eb59
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Post by eb59 on Dec 21, 2014 16:39:48 GMT -5
Hopefully he can help the team "surge" on a completed MSF!!!
EB
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Post by hoyadad19 on Feb 20, 2015 14:17:12 GMT -5
A completed MSF would be a good start! Something that needs to happen is scholarships for the football team. Having non-scholarship players compete against scholarship players is simply not fair or right. Provide football with scholarships or move to a non-scholarship league. Hopefully General Casey will address this issue soon.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 20, 2015 23:40:53 GMT -5
I don't think anyone's dead-set against scholarships per se, but it's a question of degree.
How many scholarships would be required to be truly competitive in the Patriot League? It's not five or 10. Realistically, it's probably close to 60. That's a number which could cost upwards of $4 million annually for a program that struggles to get 10,000 fans through the MSF turnstiles all season, plus the $4 million required for Title IX support to be allocated among women's teams. Georgetown's total scholarship spend across all men's teams is just $4 million, so to expect GU to double it to accommodate just one sport is neither practical nor intellectually honest.
Equally unpractical is the Pioneer League option. Forget for a moment the cost of travel to San Diego, Jacksonville, or Des Moines, or a cast of opponents which would drive some at GU to see the program as going from "who cares" to "what's the point". Trading Fordham and Holy Cross for the likes of Campbell or Valparaiso is a catch-22. Realize that 10 of the 11 Pioneer schools offer merit aid to get their prospects in the door, and Georgetown would lose all packaged aid that it currently uses in the PL. The Pioneer becomes the MAAC without any competitive advantage.
Short of getting on as the Ivy League's first associate member, the only tenable options are:
1) Join the 40-scholarship Northeast Conference (Wagner, Bryant, Sacred Heart, Duquesne, St. Francis, Central Connecticut, Robert Morris) with something less than 40 grants and hope that Georgetown's brand name and financial aid can hold down the fort;
2) Play as the only independent in Division I-AA, have some scholarships, take on as many Ivy games as humanly possible, and fill in the rest of the slate with whatever obscure D-I or D-2 schools need to get a game in late October and early November; or
3) Slog it out in Patriot League futility until further notice, or until the league moves to kick Georgetown out for competitive reasons.
I once mentioned, facetiously, that Georgetown should join the CAA. The immediate reaction is that Georgetown couldn't stay on the field against full scholarship teams like Villanova or William & Mary, schools that are banking games with Pitt and Virginia in September, not with Wagner and Marist. Well, guess what--by next year the rest of the Patriot will be right there with the CAA on scholarships, and schools like Holy Cross and Bucknell are already scheduling guarantee games with Boston College and Army.
No easy answers and no imminent timetable. Remarkably, that doesn't deter Coach Sgarlata from fighting the good fight.
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Post by puppydog100 on Feb 21, 2015 9:39:32 GMT -5
Tenable option #4, with few fans, little alumni financial support, and no leadership or direction from the administration, discontinue the program and allocate the resources elsewhere.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 21, 2015 10:21:30 GMT -5
Tenable option #4, with few fans, little alumni financial support, and no leadership or direction from the administration, discontinue the program and allocate the resources elsewhere. I'm not sure why you would drive this "discontinue the program and allocate the resources elsewhere" argument. 1. Football has the second or third largest alumni financial support figures every year. It's not going to reach Hoop Club numbers but it's generally in the top tier. That won't get reallocated in your scenario; in fact, football alumni would likely drop their support in other areas of the University altogether. 2. Football financial aid isn't transferable to other sports, it's a general pool. No one on the tennis team would be getting any more aid. 3. No leadership or direction? Not quite. Maybe your argument is "leadership or direction from the administration I don't agree with". Georgetown has direction to play Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton, not Savannah State, Edward Waters, and the College of Faith. Yes, it would be fun to take a page out of Wagner's playbook, who traded games Georgetown and Marist for BYU and Rice this season (which they've actually done). But that's not the direction Georgetown wants to go. The more compelling argument is why Georgetown is unable to talk candidly about football in a public forum. We get a two line blurb every few years that rads "we're working on some exciting new developments for the Multi-Sport Field in the near future" and it goes into hibernation thereafter. How many major donors just got tired of the same old story from the former athletic development director and walked away? "We will also be looking to upgrade our athletic facilities…and will be fundraising for completion of the Multi-Sport Field. I know that our athletics facilities require upgrades in order to meet the needs of our student athletes and coaches. We are examining several options to alleviate the current stress on our facilities, and I hope to have something more definitive to report soon." www.georgetown.edu/content/1242663556497.html |
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Post by puppydog100 on Feb 21, 2015 10:39:55 GMT -5
DFW HOYA, I'm not arguing to discontinue the program, just adding it to the list of options.
