EMU faculty, students: Drop out of Division I football

[mscarn]

A benefit that you express no interest in using but are forced to pay for anyway is not actually a benefit....it's more like a tax...or maybe a kind of extortion.

There are also taxes for parking, shuttle services, dining, etc. If students don't use those services, they still pay for them. Welcome to the real world, where you pay taxes for things you may never use but are forced to pay.

Exactly, not to mention it's a non-issue here at BGSU as football student attendance numbers in the thousands. Students choose of their own free will to enroll in the university and access the myriad services it provides. transfer2BGSU can tell you those figures have only risen.

To that point, nobody is forcing any of the professors to teach at the school and collect the salaries, pensions and benefits they do. They choose to agitate, fight and claw to advance their interests and the defending MAC football champions are supposed to throw in the towel, retreat into obscurity and go play Grand Valley in Division II? Not bloody likely.

[Flipper]

Good Lord...I barely know where to start with you two. Do you really want to compare food and a means of transporting a person accros campus in the dead of winter to sports? Besides...many of the items you listed ARE optional for students. No car...no charge for parking. Commuting or eating off campus...o compulsory spending for food. Don't give a rat's ass about football...golf...gymnastics or hockey. Tough s**t..pony up the $1000 and STFU.

Student attendance numbers in the thousands? SFW...even if we draw 7,000 students every week...and I don't think we do... that's less than half of the student population. That doesn't sound all that popular to me.

Wow..those horrible professors...stinking commie eggheads...how dare they expect to earn a salary in line with other institutions in the state of Ohio. Man...it really takes balls to try to negotiate the best deal possible. They should hire an agent like Coach Jinks did so Chris Kingston can call them up out of the blue and give them a half a million fricking dollars per year without even applying for the job. That seems like a fiscally prudent way of conducting business and it seems entirely fair seeing as how he's the Head fu**ing football coach and they're just the people teaching the classes that are the whole fu**ing point of the university in the first fu**ing place

[MarkL]

UMass faculty Senate has a similar proposal. UMass is out of the MAC and an independent now. I just don't see what UMass can do, or what they even planned to do with their move to FBS.

They played their first two years across the state while their stadium campus underwent renovations. As the students would have to take a bus or drive a long way to the games, the excitement of FBS football was completely lost from the beginning on the student body. Had they invested previously in the stadium or made better temporary arrangements, they could have entered FBS with excitement among the students and the university community.

And of course they refused to bring other sports to the MAC. Did they have a backup plan should the MAC demand a full sport investment? Try to get into the AAC? I find that scenario unlikely. If the AAC in fact loses a couple teams to the Big 12 soon, I wouldn't be surprised if certain MAC programs ... with certain recent championships and history of football success and location in strategically important states ... get a call from the AAC commissioner.

It seems to me UMass entered FBS without a solid plan. Now they are without a home and are unlikely to find one. If the situation is as bad as it looks ... and I think it is ... they have only themselves to blame.

[Schadenfreude]

When UMass joined the MAC, I suspect they had different expectations. Either they didn't expect the MAC to ever insist they join in all sports, or they were willing to consider it until Temple left the building. Probably the former.

Temple's departure seemed to force the MAC's hand because there was no obvious candidate to become the MAC's 14th member in football. 13 was a bad number.

[apollo]

And of course they refused to bring other sports to the MAC. Did they have a backup plan should the MAC demand a full sport investment? Try to get into the AAC? I find that scenario unlikely. If the AAC in fact loses a couple teams to the Big 12 soon, I wouldn't be surprised if certain MAC programs ... with certain recent championships and history of football success and location in strategically important states ... get a call from the AAC commissioner.

If you are talking about Bowling Green, you should really look at finding another hobby. Obviously, you don't understand college athletics.

[Schadenfreude]

And of course they refused to bring other sports to the MAC. Did they have a backup plan should the MAC demand a full sport investment? Try to get into the AAC? I find that scenario unlikely. If the AAC in fact loses a couple teams to the Big 12 soon, I wouldn't be surprised if certain MAC programs ... with certain recent championships and history of football success and location in strategically important states ... get a call from the AAC commissioner.

If you are talking about Bowling Green, you should really look at finding another hobby. Obviously, you don't understand college athletics.

Some Northern Illinois fans are hoping they get the call. But, honestly, if Cincinnati is out of the league, that wouldn't make much geographical sense.

To be sure, the name "American" is based on the pretense that the conference doesn't care about geography. Even so, i think the nearest American opponent for almost any MAC school would be Tulsa or Memphis. (Throw out the record books!)

I suspect the American would look to the East or to the South, for a school reasonably close to its footprint. I don't see a MAC school getting the call.

