Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - Privateer6

#1
Quote from: Ron Boerger on March 09, 2012, 07:54:56 AMnot terribly competitive scholarship (D1) athletic programs

FYI, before all this mess started, the baseball team made the DI NCAA regionals in 2007 and 2008 (winning the Sun Belt Tournament in 2007).

Quote from: Just Bill on March 09, 2012, 02:03:29 PMWhat on earth could they have been thinking through this whole process. Is no one in charge?

Basically, different people have been in charge.  Tim Ryan was chancellor of the school.  Athletics had largely been run on student fees and, when the size of the school dropped from 17,000 to 10,000 post-Katrina, the athletic department was producing more red ink than usual.  In the face of multiple state budget cuts, Ryan decided to go DIII.  The LSU system, which UNO was a part of, endorsed this move.  That plan involved starting DIII football in 2011.

Ryan was then fired.  The interim leadership indicated that we were unable to find any DIII conference home and made the case that we could, at least, afford DII.  They also secured a DII conference home in the Gulf South Conference.  The LSU system signed off on this proposal, too.  That plan included raising funds to start DII football by 2015.

A bill was introduced that would have merged UNO and Southern University of New Orleans (NAIA in athletics) and placed the merged university in the University of Louisiana system.  That bill was defeated and an alternative proposal emerged to just move UNO into the UL system and that passed.

All 8 other schools in the UL system are in DI.  The UL system is headed by the former president of Southeastern Louisiana University who was in charge of SLU when it restarted its football program.

The UL system indicated that a final decision would be left to the new UNO president.  Dr. Peter Fos was appointed as the new president of UNO, determined how much he would have to find in his budget to support UNO in DI and determined that a) he could do so and b) it was worth it to do so.

Dr. Fos said he can and will fund a competitive DI program (without football).  About football, he indicated he still wants to start it, but it will take $3-4M/year that he does not currently have.  Indications are that this money would come, in part, from an increased student fee and, in part, from outside sources.  In his press conference regarding DI, he indicated that football at UNO may end up pushed back a year to 2016.  In any event, it seemed clear that football at UNO in DI was part of his plan.

Rumor has it that the Southland will welcome us.  They did just add another non-football school (Oral Roberts) and are losing two schools that did not play Southland football (UTA, who has no football, and UTSA, who did not play in their league), so they may be okay with two non-football additions, particularly if they feel reasonably confident that football is coming to UNO.

Anyway, that's probably more info than y'all wanted on a school that isn't going DIII, but that's a quick recap at what's been happening at UNO since our original DIII announcement.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on March 09, 2012, 02:44:05 PMWhy does the Southland want a non-football school?

As noted, they're losing two schools (UTA, UTSA) that didn't play Soutland football and are adding one (ORU) that doesn't play football.  I hope the Privateers are playing football by 2016, but we probably make sense as we'd add one large market to a league that's losing two.

Quote from: smedindy on March 09, 2012, 03:58:08 PMI think Birmingham Southern should have been a great example for them - though with UNO now part of the Louisiana State school behemoth there may be politics involved.

While I'd rather be DI than DIII, I would have supported my alma mater either way.  That said, the word we were getting was that no DIII conference wanted any part of UNO, a 10,000-student (hoping to return to 15,000+) public university that intended to play football (we'd already started signing games for a DIII football startup in 2011).  That's supposedly why they started looking at DII -- the GSC was invited us.
#2
Two UNO football-related Tweets today from the athletic department:

ATH: Can you believe that on Friday, we'll be exactly a year away from 9/3/11? A year from today, final walk-throughs for the opener. #d3fb

ATH: 2 reps of the UNO media relations office to observe the #Tulane football game ops tonight at the Superdome for future prep. #d3fb
#3
Latest Tweet from the UNO Athletic Department:

ATH: "East Campus Sports Facility" mtg this afternoon. UNO could be 1st NOLA (Tulane) on-campus FB game since 11/30/74.
#4
Quote from: Ron Boerger on August 27, 2010, 12:42:49 PM
With games in Ohio (twice), Georgia, Wisconsin, and Indiana, you're certainly preparing for life as a D3 team.  Does the money for travel come from the athletic budget?
No.  The football team has been raising its own funds for equipment and travel (it even had its own separate cheerleaders and dance team last year) and we haven't been told that athletics has paid for anything. 