The Gridiron Club website has not been updated in two years. How much did alumni contribute to the program in the last two fiscal years? Being second or third is not really relevant, what are the actual numbers?
By the way, I would love to see GU become independent, replace the Patriot League with the Ivy's. Since there is no chance of winning the Patriot League, and therefore no post season opportunities, let's go indy. GU seems to drawn well when an Ivy opponent comes to town.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Feb 21, 2015 14:59:19 GMT -5
A completed MSF would be a good start! Something that needs to happen is scholarships for the football team. Having non-scholarship players compete against scholarship players is simply not fair or right. Provide football with scholarships or move to a non-scholarship league. Hopefully General Casey will address this issue soon.  |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 22, 2015 11:43:34 GMT -5
The more compelling argument is why Georgetown is unable to talk candidly about football in a public forum. We get a two line blurb every few years that rads "we're working on some exciting new developments for the Multi-Sport Field in the near future" and it goes into hibernation thereafter. How many major donors just got tired of the same old story from the former athletic development director and walked away? If it makes you feel any better, this M.O. of opacity and reticence to discuss anything out in the open is by no means limited to football. For what I assume must be many decades, if not centuries, The Georgetown Way has meant not airing dirty laundry, attempting to handle things in-house, and trading information for cash (under the dual logic that GU doesn't have much to offer donors aside from inside access and info, and because someone with skin in the game is presumed to be more trustworthy with the family secrets). How long did the old Jes Res sit unused, with no open discussion of what should be done, until the Campus Plan suddenly made its renovation a top priority? When was the last time you heard any open conversation on the future of Lauinger? How many of the key institutional decisions made by the University over the last X years were undertaken following anything like a sustained and open dialogue? The Ivory Tower terns to operate opaquely as a matter of course, but I think Georgetown has long been a particularly stark exemplar. When there have been deviations, they've usually been foisted upon the University by pressure brought to bear by students (one need only recall the Gay People of Georgetown and the near-derailing of the Leavey Center's construction, or the Living Wage saga and its attendant Red Square Igloo) or by external circumstances (the DC Human Rights Act and the Affordable Care Act will do fine as examples). The fog has started to lift in a few select areas - most notably in campus planning, but in curricular decisions and some other domains as well. From the looks of it, though fundraising and athletics remain insular as ever...again, assuming you haven't purchased entry into the ranks of those 'in the know.' |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 25, 2015 0:10:53 GMT -5
Anyway, I think we've been through all of this before, and at a time when the Georgetown Voice is in hot water for a cartoon depicting a metaphorical beating of a dead horse, it seems bad form to do so here. On the other hand, to the extent that DFW is trying to think through realistic scenarios, rather than pie-in-the-sky proposals to 'go all-in,' his options are worth consider. But first... I don't think anyone's dead-set against scholarships per se, but it's a question of degree. Eh... there's actually plenty of people within Georgetown's institutional corpus who are dead-set against scholarships per se. There are any number of reasons for this: opportunity cost, campus culture impacts, enmity toward football as a sport or toward college football as it currently exists, etc. There are enough of these people in enough places of import that I firmly believe the likelihood of a move to scholarship football within the next... let's say 15 years... is nil. How many scholarships would be required to be truly competitive in the Patriot League? It's not five or 10. Realistically, it's probably close to 60. That's a number which could cost upwards of $4 million annually for a program that struggles to get 10,000 fans through the MSF turnstiles all season, plus the $4 million required for Title IX support to be allocated among women's teams. Georgetown's total scholarship spend across all men's teams is just $4 million, so to expect GU to double it to accommodate just one sport is neither practical nor intellectually honest. *ding ding ding* This is exactly the case. Equally unpractical is the Pioneer League option. Forget for a moment the cost of travel to San