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Post by reformation on May 7, 2017 17:47:52 GMT -5
Nothing against baseball glad they won. Not that surprising they would expect to win some games in a series vs a top team-they routinely do that. They are a 500 type team and have been so(or worse) for the last 30 years.
I just think that given the limited resources gtown has they should be concentrated in programs that are nationally competitive. In practice that would mean concentrating the allocating athletic scholarships and resources to programs that at least in theory should be competing for a national championship or at least striving to be a highly ranked program, getting top recruits etc.. A free athletic ride to gtown should be valued highly by the institution, not just some thing that's given out because we've always done so--should be a pretty elite athlete to merit one.
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whatmaroon
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Post by whatmaroon on May 8, 2017 22:07:48 GMT -5
My (very general, second- to fourth-hand) understanding is that many more schools are funding lacrosse at nationally competitive levels than was the case, say, 15-20 years ago. When there are maybe 10 schools that are trying at lacrosse and half a dozen of those are THE traditional powers, being #7 is one thing, and the floor isn't too low unless you're a complete disaster. When there are many more schools trying, the floor is much, much lower. Just how and why GU declined I will leave for someone who knows much more about lax, both at GU and nationally, than I do.
Going back to DFW's original point, Georgetown plays too many sports relative to its size and funding capability. More, I believe, than the University of Michigan does. I've thought since I was a freshman two decades ago they should try to be good at sports instead of fielding as many teams as possible, but that's my idea of what GU's institutional priority should be and most definitely not GU's.
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jester
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Post by jester on May 9, 2017 1:01:48 GMT -5
How do we compare in sports versus Duke (same student size, also private - albeit with > funding)?
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 9, 2017 8:43:10 GMT -5
How do we compare in sports versus Duke (same student size, also private - albeit with > funding)? Nearly identical except for the following: 1. Duke has a women's rowing team but not a men's rowing team. 2. Georgetown has varsity sailing, Duke has club sailing. 3. Duke has men's fencing and wrestling, Georgetown does not.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on May 9, 2017 10:02:03 GMT -5
Going back to DFW's original point, Georgetown plays too many sports relative to its size and funding capability. More, I believe, than the University of Michigan does. I've thought since I was a freshman two decades ago they should try to be good at sports instead of fielding as many teams as possible, but that's my idea of what GU's institutional priority should be and most definitely not GU's. I think that's a valid point. To the extent Georgetown ever did this, football should get eliminated. We are not competitive, we cannot possibly be competitive in the Patriot League, we will not put up the scholarships necessary to field a competitive team, and virtually nobody (except a small set of alumni, some of whom are on HoyaTalk) cares about it.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on May 14, 2017 12:48:21 GMT -5
Thank you! Can always count on DFW to paint the worst possible picture. No, thank you. I was referring to team sports. Track and sailing always hold their own, though the "national championship" isn't that remarkable given that there can be up to 12 different "national champions" in sailing every year. The point was that men's sports at Georgetown are struggling. If you want to hang this season's plaudits on women's golf and women's soccer, go ahead. When men's soccer goes from 18 straight unbeaten in 2015 to posting an under .500 record in 2016, that's unexpected. When men's lacrosse is a combined 6-22 over the last two seasons, that's underperforming. Either way, Georgetown can do better. The conflation of "GU Sports" with "men's sports" and the waving away of a Final Four appearance is telling. Going back to DFW's original point, Georgetown plays too many sports relative to its size and funding capability. More, I believe, than the University of Michigan does. I've thought since I was a freshman two decades ago they should try to be good at sports instead of fielding as many teams as possible, but that's my idea of what GU's institutional priority should be and most definitely not GU's. I think that's a valid point. To the extent Georgetown ever did this, football should get eliminated. We are not competitive, we cannot possibly be competitive in the Patriot League, we will not put up the scholarships necessary to field a competitive team, and virtually nobody (except a small set of alumni, some of whom are on HoyaTalk) cares about it. We've talked about this on the football board, but it applies to all the other underresourced/underperforming sports as well: there are a number of institutional factors that make it highly unlikely Georgetown would ever rob Peter to pay Paul by openly defunding some sports to boost others. In short, it would generate negative publicity (especially if you outright cut a sport - recall the backlash to Maryland's planned dropping of teams) for an organization that very imagine-conscious and negativity-averse. It would also openly pit sports (and thousands of alums, families, etc.) against each other. All this for uncertain gains - added funding is no guarantee of success, as volleyball has shown. Rather than re-dividing the existing pie, the focus should be on growing it. There is definitely a need for strategic allocation of that growth, examples of which we have already seen: the move to full funding of soccer is what has brought those two programs to Final Four level, and the Thompson Center made specific decisions about which sports would get dedicated space (lacrosse and soccer, in addition to basketball). The MSF, likewise, is a strategic investment not just in football - which, as we've rehashed endlessly, really is a outlier - but in lacrosse as well.