[MarkL]

And of course they refused to bring other sports to the MAC. Did they have a backup plan should the MAC demand a full sport investment? Try to get into the AAC? I find that scenario unlikely. If the AAC in fact loses a couple teams to the Big 12 soon, I wouldn't be surprised if certain MAC programs ... with certain recent championships and history of football success and location in strategically important states ... get a call from the AAC commissioner.

If you are talking about Bowling Green, you should really look at finding another hobby. Obviously, you don't understand college athletics.

Northern Illinois. If the AAC is trying to fill a slot soon, NIU makes a lot of sense. Which is too bad because I really like the stability of the MAC. Near Chicago, great and stable football program, three recent conference championships, and if Cincinnati is gone then still NIU brings Midwest recruiting.

[jpfalcon09]

FWIW, the UMass board shot down the motion to drop/disband football by a 2-to-1 vote.

[mscarn]

Good Lord...I barely know where to start with you two. Do you really want to compare food and a means of transporting a person accros campus in the dead of winter to sports? Besides...many of the items you listed ARE optional for students. No car...no charge for parking. Commuting or eating off campus...o compulsory spending for food. Don't give a rat's ass about football...golf...gymnastics or hockey. Tough s**t..pony up the $1000 and STFU.

Student attendance numbers in the thousands? SFW...even if we draw 7,000 students every week...and I don't think we do... that's less than half of the student population. That doesn't sound all that popular to me.

Wow..those horrible professors...stinking commie eggheads...how dare they expect to earn a salary in line with other institutions in the state of Ohio. Man...it really takes balls to try to negotiate the best deal possible. They should hire an agent like Coach Jinks did so Chris Kingston can call them up out of the blue and give them a half a million fricking dollars per year without even applying for the job. That seems like a fiscally prudent way of conducting business and it seems entirely fair seeing as how he's the Head fu**ing football coach and they're just the people teaching the classes that are the whole fu**ing point of the university in the first fu**ing place

A good place to start would be with an honest and serious refutation of the arguments.

Division I athletics is what comes with enrollment at Bowling Green State University. That is fairly well known going in and the students don't seem as exercised about paying the second lowest subsidy in the conference as you seem to think they should be. You think parking and meals are entirely self-sufficient and receive no subsidy from the university to fund operations? Of course they do, and where else does 1/3 of the student body voluntarily gather together in one setting joined by alumni and members of the community? A small portion might not want to pay the subsidy. An even larger portion might not want their tuition to go up to give their professors a raise or fund facilities and programs outside their major. A major research university is not an a la carte menu of whatever one thinks they should have to pay for. Their enrollment implicitly reflects consent and they're free to decline the terms and withdraw just as the professors are free to leave and shake down another administration for more money for themselves.

BTW, I never called the minority of the agitating faculty crowd eggheads because I wouldn't flatter them by pretending their obsession with tedious budget minutia is indicative of rigorous intellectual depth. Look at the research interests pursued by some of these characters and you'll find a mixture of the frivolous and the barely comprehensible. The serious scholars are tied up with broader, more intellectually stimulating pursuits than how many vacation days they can get in the next contract. They have every right to advance their own interests but you curiously fail to see resignations en masse that the meager salaries you claim they labor under would seemingly prompt. You also won't find too many sympathetic ears for the upper middle class attempting to wedge themselves into the upper-upper middle class in this particular epoch of American history. Most people think they've got a pretty nice arrangement for themselves. I wouldn't give it much of a thought one way or the other were they not so bitterly jealous of the athletic department and view a drop in competition level as a boon to their own financial position.

[It's the Journey...]

Exactly what is it about the faculty here and their contracts that have your shorts in a twist?

[Flipper]

"The existence of sports Is part of the University you applied to so shut up and pay for it" is the crux of your argument. If you take that philosophy to it's logical ends...how do you ever...ever...change...anything. The world exists as we find it...just accept it warts and all and keep your mouth shut. Don't try to change anything you don't like or disagree with...it was here when you got here. Gotta say...that is not a really compelling argument.

I'm not concerned at all about how current students feel..or don't feel about it. It's their tax, not mine.

You seem set on keeping the status quo intact...of continuing to keep up the charade that we're part of the big time. We're not. Future students, administrations, boards of trustees etc, will more than likely have to decide how big a hole they want sports to blow in the budget and a very real discussion will have to occur about how much is too much. Within the MAC, no one seems to have the balls needed to actually address the topic because they don't want to be the first to blink. But...someday...someone will have to blink. You can't keep growing salaries and building facilities and incurring other increased expenses (how many Cody Silk's are out there?) without there being a day of reckoning.

[mscarn]

Exactly what is it about the faculty here and their contracts that have your shorts in a twist?

Not the faculty as a whole, just the tiny percentage that wants to gut other aspects of the university (and eliminate a chunk of their lower tenured colleagues) in order to get raises for themselves. Flipper inferred that I called them communists when nothing could be further from the truth. They are capitalists red in tooth and claw out vigorously pursuing their own self-interests. Until their missive questioning the football team's participation in a bowl game I didn't give it a second thought.

