Archive for lafayettesports.myfreeforum.org This forum is not affiliated in any way with Lafayette College, Lafayette College Athletics, The Maroon Club or any other official organization. Please be respectful of other posters as well as the athletes, coaches and administrators.
|
RichH
|
Recession-Football and other sportsTrying to get some feeling from each school as to how each is dealing with sports $$ ? How do you think Pl and LC will fare over next couple of years?
Will LC be aggressive in dealing with economy or defensive?
|
carney2
|
Re: Recession-Football and other sports | RichH wrote: | Trying to get some feeling from each school as to how each is dealing with sports $$ ? How do you think Pl and LC will fare over next couple of years?
Will LC be aggressive in dealing with economy or defensive? |
I'll be the first to stick my head up out of the foxhole and comment. I expect to get my usual rearend full of buckshot from the rose colored glasses crowd, but here goes:
So far it would appear that the Lafayette administration is not prepared to share the sacrifices. There are others, but two points appear obvious so far that have a bearing on this discussion:
1. The faculty is a sacred cow. This is a little scary because the last President of the College was a faculty toady and you saw what that got us. In any event, the faculty is, so far, only being called upon to make token sacrifices.
2. The athletic department has been under attack from the beginning. At one point President Weiss was even heard to joke at a meeting - and I paraphrase - "Maybe I could take more from athletics." Salaries, recruiting budgets and just about everything down to and including paper clips has been cut. Not only is the athletic department an easy target because they are not the core mission of the College, but attacks in this area tend to curry even more favor with other segments of the College community, particularly the faculty.
Weiss has announced it as a four-year plan. Frankly, I think it's even longer, and that it began before it was announced. I have no reason so far to believe, for instance, that the recent small football recruiting class was not a first instance of administrative pressure being applied to the football program.
Lafayette is looking at "recession football." It won't be immediately apparent. 2009 will certainly not be affected, and probably not even 2010. Beyond that however, if Lafayette is the lone ranger in this game of making athletics the whipping boy for the recession - or even if they are merely in the minority - the competitiveness of the football program cannot help but be affected.
|
Pard94
|
Re: Recession-Football and other sports | carney2 wrote: | | RichH wrote: | Trying to get some feeling from each school as to how each is dealing with sports $$ ? How do you think Pl and LC will fare over next couple of years?
Will LC be aggressive in dealing with economy or defensive? |
I'll be the first to stick my head up out of the foxhole and comment. I expect to get my usual rearend full of buckshot from the rose colored glasses crowd, but here goes:
So far it would appear that the Lafayette administration is not prepared to share the sacrifices. There are others, but two points appear obvious so far that have a bearing on this discussion:
1. The faculty is a sacred cow. This is a little scary because the last President of the College was a faculty toady and you saw what that got us. In any event, the faculty is, so far, only being called upon to make token sacrifices.
2. The athletic department has been under attack from the beginning. At one point President Weiss was even heard to joke at a meeting - and I paraphrase - "Maybe I could take more from athletics." Salaries, recruiting budgets and just about everything down to and including paper clips has been cut. Not only is the athletic department an easy target because they are not the core mission of the College, but attacks in this area tend to curry even more favor with other segments of the College community, particularly the faculty.
Weiss has announced it as a four-year plan. Frankly, I think it's even longer, and that it began before it was announced. I have no reason so far to believe, for instance, that the recent small football recruiting class was not a first instance of administrative pressure being applied to the football program.
Lafayette is looking at "recession football." It won't be immediately apparent. 2009 will certainly not be affected, and probably not even 2010. Beyond that however, if Lafayette is the lone ranger in this game of making athletics the whipping boy for the recession - or even if they are merely in the minority - the competitiveness of the football program cannot help but be affected. |
THough this post is completely in keeping with your regular posting style (that is to say...less than optimisitc), I can't really disagree with anything you put out there. My only hope is that Weiss doesn't end up being a long term toady for the faculty. I hope that as the economy regains some footing he will back off any new found blind allegiance to the faculty. I also hope that the cuts to athletics aren't too severe as that would be an "easy" knee jerk reaction with long term and lasting implications to the school...not just the teams. My only solace is that we are all in this togehter within the PL. The last go round was Rothkopf acting in a vaccum. Not so much anymore. We shall see.
|
Lafalum
|
Here's what we know for sure per Weis' memo to the Lafayette community:
1. There will be three pct cuts in the operating budget for athletics each year for the next three years on top of of significant cuts this year in recrutiing and travel.
2. There will be severe cuts in the capital budget which will mean no capital budget for athletics
3. The athletic budget was only allowed 1 pct increases until this year and is the smallest budget in the PL
4. I appears that cuts in athletic scholarships has been taken off the table ( I understand that coalition was starting to gear up and Weis did not want a fight right now)
5. With 50 pct of the college's portfolio in "alternative assets" much of which is illiquid ( meaning we can't get out ) the chances that the endowment regains the 230 mio lost in the last year and a half are nil.
6. We need to cut 10-12 mio from the budget or find additional revenues.
7. Administrative expenses are out of control and I think the more the spotlight falls on this the better it'll be for everyone.
8. While everyone else is accepting salary cuts the faculty has a salary freeze and we are still adding faculty (albeit when we are able to fund it by some undisclosed mechanism)( I can't confirm this but three people have told me the faculty got a 6 pct increase last year.)
Here is what I have gleaned from conversations I have had inside the school:
1. a permanent cut in roster sizes is on the table if not already in the works to meet the athletic dept goals. Football will take a large share of that.
2. OCC games to distant sites will not happen.
3. There will be no scholarships for football therefore Fordham is gone!
4. There will be no upgrading of Kirby basketball facilities.
5. There is a lot of nervousness on the Hill as people (non-faculty) will be let go.
6. faculty will see some cuts in operating budgets that will effect sabaticals, trips to conferences etc but these will not be nearly as severe as athletics ( which by the way does not get us close to the 10-12 mio number) Some programs will be eliminated according to Weis.
7. since all of the above will not get us there, talk of an increase in student population is back...there is huge resistance to this from the faculty and the leadership of the BOT.
|
Pard4Life
|
Call me the black sheep, but I would eliminate some athletic teams completely to preserve current levels in other sports... we are a small school and to be honset, the high amount of athletes per student is a bit unusual. Not exactly the optimum solution, but I would dangle that in front of the faculty to have them concede on some things. Ideally I would crush the faculty resistance, but this being the real world, we have to live with it for now. The only way to eliminate their intransegence and shift the balance of power over time is chip away at their base... how to do that, I don't know.
|
TheRock90
|
Big mistake. Once you start cutting sports, they will never return and you have set in motion an alternative every time the faculty wants more of this or more of that. It will be,"lets cut another sport so we can get what we want"
|
65Pard
|
| TheRock90 wrote: | | Big mistake. Once you start cutting sports, they will never return and you have set in motion an alternative every time the faculty wants more of this or more of that. It will be,"lets cut another sport so we can get what we want" |
I agree.....Athletic competition is part of the college experience and, for many, helps mold character and a competitive spirit. The more of this we can offer the better.
You will have a difficult time trying to explain this to nerds who have never competed.
Observation and experience has taught me that, things being equal, I would always hire a person who put it on the line in athletics over a non athlete.....
|
seenalot
|
65 - Can only echo the sentiment in your last sentence. Until the faculty understands that they are employees, hired at the will of the college (ok we need to kill tenure to get that completed, but I am betting no one this board feels tenure is good or needed policy) and those who foot the bill (students, alumni, etc) this form of nonsense will continue.
|
|
|
|