FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[formerd3db]

D306 and sflzman:

Indeed, good to hear of some of the recruiting around the MIAA.  Thanks for the updates.  I haven't yet heard about Hope's recruiits, but will probably get a chance to find out in the near future.

sflzman:

While it was great to hear that Alma had a good fb recruiting day yesterday, on the other hand, it was sad to see that only 483 fans showed up at the new arena for the basketball game against league leading Hope.  Although we discussed this somewhat on this board a couple of weeks ago, it is still sad to see.  Even Hope's women's basketball team drew 3433 yesterday at home for their game; Hope's men's bb team has been drawing 2600-2700 per game during the mid-week and for big games such as against Calvin, capacity crowds towards 3900 at DeVos (while there was over 4,000 at Calvin for the Calvin-Hope game there).  I recall you mentioned that Alma's volleyball team outdraws the bb team as do the local high schools when the latter have played at Alma's arena.

I would think that the new arena would be a big draw for recruits, however, until Alma's bb team gets improved, I sense that even with the new "digs" it will be difficult to get some upper tier talent coming to the school.  Subsequently, the local community and outlying regions are not going to have fans flocking to the new Art Smith Arena until they start winning.   I hope that can change ove the next year or so, but as usual, we'll all just have to wait and see.  

[sflzman]

Yes you bring up good points, the local community will not start coming to games until  teams start winning...

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

The problem is most of our coaches do not realize what they need to do to recruit. The funny thing is, is that the only one who really gets it, is Terry Smith. And he finally realized he couldn't bring in the kids he wanted from Detroit, Chicago, and Cincinatti. So this year's freshmen class (arguably top 3 in our conference) he goes through Michigan from Alma to the UP and gets what he needs recruiting from there. You look at this team, they've competed with every team they've played this year. They may not have won many, but they are a competitive team.

The problem is most of our coaches don't realize this and go into southern michigan where you have 10-20 other schools looking at the same kid. You're not going to win most battles with this high GPA bottom (if that makes sense).

The other thing is (I grew up in Miami, FL and Portland, OR) and being a city guy I can tell you right now how unlikely it would be for me to choose Alma as a school to go to. Alma and Mt. Pleasant pretty much end civilization in Michigan...

[Raider 68]

Recent Rumblings on MIAA Football Recruits

Brian Bush Novi DB Adrian
Garrett Barnes Owosso QB Adrian
Jacob Kenyon Portland QB Alma
Trevor Kramer St Johns OL/DL Albion

Couple others out there, but waiting for the kids to publically say/post it

A lot of Hillsdale high quality players should challenge GVSU for league.

It is early out nice to talk about recruits

D306,

Thanks for the update! +k

[sac]

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

Its the most people I've seen at an Alma game that I've been to, but I find all of your statements about the crowd pretty exaggerated.

There were lots of empty seats in the chairbacks and the student area was nowhere near 2/3's full. The Hope section was nowhere near full either.

The attendance figure might not have matched the exact crowd, and I believe it was probably a little more than reported but not by more than 100 or so.  I've been to 3 games at Olivet that I think had bigger crowds and none of those were 800 people.

Either way it was a nice turnout.

[sflzman]

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

Its the most people I've seen at an Alma game that I've been to, but I find all of your statements about the crowd pretty exaggerated.

There were lots of empty seats in the chairbacks and the student area was nowhere near 2/3's full. The Hope section was nowhere near full either.

The attendance figure might not have matched the exact crowd, and I believe it was probably a little more than reported but not by more than 100 or so.  I've been to 3 games at Olivet that I think had bigger crowds and none of those were 800 people.

Either way it was a nice turnout.

There were only 50-100 empty chairbacks, and the section Hope had from my angle was full as I could tell....

There were quite a few students (especially compared to the average draw) but the numbers at the end of the game were few since they all left early....

800 people is an exagerration, but there were easily over 600 people at that game. 800, maybe not, but 600 is still a lot more than 483....