Some folks from the athletic department (and other parts of the university) volunteered to help with gameday operations in the past, but the statement about the athletic department assisting with "administration, media relations, game day operations and other efforts associated with the team" is new this year.

The head coach is the Director of Admissions for the university and tickets had been sold through the Bursar's Office and the Department of Recreation & Intramural Sports the last two seasons, but this is the first we've heard of any official athletic department involvement.

They played a two-game schedule (one home, one in Ohio) in '08, an 8-game schedule (4 home, 2 away at club teams in Texas and Illinois, 2 away at official teams in Alabama and Florida) last season, and this year will play 10 in what appears to be our final club season.

Original schedules showed 11 games including a home-and-away series with Texas-Arlington (as we did last season).  UTA is now off the schedule (forcing us into a second home game with South Alabama's club team and adding an open date) and the rumor I've heard is that UTA won't play this season.  That's the nature of club football.
#5
http://www.unoprivateers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=16700&ATCLID=204983659

FYI, UNO will play a 10-game club football slate in 2010.

5 home games (split between two different stadiums in New Orleans' City Park) and 5 on the road (away games in Ohio (2), Georgia, and Wisconsin, and the Midwestern Club Football Conference championship weekend in Indiana).

Two games (away at Edward Waters, home against Concordia (AL)) are against "official" school teams.  The Privateers took heavy losses on the road at both schools last season while going 5-3 (5-1 against club teams).

Also of note, the UNO official site now has a "Club Football Central" area:
http://www.unoprivateers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=16700&ATCLID=204983652

They note clearly that this isn't an official team in 2010, but "the University of New Orleans athletic department will assist the club football program with its administration, media relations, game day operations and other efforts associated with the team."

With respect to adding sports, "A formal announcement on the sports, a timeline, facilities and more will take place this fall."
#6
http://www.unoprivateers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=16700&ATCLID=204983659

UNO will play a 10-game club football slate in 2010.

5 home games (split between two different stadiums in New Orleans' City Park) and 5 on the road (away games in Ohio (2), Georgia, and Wisconsin, and the Midwest Club Football Conference championship weekend in Indiana).

Two games (away at Edward Waters, home against Concordia (AL)) are against "official" school teams.  The Privateers took heavy losses on the road at both schools last season in a 5-3 season (5-1 against club teams).
#7
Quote from: Slidell on August 26, 2010, 05:29:59 PM
Appreciate that sentiment guys.
Same here.  Thanks for the welcome.
#8
We are a bit of a rarity in DIII, though, in that we had 17,000+ students pre-Katrina (13,000 undergrads) and while we may not reach that number soon we were right around 11,000 total last spring (just over 8,000 undergrads). 

The larger public schools in the ASC (UT-Dallas, UT-Tyler) don't have football.  Of the public universities, only Sul Ross State (between 2k-3k students) has it, so I was a bit worried that the football schools, in particular, might be a little leary of us. 

Then again, I really still know so little about DIII that I've no idea if my concerns are based in reality.
#9
Quote from: Tacttm1 on August 25, 2010, 09:42:38 PM
Privateer6:  It looks like it is OK to use the UNO thread under 'general', unless until told otherwise.  Whatcha' think?
Indeed.  I didn't mean to litter the ASC thread with UNO talk (although I hope to do that in future as a member of the conference); just following up the end of a conversation that flowed out of the LC/UNO scrimmage.
#10
Quote from: Ron Boerger on August 24, 2010, 02:16:57 PM
If you want to get the best possible handle on what Division III football is all about, sign up for Kickoff, which previews the upcoming season and literally provides insight into all 238 current Division III programs. 
Quote from: K-Mack on August 24, 2010, 02:59:54 PM
We like to think it is, and we hope we do it justice.
I just registered/paid and look forward to checking it out.

I noticed that we're not (yet) an option for favorite DIII team that you request from us at registration, so I had to leave that blank. :)
#11
Thanks for the welcome, Ron.  I'm planning to purchase Kickoff.  It looks like an interesting and valuable read.
#12
I'm another UNO fan checking in here at the D3 boards for the first time.

Many thanks for the recap on the LC/UNO scrimmage.  It's nice to get a pre-season report on our club team. 

We open up our second full club season (we played two games in '08, eight games last year) in a few weeks and we're hoping to hear some news about the 2011 start-up of our official program around that time.