Diego, Jacksonville, or Des Moines, or a cast of opponents which would drive some at GU to see the program as going from "who cares" to "what's the point". Trading Fordham and Holy Cross for the likes of Campbell or Valparaiso is a catch-22. Realize that 10 of the 11 Pioneer schools offer merit aid to get their prospects in the door, and Georgetown would lose all packaged aid that it currently uses in the PL. The Pioneer becomes the MAAC without any competitive advantage. I'm not totally sure on this one. Travel costs are not insignificant, but as it is, we send our men's golf team to Birmingham, Scottsdale, Delray Beach, and Charleston; our women's golf team to Denver, Kiawah Island, Vail, and Daytona; our men's tennis team to California for a week; our softball team to Nashville, Orlando and Tampa (two different trips), Indianapolis, and Rosemont; etc. etc. The athletics budget does not live or die with the cost of flying a travel squad to San Diego or Jacksonville. As for the Pioneer League: I suspect that Georgetown without merit aid (but with generous need-based aid and some loan buyouts) remains more attractive than most, if not all of the Pioneer teams with merit aid. I could be wrong, though. Short of getting on as the Ivy League's first associate member They would never grant that in any sort of official capacity. The question is... to what extent does that matter? If Georgetown ends up playing 6 of the Ancient Eight in any given season, do we need 'associate member' status on some Ivy-draped letterhead for it to be worthwhile? I say no... the only tenable options are: 1) Join the 40-scholarship Northeast Conference (Wagner, Bryant, Sacred Heart, Duquesne, St. Francis, Central Connecticut, Robert Morris) with something less than 40 grants and hope that Georgetown's brand name and financial aid can hold down the fort; The money ain't there for 40 schollies (with Title IX matching) either, man. 2) Play as the only independent in Division I-AA, have some scholarships, take on as many Ivy games as humanly possible, and fill in the rest of the slate with whatever obscure D-I or D-2 schools need to get a game in late October and early November; or The second we go down the scholarship path, we become less attractive to the Ivies as a sympatico program. That's aside from all the myriad issues that having a partial-scholarship program that has no conference affiliation of any sort can cause. 3) Slog it out in Patriot League futility until further notice, or until the league moves to kick Georgetown out for competitive reasons. So now we arrive at the option that Georgetown will actually choose. I rather doubt that the Patriot League will be asking Georgetown to turn in their keycard to the executive washroom anytime soon, though. Every conference has doormats, right? No new players on the horizon are signing up for the PL's academic index. Georgetown isn't making or breaking anyone's RPI for an at-large bid; DC is within driving distance and has enough alums from each school to make it a worthwhile roadtrip; the institutional brand name is plenty strong. Unless the fevered dreams of the AnyGivenSaturday set actually come true and the Patriot League arises as the second coming of the CAA, Georgetown will always have a bed at the Patriot Inn. I once mentioned, facetiously, that Georgetown should join the CAA. The immediate reaction is that Georgetown couldn't stay on the field against full scholarship teams like Villanova or William & Mary, schools that are banking games with Pitt and Virginia in September, not with Wagner and Marist. Well, guess what--by next year the rest of the Patriot will be right there with the CAA on scholarships, and schools like Holy Cross and Bucknell are already scheduling guarantee games with Boston College and Army. No easy answers and no imminent timetable. Remarkably, that doesn't deter Coach Sgarlata from fighting the good fight. Sgarlata seems to like the Georgetown lifestyle, with all it entails; he certainly wouldn't be a head coach anywhere else in D-IAA at this stage. What else is he gonna do? Anyway, I do think the CAA schools are all a step above the Patriots at this point, in terms of their resources, their ability to recruit talent, and their overall institutional profile. I'm not seeing anything that would change that dynamic. So long as that's the case, the PL will remain a far safer home for the Hoyas than the CAA. |
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Post by Problem of Dog on Feb 25, 2015 0:34:25 GMT -5
Thank you Russky, but this is a dead horse. No matter how many ways people want to reframe it, and no matter how many times DFW trots out untenable hypotheticals that he, and everyone else, knows will never come to fruition (which makes them a big waste of time to discuss over and over), there isn't going to be any meaningful change in the football program any time soon.