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Post by reformation on May 16, 2017 21:18:28 GMT -5
While I'm sure you're right in terms of your desc of the univ's thinking and likely course of action, I can't say that this approach is really makes the most sense.
Most of the organizations that would get cut have minimal support and do not perceive themselves as getting a fair shake from the univ anyway. Volleyball alums contribute maybe 10-25k a year. Realistically who would care if they were upset that their scholarship money to support a non competitive team was allocated elsewhere-what rational argument could they possibly make that the funds could not be better used elsewhere(another sport with better prospects, scholarships for needy students, hiring a couple of big name profs )
In terms of making the pie bigger, alums will generally contribute more to successful programs with big aspirations, not marginal ones. One can always get a wealthy parent or alum to randomly fund some pet activity for a marginal program, but that's not something that the univ can really rely on. The strategic investments that paid off like soccer were funded by the univ largely, so making the pie bigger was part of a general allocation of funds.
I think most alums would appreciate some decisive action for a change. The fear of alienating anyone is part of the reason we don't have a Mt Vernon campus.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 22, 2017 12:56:59 GMT -5
Baseball dropped its final six to finish one game under .500.
The total for men's sports playing round-robin schedules:
Baseball: 27-28 Basketball: 15-18 Football: 3-8 Lacrosse 4-10 Soccer: 6-9-2 Tennis: 8-14
Total: 63-80
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on May 22, 2017 15:56:56 GMT -5
Baseball dropped its final six to finish one game under .500. The total for men's sports playing round-robin schedules: Baseball: 27-28 Basketball: 15-18 Football: 3-8 Lacrosse 4-10 Soccer: 6-9-2 Tennis: 8-14 Total: 63-80 Half Full: Lots of room to improve Half empty: We've not yet bottomed out. I think both Soccer and Basketball improve next year. Coach Wiese was in an impossible spot last year replacing 6 players who went to MLS clubs. Regression was almost a lock and they were in most games and just lacked finishers. I think Acharo is sitting on a huge Year on the front end and they bounce back near the top of the League. And while this may be Pollyanna, Patrick, by sheer force of will and his presence improves that team to 18 or so wins in the first steps back to prominence. Sadly I lack any real knowledge of the other teams.
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tashoya
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Post by tashoya on May 22, 2017 21:40:06 GMT -5
Baseball dropped its final six to finish one game under .500. The total for men's sports playing round-robin schedules: Baseball: 27-28 Basketball: 15-18 Football: 3-8 Lacrosse 4-10 Soccer: 6-9-2 Tennis: 8-14 Total: 63-80 Half Full: Lots of room to improve Half empty: We've not yet bottomed out. I think both Soccer and Basketball improve next year. Coach Wiese was in an impossible spot last year replacing 6 players who went to MLS clubs. Regression was almost a lock and they were in most games and just lacked finishers. I think Acharo is sitting on a huge Year on the front end and they bounce back near the top of the League. And while this may be Pollyanna, Patrick, by sheer force of will and his presence improves that team to 18 or so wins in the first steps back to prominence. Sadly I lack any real knowledge of the other teams. Also half full, it's a nice problem for the soccer team to have had. 6 men leaving for the MLS says a lot about the program and its trajectory. They, obviously, can't reload Kentucky style but they've clearly gotten and developed excellent players. That sort of track record will hopefully pay some dividends in terms of drawing more talented kids. Here's to hoping Harry brings some talent to the baseball team in the not-so-distant future.
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Post by HometownHoya on May 22, 2017 23:15:10 GMT -5
Wasn't Lacrosse's record an improvement over last year?
