I am a Rutgers grad who follows the boards closely. I also coach girls youth lacrosse so I follow the womens program pretty intently and on occasion make it to a men's game my schedule permitting. In the other thread about the women you mention funding. Now I know we obviously are not fully vested in the BIG yet but are we that far behind in funding that we can not hire good coaches or does it affect other aspects of the program? (that question is for both programs) Will this hold us back till we are fully vested or will the new facilities that hopefully will come out of the RU Build make up this shortfall? Just interested
Question for CaliKnight
- Thread starter richthedentist
- Start date
I’ll chime in. I like to think of being fully funded as having the bare-minimum to operate a program. If you opened a corner store and put your money into stocking the shelves, having electricity, locks on the door, getting a fridge for cold food and drinks, having a cash register and ran the counter yourself, you’d have a business. Down the block is another corner store and they the same stuff. But, they have a little more money available and they have hired a stock-boy so they don’t have to work super late/ early hours or, worse, close the shop so they can stock the shelves and not worry about being robbed. To drive more business, they have an on-going ad in the local paper, put up signs on their windows promoting specials, and got themselves set up to take credit card payments. If you were to bet on which store would be thriving in 10-years, where would you place your bet?
That’s kind of where Rutgers is in many aspects. For decades, we have had enough funding from the state and via tuition to have a university. In order to break free from simple existence from top to bottom, we need more funding from 3rd party contributors. Corporations and foundations are part of that, but alumni and friends are the difference makers. Frankly, corporations and foundations will look at alumni donations in their decision making process. Why would they want to support an institution where the people who most directly benefitted don’t care? That last part may not be out-right true, but it is the message being received by outsiders. Thankfully, we are seeing donors make an impact in a bigger way than ever before, but we are still missing the number of base level donors you'd expect with a university that has 400,000+ alumni.
I would say the funding differential can be even bigger than that example. I can't speak to the women's program, as I don't have insight into as I do like the men. I can't believe that they are any more underfunded than the men though, yet we are starting to see vastly different results. That's telling.
It's simple investment that manifests itself in different ways. Take USC for example. They started a women's lacrosse team 5-7 years ago. They are now ranked. Why? Because they fund the program to the fullest amount of scholarships, coaching positions, and gave them nice facilities. The athletes are treated very well while on campus and have everything they need to be successful, including big recruiting budgets for the coaching staff and all the perks that come with being an athlete at USC. There is this football/basketball and everything else thought. Big time schools don't think like that. They think let's win championships in everything. Let's be great in everything or let's not do it. I have heard the USC AD say as much when they started their women's lax program. To paraphrase, he said, "we will fund the team enough to win national championships". All over their campus they have a succinct message- We Play for Championships. It isn't a slogan or words a coach who is no longer there came up with. They mean it. More importantly, they fund do it.
There is a video of what OSU's men's lax team has access too. Ash just implemented a 24 hour café the football team will have. OSU's lax team has had that for 5 years. ND's men's lax team flies on chartered jets to games, as do others. This is the type of thing we are competing with.
Longwinded answer, but lack of proper funding compared to peers is seen at every level, from assistant coaching credentials, to the players recruited, to how they are trained, to the expectations of the team and the head coach. What we see at Rutgers right now would never be acceptable at a school like USC. But funding is the backbone of it all. Can't expect to eat Kobe beef on a McDonald's budget. Again, I don't have insight into our women's program, but from what I can see, we aren't reaching our potential with the budgets they do have. We lost to Monmouth and get blown out routinely by good teams. It's a problem.
Having said all of that, VERY positive changes are occurring under Hobbs. That dude gets it. We aren't waiting for the B1G funding to kick in. It will be great when it does, but the train has left the station already.
It's simple investment that manifests itself in different ways. Take USC for example. They started a women's lacrosse team 5-7 years ago. They are now ranked. Why? Because they fund the program to the fullest amount of scholarships, coaching positions, and gave them nice facilities. The athletes are treated very well while on campus and have everything they need to be successful, including big recruiting budgets for the coaching staff and all the perks that come with being an athlete at USC. There is this football/basketball and everything else thought. Big time schools don't think like that. They think let's win championships in everything. Let's be great in everything or let's not do it. I have heard the USC AD say as much when they started their women's lax program. To paraphrase, he said, "we will fund the team enough to win national championships". All over their campus they have a succinct message- We Play for Championships. It isn't a slogan or words a coach who is no longer there came up with. They mean it. More importantly, they fund do it.
There is a video of what OSU's men's lax team has access too. Ash just implemented a 24 hour café the football team will have. OSU's lax team has had that for 5 years. ND's men's lax team flies on chartered jets to games, as do others. This is the type of thing we are competing with.
Longwinded answer, but lack of proper funding compared to peers is seen at every level, from assistant coaching credentials, to the players recruited, to how they are trained, to the expectations of the team and the head coach. What we see at Rutgers right now would never be acceptable at a school like USC. But funding is the backbone of it all. Can't expect to eat Kobe beef on a McDonald's budget. Again, I don't have insight into our women's program, but from what I can see, we aren't reaching our potential with the budgets they do have. We lost to Monmouth and get blown out routinely by good teams. It's a problem.
Having said all of that, VERY positive changes are occurring under Hobbs. That dude gets it. We aren't waiting for the B1G funding to kick in. It will be great when it does, but the train has left the station already.
Thanks I follow the womens program a little more intently and this is another example of a coach who should not still be coaching
No problem.
I would imagine under Hobbs, every coach who isn't sniffing success is going to be very uncomfortable.
It's his job to provide them with the tools to be successful, and I have faith he will. Beyond that, he is going to have high expectations.
I would imagine under Hobbs, every coach who isn't sniffing success is going to be very uncomfortable.
It's his job to provide them with the tools to be successful, and I have faith he will. Beyond that, he is going to have high expectations.