[Flying Dutch Fan]

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

Its the most people I've seen at an Alma game that I've been to, but I find all of your statements about the crowd pretty exaggerated.

There were lots of empty seats in the chairbacks and the student area was nowhere near 2/3's full. The Hope section was nowhere near full either.

The attendance figure might not have matched the exact crowd, and I believe it was probably a little more than reported but not by more than 100 or so.  I've been to 3 games at Olivet that I think had bigger crowds and none of those were 800 people.

Either way it was a nice turnout.

There were only 50-100 empty chairbacks, and the section Hope had from my angle was full as I could tell....

There were quite a few students (especially compared to the average draw) but the numbers at the end of the game were few since they all left early....

800 people is an exagerration, but there were easily over 600 people at that game. 800, maybe not, but 600 is still a lot more than 483....

I'll be generous and grant you the 600 (I doubt it was over 500 personally).  The thing that hit me the most was that other than the Hope fans, there was no noise, especially none from the students.  Hope players shot free throws in absolute silence.

[sflzman]

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

Its the most people I've seen at an Alma game that I've been to, but I find all of your statements about the crowd pretty exaggerated.

There were lots of empty seats in the chairbacks and the student area was nowhere near 2/3's full. The Hope section was nowhere near full either.

The attendance figure might not have matched the exact crowd, and I believe it was probably a little more than reported but not by more than 100 or so.  I've been to 3 games at Olivet that I think had bigger crowds and none of those were 800 people.

Either way it was a nice turnout.

There were only 50-100 empty chairbacks, and the section Hope had from my angle was full as I could tell....

There were quite a few students (especially compared to the average draw) but the numbers at the end of the game were few since they all left early....

800 people is an exagerration, but there were easily over 600 people at that game. 800, maybe not, but 600 is still a lot more than 483....

I'll be generous and grant you the 600 (I doubt it was over 500 personally).  The thing that hit me the most was that other than the Hope fans, there was no noise, especially none from the students.  Hope players shot free throws in absolute silence.

Yeah our students are terrible when it comes to noise. Aside from the random guy yelling "cholesterol" in the background it was like almost pindrop silent...two years ago, there was 4 guys that came to every homegame and ran the court every time the ball went and down the court. The were almost like cheerleaders, but they were better. They got the whole crowd enrgized and excited and it wasn't like Breslin loud, but there was noise. From what I see now, there are no students that wanna do that, or make noise at all...

[Flying Dutch Fan]

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

Its the most people I've seen at an Alma game that I've been to, but I find all of your statements about the crowd pretty exaggerated.

There were lots of empty seats in the chairbacks and the student area was nowhere near 2/3's full. The Hope section was nowhere near full either.

The attendance figure might not have matched the exact crowd, and I believe it was probably a little more than reported but not by more than 100 or so.  I've been to 3 games at Olivet that I think had bigger crowds and none of those were 800 people.

Either way it was a nice turnout.

There were only 50-100 empty chairbacks, and the section Hope had from my angle was full as I could tell....

There were quite a few students (especially compared to the average draw) but the numbers at the end of the game were few since they all left early....

800 people is an exagerration, but there were easily over 600 people at that game. 800, maybe not, but 600 is still a lot more than 483....

I'll be generous and grant you the 600 (I doubt it was over 500 personally).  The thing that hit me the most was that other than the Hope fans, there was no noise, especially none from the students.  Hope players shot free throws in absolute silence.

Yeah our students are terrible when it comes to noise. Aside from the random guy yelling "cholesterol" in the background it was like almost pindrop silent...two years ago, there was 4 guys that came to every homegame and ran the court every time the ball went and down the court. The were almost like cheerleaders, but they were better. They got the whole crowd enrgized and excited and it wasn't like Breslin loud, but there was noise. From what I see now, there are no students that wanna do that, or make noise at all...

Yeah, I remember those guys - I really miss them, they had a lot of fun at the games, and really made it fun for all the fans too.

