This has more to do with our other sports here than football but I have been thinking about this recently after reading Bill Parcells book, specifically about his college days. I never realized how important it is to have a good AD as they're our version of an NFL GM. However, institutional and fan support (both visual and financial) is also just as important when building lasting and winning programs. Thinking across all sports (from golf to football) What does each sport need to have to be on an even playing field in this conference? I can think of three things that, if we had the same as the top third of the B1G, I feel we could compete with anyone:
1. Full allotment of scholarships or scholarship money for each sport
2. Proper training facilities for each sport
3. Competitive coaching budget similar to our peer schools for each sport.
Full scholarships needs to be a given but I believe there are plenty of sports that arent at full scholarship amounts yet, although I did hear good news that out of state athletes are counted as in state ships. Currently, our AD is knocking #2 out of the park between the baseball/softball facility (credit to JH), new weight room and beautiful new grass practice fields for football, multi-sport complex at RAC for 4 sports. I think once facilities are built for every sport, next you look to coaching budget to make sure you can pay top talent and allow top talent to surround themselves with other talented staff.
Obviously it will take us time to get above water on all three items I mentioned but we ARE trending up, the problem is I think we have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, meaning giving one sport everything they need causes neglect of another.
Anything else that is truly important that an institution or fanbase can provide?
1. Full allotment of scholarships or scholarship money for each sport
2. Proper training facilities for each sport
3. Competitive coaching budget similar to our peer schools for each sport.
Full scholarships needs to be a given but I believe there are plenty of sports that arent at full scholarship amounts yet, although I did hear good news that out of state athletes are counted as in state ships. Currently, our AD is knocking #2 out of the park between the baseball/softball facility (credit to JH), new weight room and beautiful new grass practice fields for football, multi-sport complex at RAC for 4 sports. I think once facilities are built for every sport, next you look to coaching budget to make sure you can pay top talent and allow top talent to surround themselves with other talented staff.
Obviously it will take us time to get above water on all three items I mentioned but we ARE trending up, the problem is I think we have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, meaning giving one sport everything they need causes neglect of another.
Anything else that is truly important that an institution or fanbase can provide?
