DFW HOYA
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jun 4, 2017 13:08:14 GMT -5
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. I disagree, and here's why. Each of the target sports you cite: women's rowing, field hockey, tennis, and golf--all lack the one dynamic which sets nationally competitive schools apart, and it's not scholarships. it's facilities. Rowing: Today's NCAA rowing environment is dominated not by Northeastern and/or ivy schools, but by Big 10 and Pac 10 schools like Cal, Washington, Stanford, Ohio State and Michigan. These five schools account for 17 of the last 20 finalists in NCAA rowing. They all have the kind of boathouses and training facilities which have been a mirage at Georgetown for 30 years. Those facilities are not only training NCAA champions but Olympic team-strength competition, something Georgetown does not have and does not seem interested in developing, particularly with international student-athletes. Field Hockey: Field Hockey is a Eastern sport without question, but facilities also play a big role. Major field hockey programs all utilize a sport-specific stadium using what is called as "wet turf", where a hard Astroturf surface is soaked by water cannons to escalate the ball across the field. In fact, Georgetown is one of the few FH programs which do not even play on Astroturf because Cooper Field is not that surface. Of 78 teams, Georgetown is 55th in scoring as a result. Villanova raised $1.6 million to build its own FH stadium. Would Georgetown do the same? Tennis: There hasn't been a team below I-A which has made the Division I finals in 15 years. The major schools all have tennis stadiums (indoor and outdoor) with dedicated training, fan seating and skyboxes, in addition to 18-24 courts for simultaneously hosting men's and women's matches. What does Georgetown offer? Wait, we'll check the schedule at Visitation... Golf:Yes, facilities make a difference, and so do on-campus or near-campus courses. An elite athlete that can roll out of bed and take the front nine before he has a 10:00 am class is going to look more favorably upon Duke or Florida than a 31 mile drive from Village C (assuming good traffic) to the site of the Georgetown Invitational in Beallsville, MD, assuming that he or she isn't behind ten other foursomes. Does the Thompson Center help? Sure, but no top tennis player thinks it's all about their sport. Compare that to this: Outdoor: Indoor:
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Post by reformation on Jun 4, 2017 15:13:16 GMT -5
While facilities matter they are not the major setback for these sports being nationally competitive-also there is a difference between being nationally competitive and dominating at NCAA championship level. The specifics vary by sport but here's my take:
Women's Rowing: Most important success factor is recruiting(scholarships) and coaching. Brown and most of the Ivies are consistently top 10-15 programs and one or two will vie for a natl championship each year. Schools like Ohio State have become competitive by recruiting foreign jr nationals--The ivies now do the same. We would be similarly competitive if we added scholarships and recruited more widely. Stanford, as you mention has great overall athletic facilities, but there's nothing special about their rowing facilities per se other than nice weather.
Tennis: Again using the Ivy example I think both Cornell and Columbia both have top 20 men's programs this year. With Scholarships I think we'd be competitive at least ate that level. Facilities could have a bigger impact then rowing but again I'd be pretty sure we could compete at the Columbia Cornell level, though probably not at the Stanford level. both men & women Ivies pull in top 10-20 recruiting classes regularly now. We are decently competitive with no money, I thinks it's hard to believe we wouldn't take a big jump with full scholarships/additional coaching
Golf: I think Northwestern came in 1st or second in the NCAA champs this year for women. Though they probably have better overall athletic facilities the us I'm not sure theres much about their golf facilities that are better. Again I think its coaching + scholarships. Our women's golf team seems decent with no resources, hard to believe that scholarships would not make it elite.
Field Hockey: might have a point but I'm not sure if I were a top fH recruit I'd choose UCONN over gown because of its FH stadium
Most of the people who play these sports are using them as a means to get into the best school they can--they are not expecting to become professionals--accordingly gown would be a highly attractive place for top recruits in any of these sports--maybe we don't compete with Stanford for the nations #1 tennis recruit, but we'd certainly get some elite competitors across the board. With increased resources we'd have to obviously hold the coaches accountable for performance as we do not do currently unless there is a complete program collapse. .
