Non-Revenue Sports

[wizard1]

I find the recent negative comments about non-revenue sports puzzling. Competitive non-revenue sports should be an important part of any quality athletic program, whether BCS, Mid-Major, or Divn. II. Bradley has done a terrible job of fostering and supporting these sports by its indifference, not allowing the full compliment of NCAA approved scholies, and by not always hiring full-time and competent coaches, with one notable exception.
Consider soccer which is a non-revenue sport---When, after several years, Bradley made a strong committment to this program and hired a wonderful coach in Jim DeRose and then gave him the scholarships he needed, the program grew into a national power. As a result, all of us are very proud of Bradley soccer and its success.
Would Ohio State think that Jack Nicklaus or Tom Weiskopf are less significant to them than Archie Griffin or John Havlachek? Arguably, Wake Forrests most famous alum is a non-revenue sport guy named Palmer.
Closer to home in the MVC, Ill. State produced golfer D.A. Weibring who is a major contributor to all of their athletic programs. And how about Drake---can any of you recall a Drake athlete who has accomplished more and brought greater recognition to the school than Masters Champion Zack Johnson?
While revenue is certainly important, it is not the only consideration in a good overall athletic program. Some of our posters as well as Bradley need to understand this.

[MacabreMob]

I had absolutely NO clue where any of those golfers played college. The only one I might know is Tiger Woods. Didn't he go to Arizona or somewhere in the Southwest?

Now that I think of it... wasn't it Stanford?

[wizard1]

Stanford Golf (Non-Revenue)

MacabreMob---CORRECTO! Tiger Woods did play at Stanford and I would speculate that he may have given more money to the school than all their Football and Basketball players combined. Also, I believe Stanford has produced more professional golfers than Football and Basket ball pros combined.

[SFP]

MacabreMob---CORRECTO! Tiger Woods did play at Stanford and I would speculate that he may have given more money to the school than all their Football and Basketball players combined. Also, I believe Stanford has produced more professional golfers than Football and Basket ball pros combined.

Also Stanford has the 3rd largest endowment with a cool couple of $billions in their coffer. They also have a quality swim, track, water polo, volleyball and a few other non-revenue sports program (they have more NCAA champs year and year out then 99% of other schools) because they can afford it PERIOD! BU is a small private mid-west school that does pretty well for its size. With limited resources, tough choices are made and I have no complaints. I'd rather the school invest in talented thinkers then a lacrosse team.

[tornado]

hey-- I strongly support the BU golf program...in fact I will be meeting tomorrow with some of the Bradley golfers in an "academic" and social setting....some of the basketball players will be there, too!
I'll tell them you said Hi, wiz!

[bu fan 9]

Wizard give more money to the sport you like and you will get more scholies and better coaches. Step up to the plate and get something done it is as easy as that.

[wizard1]

Non-Revenue Funding

I agree that we do not need every non-revenue sport. There is no interest in Central Ill. in Lacrosse, Fencing, Water Polo, etc. However, Golf, Tennis, & Swimming are very popular in our area and our high schools and state have very good programs in these sports.
Isn't it then a natural progression for a quality Central Ill. Divn. I university to also have these sports at a COMPETITIVE level?
Funding isn't the problem, it's the excuse! For example, the NCAA allows 5 golf scholies. Since classroom costs are really nil, we are talking about room, board, & books for 5 people. While there is some travel, (5 people and a coach in a van), the only equipment cost is for balls, gloves, caps, shirts, shoes, and bags and we are already paying for most of these. Players provide their own clubs.
Like many schools, local golf courses and practice ranges can be used and people already on staff can coach with supplemental help from local pros. Good full-time golf coaches do not require very large salaries.
In summary, the incremental cost is not really very large. The same is true for tennis and swimming and we already have excellent facilities for these.
Again, funding is not the true problem, it's the excuse.

[Da Coach]

wizard, I appreciate your interest and support of BU sports, and I am sure the athletic department does, too.
But, I think you are seriously underestimating the costs of running a Division I sports program. I am no expert, so if you really want numbers, I suggest you talk to the people at BU.
First, if any mens sport (or additional scholarships for established sports) are added, than there has to be another women's sport added, too. We don't want the federal government down our necks for Title IX violations, so that doubles the cost of adding any single sport.
But even an apparently inexpensive sport like golf has lots of other costs that you are not accounting for.