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Post by reformation on May 27, 2017 7:31:16 GMT -5
Interesting that I saw that BC just made the NCAA final for women's lacrosse. Their overall sports program seems to struggle mightily, but they seem to have a very good young coach who has propelled that sport at BC. I'd be pretty confident that the same BC coach would have similar success here. Sometimes I think gtwns success or lack of success comes down to be willing to invest in good coaches and make changes when necessary-not that hard in theory but harder to do in practice. For a few sports there is a structural resource mismatch. Lax, both M/W are pretty obvious example's where there are coaching, not resource issues. It will be interesting to see what gtown does.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on May 29, 2017 8:23:15 GMT -5
Interesting that I saw that BC just made the NCAA final for women's lacrosse. Their overall sports program seems to struggle mightily, but they seem to have a very good young coach who has propelled that sport at BC. I'd be pretty confident that the same BC coach would have similar success here. Sometimes I think gtwns success or lack of success comes down to be willing to invest in good coaches and make changes when necessary-not that hard in theory but harder to do in practice. For a few sports there is a structural resource mismatch. Lax, both M/W are pretty obvious example's where there are coaching, not resource issues. It will be interesting to see what gtown does. Are we quite certain that coaching resources are the only issue. I may be off base here but it has been my opinion that with growth of Lax into the college arena over the last 5-10 years has spread thin the talent base. I have wondered and have had a few conversations with those who are very close to both the men and woman's game who have speculated that a combination the tremendous growth in scholarship opportunities and what some have stated that many schools like GU have been lacking in quality talent that they once drew upon. This combined with the fact that admission requirements at many schools have been somewhat relaxed for a few more quality recruits while they remain relatively intact at GU. True or not it may explain the slow bottoming out of many of our olympic sports.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on May 30, 2017 19:31:12 GMT -5
While I'm sure you're right in terms of your desc of the univ's thinking and likely course of action, I can't say that this approach is really makes the most sense. Most of the organizations that would get cut have minimal support and do not perceive themselves as getting a fair shake from the univ anyway. Volleyball alums contribute maybe 10-25k a year. Realistically who would care if they were upset that their scholarship money to support a non competitive team was allocated elsewhere-what rational argument could they possibly make that the funds could not be better used elsewhere(another sport with better prospects, scholarships for needy students, hiring a couple of big name profs ) The rational argument is the same one used to justify having those sports - or *any* intercollegiate sports - in the first place: that athletics constitutes a core part of the collegiate experience, that elite athletes (however relative that level is) contribute something uniquely valuable to the campus community, and that institutional support for a wide range of athletics serves as a demonstrated commitment to the ideal of Cura Personalis. Setting aside the question of how much former athletes donate to the school (which isn't something I, you, or anyone else outside of the University would know for a fact), one need only look at the negative publicity created by the cutting of sports at Maryland and elsewhere to understand that such a move does indeed alienate people. Maybe in the long run a majority will feel it's justified, but there's no guarantee of that. Georgetown is indeed a rather risk-averse institution - but the risks are real and must be acknowledged, even if one disagrees with the administration's chosen trade-off between number of teams and concentration of resources. In terms of making the pie bigger, alums will generally contribute more to successful programs with big aspirations, not marginal ones. One can always get a wealthy parent or alum to randomly fund some pet activity for a marginal program, but that's not something that the univ can really rely on. The strategic investments that paid off like soccer were funded by the univ largely, so making the pie bigger was part of a general allocation of funds. I think most alums would appreciate some decisive action for a change. The fear of alienating anyone is part of the reason we don't have a Mt Vernon campus. Right, so, what enabled that strategic investment in soccer was that the overall pie was bigger, meaning that even if the proportion of overall university funds to athletics stayed the same, the absolute amount of dollars increased. Alternatively or additionally, as other priorities reached their target level of funding as the pie grew, it made it possible to allocate a greater to percentage to athletics, where it's safe to say most programs are nowhere near their target levels. There is an argument to be made that, while alumni may appreciate a better articulation and implementation of institutional strategy in the abstract, in practice they are more likely to support a collegial institution than one that pits it's programs (athletic and otherwise) in a zero-sum contest for resources.
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Post by reformation on May 31, 2017 14:57:50 GMT -5
One can see the contributions by alums in the materials sent by the univ to solicit funds from former athletes--other schools have similar fundraising efforts so its actually pretty easy to see how alums & parents to some degree fund the various sports at GU specifically and relative to its peer institutions. I doubt that rationalizing some sports would have any negative effect on fundraising for the remaining sports that get more attention. Giving out athletic scholarships for non competitive programs at a resource constrained GU because we've always done it seems pretty silly. I'm sure our alums are sophisticated enough to appreciate a rationalization of resources.