[sflzman]

That attendance figure is terrible, the arena has 500 chairback seats, and can hold 3,030 seated people. There were easily 450 people in chairbacks, and the entire hope area was full, not to mention the student side was 2/3 full, so I'd say roughly 800-900 people, which would be second largest crowd to the high school game which brought in easily over 2500...

Its the most people I've seen at an Alma game that I've been to, but I find all of your statements about the crowd pretty exaggerated.

There were lots of empty seats in the chairbacks and the student area was nowhere near 2/3's full. The Hope section was nowhere near full either.

The attendance figure might not have matched the exact crowd, and I believe it was probably a little more than reported but not by more than 100 or so.  I've been to 3 games at Olivet that I think had bigger crowds and none of those were 800 people.

Either way it was a nice turnout.

There were only 50-100 empty chairbacks, and the section Hope had from my angle was full as I could tell....

There were quite a few students (especially compared to the average draw) but the numbers at the end of the game were few since they all left early....

800 people is an exagerration, but there were easily over 600 people at that game. 800, maybe not, but 600 is still a lot more than 483....

I'll be generous and grant you the 600 (I doubt it was over 500 personally).  The thing that hit me the most was that other than the Hope fans, there was no noise, especially none from the students.  Hope players shot free throws in absolute silence.

Yeah our students are terrible when it comes to noise. Aside from the random guy yelling "cholesterol" in the background it was like almost pindrop silent...two years ago, there was 4 guys that came to every homegame and ran the court every time the ball went and down the court. The were almost like cheerleaders, but they were better. They got the whole crowd enrgized and excited and it wasn't like Breslin loud, but there was noise. From what I see now, there are no students that wanna do that, or make noise at all...

Yeah, I remember those guys - I really miss them, they had a lot of fun at the games, and really made it fun for all the fans too.

There's just no atmosphere at Alma. I watched the Hope/Calvin game on tv on WHT, and coming out of  a timeout every single Hope fan was rocking the bleachers, rowing their boat. There's just no fun student section here....

[formerd3db]

Here's a question for our Adrian people:  I see where Adrian cancelled their contract for their game against Franklin for this fall.  As announced on d3football.com as you can see, Franklin has thus replaced them with UWW - a big game for them.  It appears that Adrian has then scheduled Husson.  I am wondering why?  Did Deere feel that he needed a game that would have a better chance at ensuring them a win early in the season? While Adrian's non-conference schedule as is currently posted might give them a good chance at being undefeated going into the MIAA league games, I'm not sure that would count towards having him keep his job if he doesn't win the title eventually in the long run - at least if the administration doesn't change their mind in regards to the precedent they set last year with the Lyall debacle i.e. how they handled that.  Any thoughts from our Adrian friends here?   Just curious. 

[02 Warhawk]

Here's a question for our Adrian people:  I see where Adrian cancelled their contract for their game against Franklin for this fall.  As announced on d3football.com as you can see, Franklin has thus replaced them with UWW - a big game for them.  It appears that Adrian has then scheduled Husson.  I am wondering why?  Did Deere feel that he needed a game that would have a better chance at ensuring them a win early in the season? While Adrian's non-conference schedule as is currently posted might give them a good chance at being undefeated going into the MIAA league games, I'm not sure that would count towards having him keep his job if he doesn't win the title eventually in the long run - at least if the administration doesn't change their mind in regards to the precedent they set last year with the Lyall debacle i.e. how they handled that.  Any thoughts from our Adrian friends here?  Just curious.  

Adrian cancelled its game with UWW this fall, not against Franklin. Adrian thought UWW ran the score up on Adrian a little bit last season...plus Adrian's coaching staff never returned any of Lance Leipold's (UWW's head coach) phone calls offering to exchange tape before the game.

there seemed to be a little bad blood leading up to the game as well as after...so Adrian decided to call it quits.

[dc_has_been]

Wasn't the Adrian/UWW game 35-0???  Is that running it up?  I really hope that is not a real reason for voiding a contract.

[02 Warhawk]

Wasn't the Adrian/UWW game 35-0???  Is that running it up?  I really hope that is not a real reason for voiding a contract.

