President Kennedy Message on Athletics

[hky]

Has anyone asked (publicly) how/why the sports that were "protected" were chosen?   

[Shawn-O]

1 hour ago, The Sicatoka said:

Show me NDSU's books and I'll probably be able to show you. 

However, frankly, who cares what NDSU is doing? Are we sure they are doing it right? Are they ripe for a "prong" or "tier" lawsuit? We don't know. 

< re-read the first sentence of this post here > 

 

Somewhere in this I'm sure I've said "Hammersmith" three times.

Are they doing it right?  From a standpoint of results and compliance I would say a resounding yes.  

[Shawn-O]

41 minutes ago, Oxbow6 said:

Get a women's rowing team, which would be one of what...20 of them in the country?? Top tier and let them row up and down the Red. Dump women's hockey. Problem solved.

........and I'll take a little cream in my coffee too please.

We could have fired up varsity bowling.  Seriously.  

[bison73]

14 hours ago, Blackheart said:

Just watched the videos of the presentations by the coaches/athletes trying to save their sports.  This has to be one of the lowest point in UND athletics history.  There had to be a better way to do this.

I sincerely feel bad for those people.

[The Sicatoka]

3 minutes ago, Shawn-O said:

We could have fired up varsity bowling.  Seriously.  

Truth. 
http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/bowling/nc

[ericpnelson]

7 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

Truth. 
http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/bowling/nc

no feet on the line in league games, Smoky

[jdub27]

2 hours ago, UND-1 said:

What sport is NDSU spending "football-type" money/facilities on for their women?

I don't believe there is any sort of distinction with FCS and FBS, it is all D1 so they manage to not run into any issues. Also, I don't think UND has any desire to use them as a barometer for compliance.

 

1 hour ago, UNDBIZ said:

I believe jdub was implying our "national rank" in spending for a women's sport must be similar to a men's sport.  We're top 10 in MIH so we need to be top 6 in WIH, or something like that.  NDSU funds football very well, for an FCS school, but if the comparison is made to FBS schools, they are still pretty low on the totem pole.  They're probably mid-level of all D1 for football, so they just need to fund one women's sport at a mid-level compared to how other schools fund that one women's sport.

Not sure how valid it is, but that's how I read jdub's post.

This is my interpretation as well. I think the bigger issue is that UND is low to mid in funding in all of its sports except men's hockey. Because it is an outlier and so high on the men's side, there needs to be proportional offset on the women's side. They have chose to use women's hockey as that offset. 

 

1 hour ago, UND-1 said:

OK.  How does Alabama get around it?

They don't have to. Without looking, I would feel pretty comfortable saying that all of their sports are supported in the top 10-15% of D1. Again, UND has one huge outlier in MIH that falls way out of the norm compared to the rest of its sports. Because of the huge difference, there needs to be an offset.

 

1 hour ago, homer said:

And this is where Title IX is flawed.  I would love to see what UND could do adding $400,000 to each the WBB and WVB budgets.  If my math is right, adding to those two sports, UND could feed 6 more athletes prime rib.  We could afford to add to women's track and field and soccer scholorships.  All this while getting rid of women's hockey.

I believe what you are saying in theory but when you look around college athletics and what schools are spending on coaches salaries, special trips and locker rooms for football and/or MBB (depending on the school), I have a hard time believing the NCAA could ever enforce this at an institution. 

 

1 hour ago, homer said:

Also, if UND wanted to prove a point and raise awareness to what they are doing is correct and other schools is wrong, laying out the explanation for tiers should have been done at the first meeting and again at the second meeting and possibly released a press release for the public.  Than you go from being a cluster to full transparency to the general public. 

Zero disagreements with either of these comments. I'm not sure why it isn't being explained better but really seems to make things worse. Again, the tiering thing is by no means the only thing that is being considered but from what I've been told, it plays a part and is likely the reason women's hockey wasn't even listed as being considered. Don't agree with it and still think their budget can be trimmed with no issues.

 

 

1 hour ago, cowboys5xsbs said:

How much would it really take to get into the top 10% in say tennis or swimming and diving?  

Tennis would be around $700K more (note that the current budget is around $200K).
S&D would be around $850K more.

[Oxbow6]

48 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

Truth. 
http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/bowling/nc

The fact that there are 62 collegiate women's bowling teams, just to satisfy Title IX in most cases if not all, shows how pathetic this "law" is.

[jdub27]

59 minutes ago, Shawn-O said:

We could have fired up varsity bowling.  Seriously.  

Because this made me laugh, I looked it up. Due to small number of teams, UND would have to be pretty much at the top and would cost roughly $300-400K to get there. Red Ray could definitely provide some home lane advantage.

