Georgetown and cost-of-attendance scholarships

[CAHoya07]

Cost-of-attendance stipends show which sports colleges want to spend on (Washington Post)

Interested article linked by DFW on the front page. Says that Georgetown (like GW and George Mason) is only offering additional aid to men's and women's basketball players, while UVA and MD are offering them to all scholarship athletes. The article also notes in a revision: "All Big East schools are offering stipends to men’s and women’s basketball players, but some are offering them to athletes in other sports."

I'm not sure we have the money to do what UVA and MD are doing, but I hope Lee Reed considers offering the additional aid to athletes in sports such as, for example, men's and women's soccer, where we have been basically perennial NCAA championship contenders in recent years (coming up one game short in men's soccer in 2012). I'd hate for us to fall behind other schools in our own conference and nationally in this regard, could really hurt recruiting.

I also don't like the spew of rhetoric attributed to Reed in the article. Instead explaining the rationale behind the decision (as did the GMU and GW ADs) and potentially offering hope that aid could eventually be offered to other sports, the Post only included this from Reed's e-mail response: "As college athletics has gone through this reformation period over the last several years, Georgetown has said all along that we would remain competitive nationally as we have throughout our rich history."

Thoughts? What would you like to see Georgetown do here?

[aleutianhoya]

I think the most accurate reading of his comment would be that Georgetown is certainly going to match in basketball (because the league requires it, and in any event, if we didn't, we definitely won't be competitive). As for other sports, Georgetown will remain "competitive," and to that end, it probably will wait and see whether not giving stipends in soccer (or, say, track) to anyone receiving a full scholarship creates a problem. His comments were provided in writing and, thus, were likely carefully constructed (and vetted through the communications office), so my guess is that whether we are "competitive" in these other sports will be the touchstone. They'll probably wait a year or two, get feedback from coaches, and then try to deal with the reality on the ground. I think there's probably also the understanding that things are going to continue to be fluid in terms of what is and what isn't allowed (hence his reference to "reformation") and so it's best to try to wait out the period of uncertainty making those changes we absolutely have to but holding off on those that may be overtaken by events in short order anyway.

All things being equal, of course I'd like to see us offer the full stipend to everyone getting a full scholarship. It would seem to be the most sure-fire way to remain competitive and, not for nothing, I think it's the right thing to be doing. Heck, offering it to everyone getting any scholarship money (even if just a partial) would be even better.

As for what I'd do if I actually had to make the decision in the real-world? I'd offer it now and you can always cut it for new recruits in future years if you come to the considered decision that doing so is possible without losing competitiveness. As a practical matter how could another school not use this against us in recruiting in those sports in which we offer less? $2K or $3K (if that's what it is) per year is real money to a family. Obviously, you'd have to find somewhere to cut in order to get the money (so I understand their decision to avoid that decision-making process), but I think it's probably worth finding some areas to cut (even if they're in the individual sports in which the stipends get delivered).

[reformation]

I would think the competitive impact would show up in sports where the athletes are used to getting full scholarships. For Gtwn that pretty much means basketball + a few elite track or soccer athletes. Gtwn realistically only tries to compete at a national level in basketball, soccer, lax, and mid distance track/xc. Like the poster above mentioned, Gtwn will probably respond if they need to for these sports.

If this helps leads to a more rational resource allocation for Gtwn athletics that would be great--not sure it will have much of an impact though given our mix of focus sports.

[DFW HOYA]

May 26, 2015 23:20:42 GMT -5 reformation said:

I would think the competitive impact would show up in sports where the athletes are used to getting full scholarships. For Gtwn that pretty much means basketball + a few elite track or soccer athletes. Gtwn realistically only tries to compete at a national level in basketball, soccer, lax, and mid distance track/xc. Like the poster above mentioned, Gtwn will probably respond if they need to for these sports.

If this helps leads to a more rational resource allocation for Gtwn athletics that would be great--not sure it will have much of an impact though given our mix of focus sports.

There are over 100 students on athletic scholarships. Georgetown should consider committing COA scholarships to every student getting an athletic scholarship. That's somewhere around one-tenth of the annual Fox Sports contract, and it avoids the questions of why a Tre Campbell deserves a grant but a Joshua Yaro does not.

I'm skeptical of your "rational resource allocation" if that's code for cutting sports. But see in a different light, are there teams that are potentially overfunded at the expense of others? Yes, but it's not a topic many want to discuss.

[aleutianhoya]

May 27, 2015 7:39:33 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

May 26, 2015 23:20:42 GMT -5 reformation said:

I would think the competitive impact would show up in sports where the athletes are used to getting full scholarships. For Gtwn that pretty much means basketball + a few elite track or soccer athletes. Gtwn realistically only tries to compete at a national level in basketball, soccer, lax, and mid distance track/xc. Like the poster above mentioned, Gtwn will probably respond if they need to for these sports.

