is about the same as the gap between the MAC and Division III.

[johnnyzip84]

Geez, Zipmeister. You regularly make me chuckle with your often unusual and sometimes twisted take on Zip affairs. But this time you've just turned into -->

[Zipmeister]

Geez, Zipmeister. You regularly make me chuckle with your often unusual and sometimes twisted take on Zip affairs. But this time you've just turned into -->

Let's make it clear that that photo was taken before the operation.

[johnnyzip84]

Geez, Zipmeister. You regularly make me chuckle with your often unusual and sometimes twisted take on Zip affairs. But this time you've just turned into -->

Let's make it clear that that photo was taken before the operation.

I KNEW I could count on you!

[72 Roo]

I have no picture to post and that is good news for all. But as regards the program, you are correct that there is a gap to bridge to even approach the elite teams. Yet the truth is Mitchell is narrowing that gap each season. Our facilitiesa are near respectable. the 2,000 seats we just installed give a sense of legitimacy to our program and where we are going.What a perfect segue to lead into another rant about getting out of the MAC and into a better conference. I won't take the bait though, only because a few of you may know where I live and may take it upon yourselves to put me out of my misery. My wife and kids would also probably chip in on the cost. Suffice it to say, I'd like to kiss the MAC goodbye as soon as we could find a home with a better confernce. Oh God, I've done it. Shoot me!

[tbozeglav]

[zipboy]

Great job by the track team. For a non revenue sport with I believe 30 scholarships in total, they have about 80 team members. Rasor made a good point about this last year, an extra 50 kids going to Akron many of whom may not have gone, the program more than pays for itself. The indoor meets have drawn well and now with the improved outdoor facilities, it should help revenune.More schools continue to cut men's track or do what UC is doing and not fund it. This will also help Akron improve and balance the playing field more. For the one comment on the gap between the elite schools and Akron, track is a funny sport. If you have a few really good individuals, you can do well at nationals. To get a true test of a program, look and see how they do in dual meets. Michigan's women who came in the last 2 years and was top 5 in the nation won but not overwhelmingly. They got more 1sts than we did, but Akron got a lot of 2nd and 3rds. Akron usually won't get the elite future Olympian which is what wins at nationals, but there depth is pretty strong as evidenced by the number of national qualifiers they get year in and year out.

[ZachTheZip]

Great job by the track team. For a non revenue sport with I believe 30 scholarships in total, they have about 80 team members. Rasor made a good point about this last year, an extra 50 kids going to Akron many of whom may not have gone, the program more than pays for itself. The indoor meets have drawn well and now with the improved outdoor facilities, it should help revenune.More schools continue to cut men's track or do what UC is doing and not fund it. This will also help Akron improve and balance the playing field more. For the one comment on the gap between the elite schools and Akron, track is a funny sport. If you have a few really good individuals, you can do well at nationals. To get a true test of a program, look and see how they do in dual meets. Michigan's women who came in the last 2 years and was top 5 in the nation won but not overwhelmingly. They got more 1sts than we did, but Akron got a lot of 2nd and 3rds. Akron usually won't get the elite future Olympian which is what wins at nationals, but there depth is pretty strong as evidenced by the number of national qualifiers they get year in and year out.

I think that the revenue side of the argument is interesting. Track is generally considered a non-revenue sport but you have more kids paying tuition than you spend on scholarship. Also, the longer we can hold out in sports that other schools are cutting, the better we will become in those sports thanks to less competition for recruits and attention. Then when things look up and schools start adding the sports again, we'll be ahead.

[Zipmeister]

Great job by the track team. For a non revenue sport with I believe 30 scholarships in total, they have about 80 team members. Rasor made a good point about this last year, an extra 50 kids going to Akron many of whom may not have gone, the program more than pays for itself. The indoor meets have drawn well and now with the improved outdoor facilities, it should help revenune.More schools continue to cut men's track or do what UC is doing and not fund it. This will also help Akron improve and balance the playing field more. For the one comment on the gap between the elite schools and Akron, track is a funny sport. If you have a few really good individuals, you can do well at nationals. To get a true test of a program, look and see how they do in dual meets. Michigan's women who came in the last 2 years and was top 5 in the nation won but not overwhelmingly. They got more 1sts than we did, but Akron got a lot of 2nd and 3rds. Akron usually won't get the elite future Olympian which is what wins at nationals, but there depth is pretty strong as evidenced by the number of national qualifiers they get year in and year out.

I think that the revenue side of the argument is interesting. Track is generally considered a non-revenue sport but you have more kids paying tuition than you spend on scholarship. Also, the longer we can hold out in sports that other schools are cutting, the better we will become in those sports thanks to less competition for recruits and attention. Then when things look up and schools start adding the sports again, we'll be ahead.

Can you provide us with a list of all the schools that have cut a sport and then added it back later? I'll bet it's a really long list.

[ZachTheZip]

Can you provide us with a list of all the schools that have cut a sport and then added it back later? I'll bet it's a really long list.

I'll let the sarcasm slide. No, I can't provide a list, but collegiate sports have been going on for a long time. You don't think that some colleges stopped funding sports during the great depression or WWII and then brought them back once they had the funds or the numbers to field a team again?

[Zipmeister]

To review, so far the schools you can list as having cut a sport and then brought it back (let's limit the discussion to the last 50 years) are:

[zippyrifle32]

To review, so far the schools you can list as having cut a sport and then brought it back (let's limit the discussion to the last 50 years) are:

University of West Virgina - Rifle

[Zipmeister]

To review, so far the schools you can list as having cut a sport and then brought it back (let's limit the discussion to the last 50 years) are:

University of West Virgina - Rifle

Good one

[g-mann17]

To review, so far the schools you can list as having cut a sport and then brought it back (let's limit the discussion to the last 50 years) are:

Buffalo - FootballMarshall - Football (they brought them back from the dead literally)It would be fairly easy to look at all 120 D-1 schools and come up with a list of schools that have had to cut sports to save money and brought them back when alumni and school attendance were able to support it.

[Zipmeister]

As I said before, it will be a short list. If you would like to see a GAO report on this subject see:http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custo...;accno=ED452747

[MDZip]

To review, so far the schools you can list as having cut a sport and then brought it back (let's limit the discussion to the last 50 years) are:

Buffalo - FootballMarshall - Football (they brought them back from the dead literally)It would be fairly easy to look at all 120 D-1 schools and come up with a list of schools that have had to cut sports to save money and brought them back when alumni and school attendance were able to support it.

Marshall never dropped football, they even played the year after the crash. They have had a team continuously since 1919.