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Post by strummer8526 on Feb 25, 2015 18:25:13 GMT -5
Thank you Russky, but this is a dead horse. No matter how many ways people want to reframe it, and no matter how many times DFW trots out untenable hypotheticals that he, and everyone else, knows will never come to fruition (which makes them a big waste of time to discuss over and over), there isn't going to be any meaningful change in the football program any time soon. Be careful, you're treading on thin ice. www.thehoya.com/cartoon-sparks-ire-dialogue/ |
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 25, 2015 21:05:36 GMT -5
The Gridiron Club website has not been updated in two years. How much did alumni contribute to the program in the last two fiscal years? Being second or third is not really relevant, what are the actual numbers? The latest public numbers I saw were somewhere around $340K, but that was a couple of years ago. There is also the issue that some in-kind gifts don't always go to a support club, so for those that covered a big chunk of the the 50th anniv. dinner, I don't know if those are considered direct gifts to the club or just to Georgetown. A lot of alumni are sitting on their wallets, and that's an issue even in basketball. Over the last 10 years, Hoyas Unlimited's message is an increasingly clouded one amidst the flurry of other messages from GU asking for money, and since the Bernard Muir era, it's been a tougher value proposition to answer the question "Why should I give $10, $100, or even $10,000 to Georgetown [add sport here]?" |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 25, 2015 22:12:21 GMT -5
The Gridiron Club website has not been updated in two years. How much did alumni contribute to the program in the last two fiscal years? Being second or third is not really relevant, what are the actual numbers? The latest public numbers I saw were somewhere around $340K, but that was a couple of years ago. There is also the issue that some in-kind gifts don't always go to a support club, so for those that covered a big chunk of the the 50th anniv. dinner, I don't know if those are considered direct gifts to the club or just to Georgetown. A lot of alumni are sitting on their wallets, and that's an issue even in basketball. Over the last 10 years, Hoyas Unlimited's message is an increasingly clouded one amidst the flurry of other messages from GU asking for money, and since the Bernard Muir era, it's been a tougher value proposition to answer the question "Why should I give $10, $100, or even $10,000 to Georgetown [add sport here]?" The "4 days from the end of the fiscal year" message from Lee Reed last year had the number significantly lower for football, albeit also significantly below target:  I'm interested in that last bit - what changed with Muir, in your opinion, to make that value proposition more questionable? |
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 25, 2015 22:24:04 GMT -5
FWIW, the goal above was $400K. I'm interested in that last bit - what changed with Muir, in your opinion, to make that value proposition more questionable? A year or so before Muir took over - 2003 or 2004- Hoyas Unlimited fundraising changed from an additive model to a sustaining model. OK, a better explanation: it used to be that your $100 gift to the golf team helped provide support for items that the budget couldn't support, such as new training equipment or laptops for road trips. Now, that same gift is covering what's already "in" the budget. Or as the web site puts it, "Annual Fund support helps to fund the athletic department’s operating budget, as these dollars are used for travel, equipment, recruiting, scholarships, salaries and other operational costs." www.wearegeorgetown.com/annual-fund/aboutLink Corrected.--Admin |
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 26, 2015 0:08:58 GMT -5
FWIW, the goal above was $400K. I'm interested in that last bit - what changed with Muir, in your opinion, to make that value proposition more questionable? A year or so before Muir took over - 2003 or 2004- Hoyas Unlimited fundraising changed from an additive model to a sustaining model. OK, a better explanation: it used to be that your $100 gift to the golf team helped provide support for items that the budget couldn't support, such as new training equipment or laptops for road trips. Now, that same gift is covering what's already "in" the budget. Or as the web site puts it, "Annual Fund support helps to fund the athletic department’s operating budget, as these dollars are used for travel, equipment, recruiting, scholarships, salaries and other operational costs." www.wearegeorgetown.com/annual-fund/about/ Corrected.That link doesn't work for me. Anyway... it's interesting to hear about the change in models, and I'm curious to know what spurred that. The ultimate question, I suppose, is which model better serves the student-athletes and programs? That may be an exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, question to answer, given all the different variables at play. It's certainly true that "Help Maintain the Status Quo!" doesn't make for a rousing call to arms. On the other hand, while the University as a whole is heavily tuition-dependent, athletics is probably exactly the sort of function that should be giving-dependent, to the extent that the entire program isn't self-sustaining. The less money taken out of general, fungible sources to sustain McDonough, the more freedom athletics has to operate institutionally without being seen as a rival in a zero-sum contest for campus cash. Truthfully, it's hard for me to fathom what alumni are sitting on their wallets for at this point, whether their primary interest is athletics or something else. For Generations to Come has something for everyone; and if you're really not interested in any of the things that fall under the campaign's aegis, all the leftover projects would happily embrace and trumpet you, were you to support them at this point on time. What, pray tell, is the hold up? |
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eb59
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Post by eb59 on Feb 26, 2015 13:30:20 GMT -5
Is anyone else shocked that as a whole, Basketball only expects to raise $1.5m in donations annually...this seems really low for a Nationally Prominent D-I Program in a Major Sport that is as recognizable and historied as Gtown BB, not to mention seemingly absolutely critical to what I thought was a pretty fanatical alumni fan base with pretty high expectations for success? Especially, since there is not another major sport that overshadows the BB program like FB does at the vast majority of schools that are comparable in level to Gtown BB. I'm curious what type of donation levels other similar size schools with Nationally Prominent BB programs pull in annually from their alumni (Duke, Wake, some of the other Top Tier Big East teams, etc)?