[Schadenfreude]

"The existence of sports Is part of the University you applied to so shut up and pay for it" is the crux of your argument. If you take that philosophy to it's logical ends...how do you ever...ever...change...anything.

That's fair. There does need to be a process for change.

At Eastern Michigan, student government has taken a stand against FBS football. This is a fact that the EMU administration needs to take into consideration. If student government's stance truly reflects the widespread, deeply-held views of the student body and if the student body is persistent in expressing its opposition, then at some point, it would be the right thing to do for the EMU administration to rethink its approach to athletics.

We aren't anywhere near that point at Bowling Green. The Falcons have won the MAC two out of the past three years. Students, in the main, seem to support the football program. And for as much as you to minimize what Bowling Green has accomplished in football, by claiming its a "charade that we're part of the big time" that's just not true. Ask Purdue or Indiana or Maryland if it's a charade. Ask ESPN.

Bowling Green is for real. Our crowds aren't as big as some schools and we aren't nationally ranked as often as any of us would like, but we compete year in and year out at a very high level of football. I find your passion for pulling the plug now absolutely mystifying. Now? After winning the MAC two out of the past three years? After giving the Big Ten all kinds of trouble last season?

Student fees have helped pay for athletics for many, many years at Bowling Green, just as they have across much of FBS. If we were in EMU's hopeless position, maybe moving FCS would be the right call. But we aren't anywhere near that point.

[mscarn]

"The existence of sports Is part of the University you applied to so shut up and pay for it" is the crux of your argument. If you take that philosophy to it's logical ends...how do you ever...ever...change...anything. The world exists as we find it...just accept it warts and all and keep your mouth shut. Don't try to change anything you don't like or disagree with...it was here when you got here. Gotta say...that is not a really compelling argument.

I'm not concerned at all about how current students feel..or don't feel about it. It's their tax, not mine.

You seem set on keeping the status quo intact...of continuing to keep up the charade that we're part of the big time. We're not. Future students, administrations, boards of trustees etc, will more than likely have to decide how big a hole they want sports to blow in the budget and a very real discussion will have to occur about how much is too much. Within the MAC, no one seems to have the balls needed to actually address the topic because they don't want to be the first to blink. But...someday...someone will have to blink. You can't keep growing salaries and building facilities and incurring other increased expenses (how many Cody Silk's are out there?) without there being a day of reckoning.

Where's the outcry? Where is the yearning for the upheaval of such a grave injustice as paying a fee to have Division I sports at a school? From a bunch of professors at a school in Michigan who hasn't had a winning football team in 20 years that want raises? It's not from the students at BGSU. They love their team and come out by the thousands to see them play. It's not from the administration that recognizes the value and exposure for a institution that cannot be attained in any other way short of Anthony Doerr earning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

You might have chosen to stop attending games regularly but there are still those of us who love Falcon football the way it is and are immensely proud of its accomplishments and retain a connection to the university through the team. We also recognize how, at this point more than any other, BG football could stand shoulder to shoulder with the O$U's of the world in a New Year's Six bowl game and spoil the party of the behemoths who I completely agree have harmed the college game with their nefarious greed-based machinations. How great and satisfying would that be?

[Flipper]

mscarn...Are you always this melodramatic?

The students at BG love their team? You mean OSU? The students that show up are a fraction of the total...one easy way to settle the issue would be a referendum across campus on the issue. I think if you put the notion of full support and staying at D1 vs cutting back on the $$ and being DII...well...then you'd know.

In your perfect world they'd have to increase the fees to cover sports because you want a greater financial commitment from the University and fewer "money games" in football. No other way to make up that shortfall. Put that idea to a vote while your at it.

I'm glad you derive so much emotional satisfaction from football...everyone needs an outlet. I really have to question the sanity of dumping millions of dollars into this Quixotic quest to prove we're "equal to OSU". Even if the team does beat them...so what? What will it mean beyond a few headlines that week? So we go to a "Big Game" on New Year's...NIU did that trip, got trucked and it meant nothing. They're still here in the MAC , playing midweek games and struggling to keep the interest of the kids on campus. Kids who's entertainment options consist of Netflix...NIU sports and watching corn grow. Spending so much money to do...pretty much nothing..so you can get the warm fuzzies over a football game doesn't seem like a prudent allocation of resources. When I was a student in the early to mid 80's..you could fit the football staff into a minivan. We now have..grad assistants included...over 20 people working in this program. WTF? Why on earth do we need over 20 people working on football? You cannot and will be able to feed that kind of growth for long. The $$$ are not there.

A few years ago there was serious...maybe semi serious (I've heard both versions) discussion in Ohio of folding BGSU into UT as a cost saving measure. The nuclear option has been discussed re this University...do you really think that D1 sports will be viewed as sacrosanct within that framework?