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Post by reformation on May 31, 2017 15:27:21 GMT -5
Interesting that I saw that BC just made the NCAA final for women's lacrosse. Their overall sports program seems to struggle mightily, but they seem to have a very good young coach who has propelled that sport at BC. I'd be pretty confident that the same BC coach would have similar success here. Sometimes I think gtwns success or lack of success comes down to be willing to invest in good coaches and make changes when necessary-not that hard in theory but harder to do in practice. For a few sports there is a structural resource mismatch. Lax, both M/W are pretty obvious example's where there are coaching, not resource issues. It will be interesting to see what gtown does. Are we quite certain that coaching resources are the only issue. I may be off base here but it has been my opinion that with growth of Lax into the college arena over the last 5-10 years has spread thin the talent base. I have wondered and have had a few conversations with those who are very close to both the men and woman's game who have speculated that a combination the tremendous growth in scholarship opportunities and what some have stated that many schools like GU have been lacking in quality talent that they once drew upon. This combined with the fact that admission requirements at many schools have been somewhat relaxed for a few more quality recruits while they remain relatively intact at GU. True or not it may explain the slow bottoming out of many of our olympic sports. Our traditional peers in lax have stayed competitive even if they may not be as dominant as they once were. GU's fall has been an outlier for both M/W and has been pretty much a one way march downward. The ivies as a whole are better than they once were even if maybe princeton and cornell are not as dominant, so i don't think the admission issue really works. For along time the men and women have underperformed their recruiting. The men's on the field performance decline effected their actual recruiting some time ago and the women more recently(though the women still get a couple top recruits). I think the factors that you site are real, but are really a convenient excuse rather for rather than a real explanation of gtown's relative decline in the sport.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 31, 2017 18:02:17 GMT -5
Setting aside the question of how much former athletes donate to the school (which isn't something I, you, or anyone else outside of the University would know for a fact)... Results of the 2016-17 Letterwinners Challenge: Highest Alumni Participation, 2016-17 (pct. of donors, not dollars) 1. Softball 2. Women’s Soccer 3. Men’s Soccer 4. Baseball 5. Sailing 6. Women’s Lacrosse 7. M/W Track & Field/Cross Country 8. Field Hockey 9. Football 10. M/W Swimming & Diving 11. Men’s Golf 12. Men’s Lacrosse 13. Men’s Rowing 14. Women’s Golf 15. M/W Tennis 16. Volleyball 17. Men’s Basketball 18. Women’s Basketball 19. Women’s Rowing wearegeorgetown.com/Letterwinners/One can see the contributions by alums in the materials sent by the univ to solicit funds from former athletes--other schools have similar fundraising efforts so its actually pretty easy to see how alums & parents to some degree fund the various sports at GU specifically and relative to its peer institutions. I doubt that rationalizing some sports would have any negative effect on fundraising for the remaining sports that get more attention. Giving out athletic scholarships for non competitive programs at a resource constrained GU because we've always done it seems pretty silly. I'm sure our alums are sophisticated enough to appreciate a rationalization of resources. What does rationalization mean? Scholarships, coaches, facilities, programs?