If this helps leads to a more rational resource allocation for Gtwn athletics that would be great--not sure it will have much of an impact though given our mix of focus sports.

There are over 100 students on athletic scholarships. Georgetown should consider committing COA scholarships to every student getting an athletic scholarship. That's somewhere around one-tenth of the annual Fox Sports contract, and it avoids the questions of why a Tre Campbell deserves a grant but a Joshua Yaro does not.

I'm skeptical of your "rational resource allocation" if that's code for cutting sports. But see in a different light, are there teams that are potentially overfunded at the expense of others? Yes, but it's not a topic many want to discuss.

I'm not sure the cynical argument can even be made with a straight face, DFW. We clearly are trying to win at a national level in the two basketball programs, the two lacrosse programs, and the two soccer programs. I'd argue that the "track" issue is really one where we're essentially trying to compete nationally in cross country but not in track. It just so happens that the same athletes competing at a national level in cross country also compete in certain events in the winter and spring in a different (albeit very related) sport. Remember, it's not just field events; we don't recruit sprinters at a high level either.

It's not clear to me (though I'm sure you know) whether we are truly fully funding scholarship support in each of those sports. There was a time, under Keith T. and the later Diane D. years, that we were competitive in the two soccers (though not truly nationally) but were punching above our weight even to be that competitive. I know we spend much more now (and are significantly better than we were a decade or two ago), but I don't know if we are truly fully funded. Do we completely fund the lacrosses to the NCAA max? As for basketball, just because we stink and have stunk for the majority of our Big East history doesn't mean we aren't trying our best to win.

If we're not completely fully funded in lacrosse and soccer, it's hard to kick in the COA stipend because as a practical matter it makes it harder to fill in the scholarship gap. But I think that's still what I would do.

ON EDIT: I think you edited your post to delete the cynical/non-cynical dichotomy.

[kchoya]

May 27, 2015 8:16:18 GMT -5 aleutianhoya said:

May 27, 2015 7:39:33 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

There are over 100 students on athletic scholarships. Georgetown should consider committing COA scholarships to every student getting an athletic scholarship. That's somewhere around one-tenth of the annual Fox Sports contract, and it avoids the questions of why a Tre Campbell deserves a grant but a Joshua Yaro does not.

I'm skeptical of your "rational resource allocation" if that's code for cutting sports. But see in a different light, are there teams that are potentially overfunded at the expense of others? Yes, but it's not a topic many want to discuss.

ON EDIT: I think you edited your post to delete the cynical/non-cynical dichotomy.

He does that all the time. It's very annoying.

[quickplay]

As far as track goes, it definitely doesn't line up that we are competitive in track because of our strong cross country runners. In fact, on the men's side we are much more competitive in the mid-distances, which doesn't have as much crossover with cross country. Sometimes you have athletes that can compete in cross country and contribute to our middle distance program, but usually it would be longer distance runners (steeple, 5k) and not mid distance (800-1500).

The reason we aren't competitive in track is because we don't want to be. We don't put in the support required to be a competitive track team on a national level. Whether that should be a goal or not is a fair debate, but without facilities to develop sprinters, jumpers, and field events (throws, pole vault, etc.), you just literally cannot be competitive. It would be like playing 5 on 2 basketball, it's just a numbers game.

So we may be able to have more success by getting additional strong track athletes, but we'll never be competitive on a larger stage until Georgetown decides to treat the track team like an actual D1 team.

[Nevada Hoya]

For years I have not been able to figure out how some schools are always in the mix in the outdoor/indoor track other than facilities. I think all the schools are limited to 12.5 scholarships. Quickplay, you may correct me on this. But our track teams and national brand track teams must have 40+ athletes on their teams. So it is obvious all the athletes are not getting full rides, at least on the athletic side. The Ivies, with no athletic scholarships, have pretty good teams, but not full teams like Oregon, Stanford, Florida, Texas A&M, Arkansas, etc. So the Ivies give aid, in many cases, full rides, but not via the athletic schollies.

I think we are more competitive in women's XC than men are that our fine women middle distance runners can still run XC because of the distances run in XC (10K for men and 6K for women in the championship races). I think last XC season was good for the men, because we are presently Steeple U, with one of the best steeplechase programs in the country. Maybe not at the very top, but we are deep in steeplers.

We do not have the sprinters or field eventers to ever be in the mix for an outdoor meet, but other than Oregon, we have more men making the NCAA Regionals in the middle distance and distance events than any other school. The women are 4th in mid and distance events in sending runners to the regionals.