Side note - Vanderbilt spent $700K on women's bowling in 2014!!

[Siouxperman8]

1 hour ago, The Sicatoka said:

Got their books? I see they have gymnastics and rowing. I'm guessing it's not hard to fund top tier in those to balance football. 

Assume Bama is top 10% in FB spending. What's it take to be top 10% in spending on gymnastics or rowing? (Probably a rounding error in the FB budget.) 

A young woman that I coached in youth basketball went to school at Wisconsin.  Almost the first day on campus she was asked to join the rowing team because she looked the part (athlete) and they have a ton of scholarship money they need to spend.   They use it to help balance their men's sports.

[cowboys5xsbs]

1 minute ago, Siouxperman8 said:

A young woman that I coached in youth basketball went to school at Wisconsin.  Almost the first day on campus she was asked to join the rowing team because she looked the part (athlete) and they have a ton of scholarship money they need to spend.   They use it to help balance their men's sports.

Well I'm sold when and how do we get a rowing team.

[UND-1]

12 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

They don't have to. Without looking, I would feel pretty comfortable saying that all of their sports are supported in the top 10-15% of D1. Again, UND has one huge outlier in MIH that falls way out of the norm compared to the rest of its sports. Because of the huge difference, there needs to be an offset.

So it's not about money spent and facilities used, it's about percentiles.  Title IX is even more worthless than I thought it was.

[jdub27]

1 hour ago, The Sicatoka said:

What's it take to be top 10% in spending on gymnastics or rowing? (Probably a rounding error in the FB budget.) 

Both of them would require around $2 million.

[jdub27]

5 hours ago, UND-1 said:

So it's not about money spent and facilities used, it's about percentiles.  Title IX is even more worthless than I thought it was.

I don't think its really a one or the other answer, but yes, percentiles play a part. I mean there around 50 schools who spend $20 million on football so there is no way that you can even come close to balancing that out on the women's side but if you can show you fund some or all women's sports at the top when compared to peers, than that is where the "tiering" defense or explanation comes in. Facilities play some part as well but there is so much gray area and everything so subjective, that some schools take it too far trying to be in compliance, which is where I believe UND is currently at.

And yes, fully agree on your last part.

Don't mistake my explanations for defending the decisions being made at UND. I'm just trying to help with some of the explanation because as others have noted, UND isn't doing itself any favors in the transparency department on the reason for some decisions being made. I know that it isn't black and white and there is a lot of subjectivity and I am positive that people may not agree with them or why they were made but at least presenting some of the reasoning would be more helpful than giving no explanations.

[JohnboyND7]

This reminds me of parks and rec when Leslie accidentally has all the Rec Center teachers auditioning for their jobs.

[UNDBIZ]

34 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

Tennis would be around $700K more (note that the current budget is around $200K).
S&D would be around $850K more.

 

29 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

Because this made me laugh, I looked it up. Due to small number of teams, UND would have to be pretty much at the top and would cost roughly $300-400K to get there. Red Ray could definitely provide some home lane advantage.

So bowling and Tennis likely wouldn't work due to small rosters.  S&D sounds like an option though.  $850K is a lot less than $1.4M according to my calculator.

[cowboys5xsbs]

2 minutes ago, UNDBIZ said:

 

So bowling and Tennis likely wouldn't work due to small rosters.  S&D sounds like an option though.  $850K is a lot less than $1.4M according to my calculator.

Plus we have Olympic quality pools and training facilities so IDK what the problem really is?

[jdub27]

2 minutes ago, UNDBIZ said:

So bowling and Tennis likely wouldn't work due to small rosters.  S&D sounds like an option though.  $850K is a lot less than $1.4M according to my calculator.

WS&D offers a max of 14 scholarships. I'm not sure how close "close enough is" (MIH is 18) and the only real way to find out is when you get named in a lawsuit. I also don't know how or if the "facilities" portion would play in to anything but the Hyslop would need some updates if they wanted to do more than just pay lip service to it. I know the facilities themselves have had a few things done but I would guess the locker room/student athlete areas are not where they need to be.

[UNDBIZ]

4 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

WS&D offers a max of 14 scholarships. I'm not sure how close "close enough is" (MIH is 18) and the only real way to find out is when you get named in a lawsuit. I also don't know how or if the "facilities" portion would play in to anything but the Hyslop would need some updates if they wanted to do more than just pay lip service to it. I know the facilities themselves have had a few things done but I would guess the locker room/student athlete areas are not where they need to be.

Well we just found $550,000+ per year for upgrades that could benefit all sports still located in Hyslop.  And one of the Betty sports could take over some of the WIH space in the REA.

