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Baseball's Coming Back


KNCLZip

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So we can pay $50,000 to put the name on the back of t-shirts for Game 6 of the NBA Finals, but not to keep any of the 215 faculty or the baseball program? Yeah, definitely makes some sense. :eek:

It's staff not faculty. As discussed above. Staff are non-teaching non-tenure positions. Faculty were not in favor of hiring Tressel.

But I'll admit, I was in favor of Scarborough over Tressel. I personally am regretting my decision to support him. But it's not like it's a democracy, our votes didn't matter in the decision anyways. The only thing we can decide is if going to continue to give red cents to UA or not. This alum is rethinking it, I don't like the direction Scarborough is heading.

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It's staff not faculty. As discussed above. Staff are non-teaching non-tenure positions. Faculty were not in favor of hiring Tressel.

But I'll admit, I was in favor of Scarborough over Tressel. I personally am regretting my decision to support him. But it's not like it's a democracy, our votes didn't matter in the decision anyways. The only thing we can decide is if going to continue to give red cents to UA or not. This alum is rethinking it, I don't like the direction Scarborough is heading.

Just playing a little devil's advocate here looking at it from a business sense. I personally have a wait and see mentality, though all of this negative press isn't good. Running at a deficit of 60M, how would you cut expenses and why? The deficit isn't Scarborough's fault. As beloved as Proenza is, he's the one who left the University in this situation.

These are tough decisions to make, and unfortunately someone has to get the short end of the stick.

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Random thought: rumor is the team wasn't told until the decision was announced today.

Could this have possible repercussions on recruiting in other minor sports? I figure most kids know football and basketball aren't going anywhere (even if some folks think so) but what about other fringe sports? If I'm a track athlete or softball player, this has to go in the back of my head.

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Just playing a little devil's advocate here looking at it from a business sense. I personally have a wait and see mentality, though all of this negative press isn't good. Running at a deficit of 60M, how would you cut expenses and why? The deficit isn't Scarborough's fault. As beloved as Proenza is, he's the one who left the University in this situation.

These are tough decisions to make, and unfortunately someone has to get the short end of the stick.

I agree that tough decisions have got to be made. I was very critical of Proenza as a student at UA and frankly I still am (in hindsight). I personally don't think Proenza's administration had any real grasp of UA's finances. Most of his policies while I was there were reactionary. I interveiewed the CFO at the time for an article about the first $28-million defecit they were running back in 2013. At the time they were attributing over half of their defecit to the loss of stimuluss funds (which were never guarnteed from year to year) and the rest to enrollment (which they themselves decided to reduce through their policies).

But Scarborough's first year has been...well, terrible. He spouts all the words of a leader, but the rollout of all his polices seem like one blunder after another. You're right that we should probably have a "wait and see approach" and I really want to be that way, but I've yet to see something that gives me hope.

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People need to take the emotion out of it and treat college sports like a business. Which it is.

If college sports became a business at some point, which programs show a profit? Any of them?

I heard before there were about a dozen football programs in the country that break even. I doubt any of them are MAC or even mid-majors.

College athletics are not businesses. Nobody in their right mind would open such a money loser.

They are an activity for (and partially paid for by) the students. Just like the Rec, the theater, the bowling alley, the pool hall, etc. And they're not just an activity for the athletes but also the students. For myself there was nothing more relaxing than sitting in the spring sun watching baseball between classes. And I was not alone. Those couple hours of sanity might have been what got me through a very difficult program (especially for a guy old enough to be most classmates father). My facility fees paid for the theater (that I never used) and the bowling alley (that I never used) but that was cool. I enjoyed my soccer practice in the fall and ballgames in the spring.

They are also a potential marketing tool, well we've been over that.

College athletics are a lot of things, but "business" is not one of them.

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Killing baseball isn't about lack of money. You can't tell me that between spending $50k on t-shirts, who-knows-what else on additional rebranding efforts, and launching a Cadet program that there wasn't enough to fund the baseball team.

This was a move to redistribute cash toward the new President's pet project. Instead of raising money for something that's completely unnecessary, he's taking it from somewhere else.

I have a feeling that UA will always be hurting for money under Scarborough, because his fundraising ability appears to be non-existent.

Even if UA is having financial difficulties, you can't just cut back. You also have to find new revenue streams and improve existing ones.

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Interesting, there are 55 college baseball programs in Ohio.

12 D1

10 D2

21 D3

5 NAIA

1 NCCAA

6 NJCAA

2 "other"

You can watch and play baseball at Lorain County Community College but not here.

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I have a feeling that UA will always be hurting for money under Scarborough, because his fundraising ability appears to be non-existent.

Well said Zach! Not only is his fundraising ability non-existent...but he seems to be losing people who'd annually write a check to UA, because of the policies he's been rolling out, and the fashion he's been rolling them out.

If we had a real news reporting agency in the area, they should be hammering him on exactly who these "investors" are that he keeps refering to in just about every speech he has about initiatives.

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Would it be safe to assume the baseball elimination is effective immediately? Players/coaches will certainly be transferring out and none coming in...I'd think it would be difficult to field a team as soon as next spring. Would the current players' full ride schollies still be honored if they decided to stay at Akron to complete their degrees?

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My prediction:

Akron will rue this day that baseball was scrapped. As the planet continues to warm, NEO will eventually become the most conducive region for baseball while the South will actually become too warm for Spring/Summer sports.

As the SEC, ACC & southern BIG XII & PAC-12 schools are forced to shutter their bb programs rather than subject players to heat stroke, Akron will once again be left woefully unprepared to fill the void.

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Would it be safe to assume the baseball elimination is effective immediately? Players/coaches will certainly be transferring out and none coming in...I'd think it would be difficult to field a team as soon as next spring. Would the current players' full ride schollies still be honored if they decided to stay at Akron to complete their degrees?

It was odd that a date of elimination was not included in the release-- but i would guess it is immediate. I also assume that Akron would honor any scholarships-- keep in mind that all scholarships are for 1 yr in the NCAA.... but the University could choose to honor them for the students remaining eligibility period. I also doubt that any baseball players are on full rides.

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I have a feeling that UA will always be hurting for money under Scarborough, because his fundraising ability appears to be non-existent.

Even if UA is having financial difficulties, you can't just cut back. You also have to find new revenue streams and improve existing ones.

Bingo! This is exactly why I thought Tressel was the best man for the job. I got the impression UA did not pursue him hard enough and he sensed the lack of support. Tressel was successful in his role as an administrator and would have had no difficulty raising money. He was a go-getter.

The elitist faculty snubbed their noses at him and we will struggle to raise the money we need to raise.

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The elitist faculty snubbed their noses at him and we will struggle to raise the money we need to raise.

Give me a break, you seriously think the decision to hire Scarborough over Tressel (or not pursue Tressel) was because of faculty? Tressel was successful in his role as an administrator? Really!? Please. I think you've been drinking too much of the kool aide.

But let's not let facts get in the way of beating up on "elitist faculty". YSU has a defecit as well that they've had to reduce, and it wasn't reduced by Tressel's glorious fundrasising efforts.

There is another revenue stream that can be aided by having tenure-track contingent faculty...grant $$. Part of gaining tenure at a university involves an amount of published peer-reviewed research. This research can potentially bring in huge sums of grant money. But nevermind...yes, it's the evil "elitist snub nossed" researchers/educators that are the problem.

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