ADVERTISEMENT

We are poor at quite a few sports

knights1212

Heisman Winner
Sep 9, 2003
16,754
8,017
113
Yes, Indiana took the broom to us in baseball this weekend. We are nor 5-7 in the Big Ten and I think 11-22 or so overall. We are constantly losing to mid majors too in baseball. This is embarrassing. I just checked our records in several sports and we are really hurting in many.

We are decent at football, wrestling, women's basketball, women's soccer and softball.

The rest of the sports are really down. We know about men's basketball, men's soccer, baseball, lacrosse (4-9 I think) and cross country (12th out of 12 in the Big 10) are all hurting. On the women's side we were 7-26 in volleyball, we are 1-13 in lacrosse and cross country took 12th out of 14 teams in the BIG 10. Years ago we were pretty good in many of these sports. I know in track we have usually been pretty good but we never seem to concentrate on bringing in any distance runners to help us in cross country. It seems like ages ago that we were good in men's lacrosse and soccer. We were in the TOP 10 in the country in soccer for several years in the early 90's. Now we seem to lose most of the time.

Hopefully over the next few years we can make a much better representation in all sports in the BIG 10.
 
i think it's wise to cut a sports team or two that have no hope of becoming good/no fan interest. put that money into a team with high ceiling needing resource - like wrestling.
 
Seems like we have an anono-mod here?

As I said in my post in this thread the choice of p$$r is the right word.

Once the correct funding for some of the mentioned sports happens I bet we see a difference.
 
We have a lot of work to do in some of these sports. It can be done but either we are going to make the commitment to be competitive or we are not. I believe in certain cases coaches are just holding the fort until a funding a mechanism develops to improve their situation.
 
Originally posted by e5fdny:
Seems like we have an anono-mod here?

As I said in my post in this thread the choice of p$$r is the right word.
Collateral damage in removing Shill's post. Nothing was wrong with your post.
 
Without major donors nothing will change. Our facilities for many non-revs (and MBB) are awful. Indiana became a baseball power a couple years back soon after they built a $19.5M baseball facility. Coincidence? To build that, former 1960s All Big 10 Indiana baseball player Bart Kaufman gave a big gift. That's how it gets done. This is not a question of holding back money at RU - there is none, period. Virtually all major athletic facilities' funding (even at major state Us) are at least led by a large private donation. We rarely get those so our facilities stink, we can't hire top coaches and, relatedly, we can't get top players. Michigan's softball roster is filled with Players of the Year from multiple states (note UM's facilities) and so they're a top team. Our softball team STARTS multiple players who weren't even first team all county. No mysteries here. What's amazing is that Softball had done so well prior to playing Michigan. Our softball team, over the last 10 years or so, has struggled to get to .500, but, last year, they began a nice little turnaround to get over .500 (not a really high bar). However, until we get $ from major private gifts to upgrade facilities, any improvement in softball or any other non-rev or MBB will be relatively minor and any dreams of truly competing for a conference title (let alone national title/ranking) will remain just that, dreams.
This post was edited on 4/13 3:22 PM by CuredbywinningRU
 
We took a step in the right direction by hiring Herman. She actually cares about the non-revenue sports doing well.
 
I agree that she cares, but where does that show?

I assume she's going to ride whatever coaches we have until their contracts all end and then make decisions on them.

I know she's done her best to help some fundraising for some of the minor sports. Obviously we have the indoor ball field opening in the next bit of time and wrestling is moving up as well.

I just wish I could know what her plan is all the different sports. It seems like a number of them are completely overlooked, even though I can obviously guess that they aren't.
 
ADVERTISEMENT