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Post by reformation on Jun 1, 2017 12:58:11 GMT -5
Setting aside the question of how much former athletes donate to the school (which isn't something I, you, or anyone else outside of the University would know for a fact)... Results of the 2016-17 Letterwinners Challenge: Highest Alumni Participation, 2016-17 (pct. of donors, not dollars) 1. Softball 30K 2. Women’s Soccer 42k 3. Men’s Soccer 179K 4. Baseball 280k 5. Sailing 152K 6. Women’s Lacrosse 57K 7. M/W Track & Field/Cross Country 118K 8. Field Hockey 38K 9. Football 344k 10. M/W Swimming & Diving 198K 11. Men’s Golf 87K 12. Men’s Lacrosse 111k 13. Men’s Rowing 335K 14. Women’s Golf 92K 15. M/W Tennis 79k 16. Volleyball 23K 17. Men’s Basketball 1.4mm 18. Women’s Basketball 28k 19. Women’s Rowing 96K wearegeorgetown.com/Letterwinners/One can see the contributions by alums in the materials sent by the univ to solicit funds from former athletes--other schools have similar fundraising efforts so its actually pretty easy to see how alums & parents to some degree fund the various sports at GU specifically and relative to its peer institutions. I doubt that rationalizing some sports would have any negative effect on fundraising for the remaining sports that get more attention. Giving out athletic scholarships for non competitive programs at a resource constrained GU because we've always done it seems pretty silly. I'm sure our alums are sophisticated enough to appreciate a rationalization of resources. What does rationalization mean? Scholarships, coaches, facilities, programs? Scholarships certainly + aligning the coaches to the relevant performance goals like anyplace else. Re programs I guess the univ would have to evaluate relocating resources among programs versus fully eliminating some. Facilities is more of a long term issue, but certainly informed by decisions re which programs to support at a high level. The numbers above represent the fundraising by sport for last year per univ email to donors.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 3, 2017 13:51:31 GMT -5
Setting aside the question of how much former athletes donate to the school (which isn't something I, you, or anyone else outside of the University would know for a fact)... Results of the 2016-17 Letterwinners Challenge: Highest Alumni Participation, 2016-17 (pct. of donors, not dollars) 1. Softball 2. Women’s Soccer 3. Men’s Soccer 4. Baseball 5. Sailing 6. Women’s Lacrosse 7. M/W Track & Field/Cross Country 8. Field Hockey 9. Football 10. M/W Swimming & Diving 11. Men’s Golf 12. Men’s Lacrosse 13. Men’s Rowing 14. Women’s Golf 15. M/W Tennis 16. Volleyball 17. Men’s Basketball 18. Women’s Basketball 19. Women’s Rowing wearegeorgetown.com/Letterwinners/Those rankings reflect only donations during the Letterwinners Challenge gimmick, not overall. Regardless, if taken as broadly representative, they kinda make my point: Most Dollars Raised 1. Baseball 2. Football 3. Men’s Rowing 4. Swimming & Diving 5. Track & Field/Cross Country 6. Men’s Golf 7. Men’s Soccer 8. Men’s Lacrosse 9. Sailing 10. Tennis 11. Field Hockey 12. Men’s Basketball 13. Women’s Lacrosse 14. Women’s Rowing 15. Volleyball 16. Women’s Soccer 17. Women’s Basketball 18. Softball 19. Women’s Golf You've got alumni from partially-scholarshipped, perennial loser baseball and non-scholarship, only-slightly-less-perennial loser football leading the way (yes, those are bigger teams, but that also makes them more expensive sports to maintain). Third is men's rowing - most rowers never see any scholarship money - and non-scholarship swimming & diving is fourth. In terms of participation rate, field hockey is middle of the pack despite being badly outresourced and outclassed facilities-wise by all their competitors. So if you were to 'rationalize' away some of these underperforming teams, you would indeed be harming your fundraising. That's before we get into the fact that you would also be alienating the many families, friends, etc. that have ties to particular programs. Again, it might still be worth it, but let's not pretend there aren't very real tradeoffs and negative consequences inherent in such decisions. For what it's worth, one of the reasons why the investments in the TAC and the MSF make so much sense is that they do have lots of positive knock-on effects across the programs. To take underperformer volleyball as an example: with the basketball teams decamping for the TAC, volleyball no longer has to play third fiddle in practice scheduling. When football gets locker room space in the MSF, that will free up considerable space in McDonough as well, beyond what has already been vacated thanks to the TAC. Those things start to add up.
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Post by reformation on Jun 4, 2017 10:14:45 GMT -5
The rowing/baseball/ field hockey examples you mention actually get get to the point I was trying to make. Btw baseball is behind rowing and football in terms of contributions, but that not the point-I think you misread the table. If gtown switched resources from volleyball/softball maybe baseball to rowing/field hockey/tennis/golf--take your pick the latter sports would be nationally competitive. The former sports would require both significant changes in both academic costs and resources and still aren't that likely to be nationally competitive. Instead of funding everything at a subsistence level where all programs are mediocre could have a larger # of first class programs with probably overall the same or lower academic cost. I'm sure women's rowing or volleyball could compete for a natl championship if they were funded like volleyball, e,g.,--instead all programs are mediocre at least currently. Alum support of baseball is decent as you indicate, but certainly that is not the only the primary determinant re program resource allocation:support is not high enough to support a nationally competitive program, so I don't think it would drive decision making. I'd gladly take a little less baseball contributions in exchange for winning a championship in another sport.
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