With sleep pods, etc. Meanwhile, the LSU library is pretty much falling apart with a bad water leak problem. A few people in Baton Rouge, including some former football players, recognize that these two things don’t create a good image.
<LINK_TEXT text=“https://www.wafb.com/2019/07/23/million … ed-debate/”>https://www.wafb.com/2019/07/23/million-lsu-locker-room-renovation-sparks-heated-debate/</LINK_TEXT>
Aloha,
IMHO, the NCAA ADs are NOT fighting hard enough to expand the current limits of scholarships on sports other than football and basketball, both boys and girls. The ADs are content to continue the facilities arms races and coaches salaries. It’s a shame the ADs don’t have the courage to do what is right and increase the amount of scholarships for basically the traditional non-revenue sports teams.
if the NCAA has to break out to different competitive levels of DIV-I, so be it. It should ALL be about the student athlete and unfortunately I don’t see any significant effort to increase the amount of scholarships. It’s shameful.
GHG!
The NCAA does what its schools tell it to do, Guy. Everything is put up for a vote. If the baseball limit remains at 11.7 scholarships, it’s because the schools are not voting to increase it. IIRC there are 299 schools playing D-I baseball. If 150 of them voted to raise the limit it would be raised. That hasn’t happened, and it probably won’t, because most of them are afraid of spending more money. Yeah they’d have to bump up softball a few as well, which only makes them more afraid to vote yes. Same applies for track and swimming and the rest of the “Olympic” sports.
And if you split baseball, or any other NCAA sport, into the schools who are willing to give more scholarships and the ones who aren’t, the game will be damaged. Part of the lure of the CWS is the chance that a Stony Brook can get to Omaha, or a Coastal Carolina can actually win the damn thing. I’d be willing to bet Stony Brook isn’t going to vote for more scholarships. CCU might; they actually seem to have some money (I’ve seen their campus; they’re currently putting an upper deck on their football stadium).
Aloha Jeff,
I believe its the AD’s responsibility to convince the University Presidents and ALCON to increase the amount of scholarships.
IMHO, in all sincerity, if the school presidents and ADs truly cared about student athletes as their number one priority in the arena of athletics, they should increase the amount of scholarships. If the schools have to re-arrange their leagues and championships, so be it.
As most of us know, the vast majority of Power 5 schools have too much $$$. They have greatly expanded their athletic departments, greatly improved their facilities way beyond what is actually needed and have greatly inflated coaches salaries. All at the expense of lack of scholarships for the student athletes.
The school ADs and Presidents need to get called out by the national and local media, as well as the sponsors and companies (ESPN, ABC, CBS, etc…) who actually fund the NCAA excessive growth of facilities, staffing and salaries at the expense of the free labor of student athletes not receiving full scholarships.
GHG!
The NCAA is no different than any other business organization. Money is the name of the game and the big guys dictate to the smaller ones. If you think collegiate sports is not about money, look around.
No doubt money drives a lot of it, but you’re wrong that “big guys dictate.” The small schools’ votes count just as much & they don’t want to spend the money. There have been times in the past when “big guys” threatened to pull out of the NCAA or do other things to increase their influence & to some extent they succeeded. However, it’s not like the Power 5 conferences rule the roost. If they did, there wouldn’t be this silly rule that one non-power 5 school always gets a major bowl slot. They wouldn’t be sharing in the CPO money, either.
The baseball coach fiasco failed because, in addition to the lesser school, for some reason the Big 10 & a few other P5 schools (Texas) opposed it.
Sleeping pods? Those are just fancy recliners. I have one at home, so I can cock back and watch the tube. Do they have cable in the locker room so they can watch re-runs of Seinfeld?
It is painfully apparent that the priorities of the State of Louisiana and LSU are warped. The state of Louisiana is in poor financial shape and they are doing this to the locker rooms? $28 million dollars improvement to have a place to change clothes? Well, I know all the other SEC schools are about as nuts as LSU, so what do you say? Not much…it is just crazy. Somebody please stop this insanity.
Those sleeping pods basically copy what you get in business class on transatlantic flights. Those seats pull out into a bed.
It is about money, but there are more small schools who don’t want to spend the money on scholarships than big ones who do. So the big ones get outvoted. Why somee big schools voted against the third baseball coach I will never understand.
I remember title 9 making a significent change in scholarships and personally I feel football should not be counted in the concept of ladies schollies as there is no female equilivent to football. I agree on the other sports but from what I sense Arkansas has no mens swimming because of the numbers game. I think baseball should not only have another coach, the scholarships should be full and an entire roster filled.
But wait Jh, it gets even better than that! In this morning paper they are discussing how the new athletic director wants to end the $7 million plus annual transfer from the athletic fund to the academic coffers. Apparently this transfer is not being made at most other schools, so why should LSU? With the price of oil (a major source of revenue for the state of Louiaiana) being down, the state has had to cut funding to the university systems, and now apparently athletics will do the same. Stay tuned as we have to let our Boyd Professors go so that we can hire more athletic coaches.