From a FB perspective, I would be willing to bet that "IF" the MSF had been completed as anticipated by many FB alumni 10 + years ago, there would be substantially more alumni that would be donating substantially more $ than the paltry $250 - $300k referenced above as a likely unattained Goal.
Additionally, I would be willing to bet that "IF" a MSF completion plan with funding requirements were actually published and metrics about funding goals being achieved were tracked and published - there would be many former FB alumni that would we willing to make some pretty decent sized donations specific to this cause....but open and consistent communication about the plan and progress towards the plan; even if phased would be absolutely critical to this happening. Hopefully, this sentiment and behavior would be consistent with the LAX alumni as well, effectively doubling the potential increase in fund raising.
Further, I would be willing to bet that these same alumni would continue to give on a much higher level than they do currently annually b/c they would have seen progress and commitment from the University to do something positive for these programs and break the 10+ years of apathy that we have experienced. A near immediate jump to $500k in FB donations seems doable and I don't think its outlandish to say that $1m annually is possible - putting FB pretty close to BB in terms of alumni giving. If just 10 people in each class and some parents / friends of the program from the past 30 years donated, we would have a donation base of @ 500 people...does anyone know who many people currently donate on any given year?
All that said, I made a donation to the Letter Winner Challenge and I hope that FB wins some of the $50k available...every little bit helps!
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 26, 2015 15:02:31 GMT -5
Is anyone else shocked that as a whole, Basketball only expects to raise $1.5m in donations annually...this seems really low for a Nationally Prominent D-I Program in a Major Sport that is as recognizable and historied as Gtown BB, not to mention seemingly absolutely critical to what I thought was a pretty fanatical alumni fan base with pretty high expectations for success? Especially, since there is not another major sport that overshadows the BB program like FB does at the vast majority of schools that are comparable in level to Gtown BB. I'm curious what type of donation levels other similar size schools with Nationally Prominent BB programs pull in annually from their alumni (Duke, Wake, some of the other Top Tier Big East teams, etc)? Duke raises $12 million in annual gifts from 9,000 donors. A minimum gift of $8K gets consideration (but no guarantee) for ACC tickets. admin.xosn.com/attachments1/229933.pdf |
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Post by aleutianhoya on Feb 26, 2015 15:32:49 GMT -5
Is anyone else shocked that as a whole, Basketball only expects to raise $1.5m in donations annually...this seems really low for a Nationally Prominent D-I Program in a Major Sport that is as recognizable and historied as Gtown BB, not to mention seemingly absolutely critical to what I thought was a pretty fanatical alumni fan base with pretty high expectations for success? Especially, since there is not another major sport that overshadows the BB program like FB does at the vast majority of schools that are comparable in level to Gtown BB. I'm curious what type of donation levels other similar size schools with Nationally Prominent BB programs pull in annually from their alumni (Duke, Wake, some of the other Top Tier Big East teams, etc)? Duke raises $12 million in annual gifts from 9,000 donors. A minimum gift of $8K gets consideration (but no guarantee) for ACC tickets. admin.xosn.com/attachments1/229933.pdfIs that Iron Dukes-wide, DFW, or just basketball? In any event, there's "nationally prominent" and then there's "NATIONALLY PROMINENT." We simply don't compare to Duke basketball. Wake (all sports) raised $6M last year, but obviously they have a I-A football program that draws some support. As for BE programs, Nova raised $2.6M (again, all sports). So, we're higher than that. I haven't looked at these figures in a while, but there was a time in the not too distant past that our overall annual support was right about at the top for any I-AA school. |
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Post by alumni47 on Feb 26, 2015 20:26:39 GMT -5
This entire site is begining to become the movie " GROUNDHOG DAY". Flag football say what what ,!!,!,!,!,!,!,!
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eb59
Century (over 100 posts)
Posts: 152
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Post by eb59 on Feb 27, 2015 13:10:23 GMT -5
Letter Winners Challenge, we got whooped by Sailing & Softball!!!!
Most New Donors During the Challenge ($20,000): Sailing
Most Dollars Raised During the Challenge ($15,000): Sailing
Highest Alumni Participation ($15,000): Softball
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