So you can see UWW's frustration...

[formerd3db]

Here's a question for our Adrian people:  I see where Adrian cancelled their contract for their game against Franklin for this fall.  As announced on d3football.com as you can see, Franklin has thus replaced them with UWW - a big game for them.  It appears that Adrian has then scheduled Husson.  I am wondering why?  Did Deere feel that he needed a game that would have a better chance at ensuring them a win early in the season? While Adrian's non-conference schedule as is currently posted might give them a good chance at being undefeated going into the MIAA league games, I'm not sure that would count towards having him keep his job if he doesn't win the title eventually in the long run - at least if the administration doesn't change their mind in regards to the precedent they set last year with the Lyall debacle i.e. how they handled that.  Any thoughts from our Adrian friends here?  Just curious.  

Adrian cancelled its game with UWW this fall, not against Franklin. Adrian thought UWW ran the score up on Adrian a little bit last season...plus Adrian's coaching staff never returned any of Lance Leipold's (UWW's head coach) phone calls offering to exchange tape before the game.

there seemed to be a little bad blood leading up to the game as well as after...so Adrian decided to call it quits.

Indeed you are right - i.e. actually, I should have caught that oversight on my part in that Adrian had the two year contract with UWW.  Regardless, it seems to me regardless of whether it was Franklin or UWW that Adrian cancelled out with, it would appear (at least on the surface) that they were looking for an easier game to start out with; also perhaps Husson was the only team available for that date, although from some of the other posts, it appears that was not the case i.e. there were some other teams with openings.  Still, it would seem to be as you say, although I doubt anyone will admit to the real reason for the change.  Too bad.  I was not at the Adrian/UWW game obviously, however, I can't imagine that 35-0 is running up the score, unless there is game film evidence of some really disengenuous play calling on UWW 's part and I find that difficult to believe.  Anyway, all that is "water nder the bridge" as that old saying goes.

[Raider 68]

Here's a question for our Adrian people:  I see where Adrian cancelled their contract for their game against Franklin for this fall.  As announced on d3football.com as you can see, Franklin has thus replaced them with UWW - a big game for them.  It appears that Adrian has then scheduled Husson.  I am wondering why?  Did Deere feel that he needed a game that would have a better chance at ensuring them a win early in the season? While Adrian's non-conference schedule as is currently posted might give them a good chance at being undefeated going into the MIAA league games, I'm not sure that would count towards having him keep his job if he doesn't win the title eventually in the long run - at least if the administration doesn't change their mind in regards to the precedent they set last year with the Lyall debacle i.e. how they handled that.  Any thoughts from our Adrian friends here?   Just curious. 

Adrian cancelled its game with UWW this fall, not against Franklin. Adrian thought UWW ran the score up on Adrian a little bit last season...plus Adrian's coaching staff never returned any of Lance Leipold's (UWW's head coach) phone calls offering to exchange tape before the game.

there seemed to be a little bad blood leading up to the game as well as after...so Adrian decided to call it quits.

Indeed you are right - i.e. actually, I should have caught that oversight on my part in that Adrian had the two year contract with UWW.  Regardless, it seems to me regardless of whether it was Franklin or UWW that Adrian cancelled out with, it would appear (at least on the surface) that they were looking for an easier game to start out with; also perhaps Husson was the only team available for that date, although from some of the other posts, it appears that was not the case i.e. there were some other teams with openings.  Still, it would seem to be as you say, although I doubt anyone will admit to the real reason for the change.  Too bad.  I was not at the Adrian/UWW game obviously, however, I can't imagine that 35-0 is running up the score, unless there is game film evidence of some really disengenuous play calling on UWW 's part and I find that difficult to believe.  Anyway, all that is "water nder the bridge" as that old saying goes.

Formerd3db,

I do not understand why Adrian cancelled their 2 year contract with UWW. The score was just a reflection on a top level team,IMHO. Maybe a desire to win an easier NC game was the real factor!