Obviously its easier not to make any changes, but were certainly capable of doing a lot more. Other than field hockey I think the Ivies are highly competitive at a natl level in these sports. I'm hard pressed to think we could not match that with a resource upgrade reallocation-conversely the sports I've mentioned previously that are allocated too many resources are not similarly successful at our peer institutions--which sports we should focus on are not that hard to figure out
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Post by reformation on Jun 4, 2017 18:59:20 GMT -5
DFW, fyi in field hockey this year the NCAA final four was Delaware, Princeton, UCONN and UNC. Title won by Delaware! For women's rowing the order of finish at the NCAA champs for the eastern crews that participated was Yale-6th, Brown 8th, Prin 9th, Syracuse 13th, Northeastern 17th, Navy 20th, UMASS 21. Northwestern as mentioned before was NCAA runner-up in women's golf. While I always respect your opinion I think you should reexamine your assumptions re our competitive ceiling.
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Post by reformation on Jun 4, 2017 19:08:29 GMT -5
Also in tennis this year at the NCAA champs Columbia knocked off B10 Purdue before losing to natl champ UVA and Cornell knocked off perennial power Rice. Despite my harping on this issue I was even surprised by how well some of our peers are doing at various sports. I think the ivies changing financial aid has changed their fortunes a lot more than people realize in the various sports. Even well informed observers may be a bit outdated in their knowledge on this issue and need to reevaluate what are the possibilities.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 10, 2017 13:27:22 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. I didn't misread anything - baseball is ahead of football and rowing in terms of Letterwinner participation and dollars raised from the last Letterwinner challenge, which is where those relative rankings of sports came from. DFW for some reason added in what looks like either targets or actual numbers (from last FY?) for total funds raised FOR each sport (rather than FROM alumni of each sport) in the list that he posted. Football and rowing did/do take in more money than baseball in absolute terms, yes. Anyway, this is a topic where I largely do agree with DFW - facilities make a big difference across all sports. It's a big reason why the power conference/big state schools have been able to jump into new sports like women's lacrosse and have a lot of success - they already have impressive facilities for varsity athletes from all sports. To whit... Field Hockey: might have a point but I'm not sure if I were a top fH recruit I'd choose UCONN over gown because of its FH stadium From a facilities perspective, an athlete isn't just choosing UConn over Georgetown because of its field hockey stadium, they're choosing the entire suite of athletics facilities that all UConn athletes benefit from over what Georgetown athletes get.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jun 10, 2017 18:57:44 GMT -5
Men's track did not have a bad year.
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Post by reformation on Jun 12, 2017 6:40:02 GMT -5
Nevada's track example contradicts your facilities argument quite strongly. Our facilities are not good, yet we've consistently had an elite program. For distance and mid distance we lose recruits maybe to Stanford consistently which obviously has better facilities but is also a better overall school. We are competitive and generally win on average versus everyone else. I agree facilities are a factor but I'd say that they are part of an overall assessment re the desirability of the school. Yes, I might choose Stan over Gtwn if I'm a track recruit, but generally not choosing Ohio State over Gtwn for our core event specialties.
In track we've had scholarships and generally highly regarded coaches(legendary in Gags case), for a long time. In the non distance and mid distance events we neither have had the facilities nor elite coaching nor focus. In the brief times when we had some elite coaching (sheila burrell) for the non core events we brought in some top recruits also.
In FH we don't have scholarships, so yes we lose recruits to a place like UCONN which has scholarships. If we had scholarships(don't know our coaching quality) the situation would turn around, maybe not for every recruit, but for enough to make us competitive with the elite programs. In women's lax our traditional rivals still do really well but we've fallen off--strongly suspect its more than a facilities issue.
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Post by reformation on Jun 17, 2017 9:25:46 GMT -5
www.gocolumbialions.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9600&ATCLID=211628594Article re coaching change at Columbia womens rowing--the point in posting this is that even schools that care as much or more than gtown about academics hold coaches accountable for performance. The columbia coach got 6 years but at the end of the day the program hovered around the bottom of the league and eventually the school made a change. This type of change only happens at gtown when the coach leaves for a better job or there is an absolute program collapse. If we want to have better sports programs generally we have to have a higher degree of accountability for coaches--I'm all for giving internal candidates a shot + giving them time to get things done, but there has to be accountability at some point.
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