Since classroom costs are really nil, we are talking about room, board, & books for 5 people

Classroom costs are nil? Tuition at Bradley is over $20,000, and with room, meals, and books and expenses, it rises to over $30,000 per student per year for every scholarship athlete. Sorry, but it is not as simple as shuffling a few papers, or the University winking at the athletic department and letting those costs slide.
The athletic department has to come up with that cost. It's simply not as easy as just sneaking another kid onto campus and squeezing him into classes. His tuition has to be paid by someone, and there are a limited number of dollars available for these athletic scholarships. Bradley has to remain fiscally responsible. Taking that kind of money for a new sport (or in reality 2 more sports to maintain gender equity) would reduce the scholarship amounts for other sports, and would hurt those sports.

Then there are significant costs for paying a coach. Sorry, but nobody is going to accept a full-time coaching position without a significant raise in salary. That's just not realistic. There are significant travel costs, facility costs, equipment costs, and recruiting costs. There are even many other costs you fail to even touch on- what about insurance and liability costs. These are very expensive. And uniforms- you can't expect a D1 school to have it's players in khaki shorts and tee shirts.

There are reasons why the majority of D1 schools field just the minimum number of required sports to qualify for D1. There are reasons why colleges all over the country are dropping varsity sports. The costs are significant, and Bradley is fortunate to be well supported, but I and most donors don't want to see basketball suffer because new sports or new scholarships are added for lesser sports.

[SFP]

Da Coach, great post. I also just want to add that it is the schools responsibility above all to develop an academic environment that produces business and community leaders not professional athletes. Sports have their place in academics but as I have said before I'd rather have someone associated with BU win a Nobel prize or some other academic achievement award then even winning the NCAA tourney. If I was concerned with NCAA victories I would have gone to a school like Florida.

With the limited resources in the administrations hand they need to walk a fine line on what to support. Basketball brings in a ton of money into the school in multiple fronts that allow the University to field other teams and draw qualified individuals to the school. Funding other sports teams without the ability for them to one day become self-sufficient will only hurt the school in areas that have the potential to generate alumni that can and will do more for the University. It is a simple ROI calculation that the schools perform to determine the allocation of its funds. After all a private school has to run the school like a business.

[wizard1]

non-revenue sports

Coach, thanks for the response. I'll give it one last joust at the windmill and then move on to other things.
First, rest assured that I have talked at length to the athletic dept. about this subject. Of course, you are right on some things you say but you have also missed some key points:
1. Let's not confuse COST and PRICE. $30,000/yr. is the price a full time student pays to attend BU---the cost of this to BU is somewhat less than $30,000.
2. Title IX is not an issue since we are not talking about adding or eliminating any sports. We already have men and womens golf & tennis. The costs of these are already paid for. What we don't have is a competitive program in these sports because we do not have the full allocation of NCAA scholies and most of our opponents do.
4. Having competitive golf and tennis programs would not affect the basketball program. This is a myth.
All I'm saying is let's stop fielding a continual array of embarrasing non-competitive non-revenue teams. Bradley can do better than this!

[bu fan 9]

How would it not take money away from the basketball program?That is were all the money comes from. The AD department pays for all of the scholies.

[BuAlum03]

i love wizard's enthusiasm for the non-revenue sports. In an ideal world, these would be funded to the max and have fantastic support levels from both the community and the student body. Unfortunately, thats not really the case.

There are significant costs to Bradley's academic programs. Im not talking about the price, but about the cost. tuition goes to fund, not only the building overhead and professors salaries, but administrative overhead, campus maintenance, technology, and much, much more.

I also agree with bu fan 9; funding the non-revenue sports is great, but the primary purpose of Bradley is to be an academic institution, and the athletics programs are a value-added component of the academic goals. Not the other way around.

[wizard1]

Funding

The basketball program generates excess funds beyond what is actually spent for basketball so more than enough funds are available for the basketball program.
Clearly, basketball should be and is the first priority. What I am referring to are the excess funds beyond what is needed for and spent on basketball. These funds are available and could be used if the University would make a committment to fielding other competitive non-revenue sports teams like they did in soccer.

[thefish7]

That's the thing that I don't have any visibility to, wizard. What is the profit (not revenue) situation of athletic programs at Bradley. I don't know either which way if Basketball is profitable on its own, or by extension of the athletic department is. As mentioned above, in a perfect world we could fund anything, and I'm behind funding whatever we can...

[Rusty 54]

MVC Standings

Baseball 9 (9)
Mens Basketball 4 (10)
Womens Basketball 4 (10)
Soccer 5 (6)
Softball 6 (10)
Mens Tennis 5 (7)
Womens Tennis 9 (9)
Volleyball 9* (9)

I went to mvc.org and looked up the standings. I didnt include golf, cross county or track because they did not have a standings link. The parentheses are the number of teams that compet in that sport, for example only 6 teams pay mens soccer while 10 play basketball.

* The volleyball team had the same record as Indiana State so I am assuming ISU had some sort of Tie-breaker