[homer]

28 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

I don't think its really a one or the other answer, but yes, percentiles play a part. I mean there around 50 schools who spend $20 million on football so there is no way that you can even come close to balancing that out on the women's side but if you can show you fund some or all women's sports at the top when compared to peers, than that is where the "tiering" defense or explanation comes in. Facilities play some part as well but there is so much gray area and everything so subjective, that some schools take it too far trying to be in compliance, which is where I believe UND is currently at.

And yes, fully agree on your last part.

Don't mistake my explanations for defending the decisions being made at UND. I'm just trying to help with some of the explanation because as others have noted, UND isn't doing itself any favors in the transparency department on the reason for some decisions being made. I know that it isn't black and white and there is a lot of subjectivity and I am positive that people may not agree with them or why they were made but at least getting presenting the reasoning would be more helpful than giving no explanations.

I appreciate the insight.  At the end of the day, it is all a blurry grey area.  I for one had no idea that UND was threatened to be taken to court when UND women's hockey was started.  I about fell off my chair when reading UNDBiz's post.  I appreciate you posting that screen shot.  With that, I can understand some of the hesitation to face that again but in this case, I truly feel UND internally is being its own worst enemy.  If you want to get out from behind this thing throw this stuff out there.  Don't waste time having coaches addition to keep their sports.  Try and explain what you are doing as positively as possible as trying to remain compliant vs. how other similar schools are doing it.

At the end of the day, UND cannot manage 20 sports.  I had a Facebook friend absolutely beside himself on how UND could be cutting sports.  When I told him UND sponsors more varsity sports than the University of Texas he didn't believe me.  Some of these facts are what needs to be out there.  The days of a D2 bus league are gone.

[Blackheart]

56 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

Side note - Vanderbilt spent $700K on women's bowling in 2014!!

Does that include beer and smokes?

[UNDvince97-01]

8 minutes ago, homer said:

I for one had no idea that UND was threatened to be taken to court when UND women's hockey was started.  I about fell off my chair when reading UNDBiz's post.  I appreciate you posting that screen shot.

Sorry I'm late to the party on this one, my apologies.

Court?  Screenshot?  Help me out please?

 

[UNDBIZ]

2 hours ago, homer said:

I believe what you are saying in theory but when you look around college athletics and what schools are spending on coaches salaries, special trips and locker rooms for football and/or MBB (depending on the school), I have a hard time believing the NCAA could ever enforce this at an institution. 

Unfortunately it would be the courts enforcing it after UND gets sued.  From the Facebook post when UND announced the baseball and men's golf cuts in April:

Quote

Jen Rice It's truly an effort to comply with Title IX. In 1997 a fellow UND student and I created/started the women's hockey team. After many months of fighting to establish the team a Title IX review was completed. UND was not in compliance with at least 2 of the 3 tenets, and on the cusp of violating the 3rd. We had the opportunity to take the issue to court, but elected to allow UND to make corrections in 1 year. Thus, the wrestling program was cut. And, support for the women's hockey team had to commence. Sadly, UND could face losing all federal funding if not in compliance. Finally, nearly 20 years later, UND is continuing to comply with Title IX - an education amendment established almost 44 years ago.

Based on what I can find, Jen Rice went to UND, complained and threatened to sue for no D1 WIH, then transferred to Concordia.  She seems very proud of herself for getting the wrestling team cut.  She can add the baseball and, eventually, men's golf skins to her wall too.

@UNDvince97-01

[mksioux]

5 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

WS&D offers a max of 14 scholarships. I'm not sure how close "close enough is" (MIH is 18) and the only real way to find out is when you get named in a lawsuit. I also don't know how or if the "facilities" portion would play in to anything but the Hyslop would need some updates if they wanted to do more than just pay lip service to it. I know the facilities themselves have had a few things done but I would guess the locker room/student athlete areas are not where they need to be.

While UND has to be mindful of a lawsuit, it can't let the possibility of litigation be the driving force in its decisions.  Perhaps some clarity on the issue would be beneficial in the long term?  I know attorney fees can be ridiculous, and the bad publicity would not be welcome, but is the threat of going to court any worse than committing to a program that loses roughly $2 million a year with no real prospect of getting any better?   Do other schools that are not as Title IX vigilant as UND cower at the threat of lawsuits?  Why does it seem UND is the only school unwilling to address Title IX issues in a more affordable way?

[UNDBIZ]

When discussing UND fearing potential litigation, one must remember UND had quite possibly the worst attorney in the state in Julie Evans as its lead general counsel since July 2000 (position eliminated in the last couple years).  She likely feared (rightfully, with how terrible she was) any litigation being brought against UND and is rumored to have been constantly in Kupchella's and Kelley's ears to push them in a direction away from any potential litigation.