FB: Upper Midwest Athletic Conference

[Andras Bacia]

AB,

Take stats for what they are worth as it is all relative.  EC plays in one of the worst conferences in D3.  I would state EC needs a lot of work in a number of areas.  Only time will tell.

Agreed, stats are relative. First I would like to see EC compete in what is considered one of the worst conferences in D3. Then move on from there.

I have been part of a few consistant winning programs over the years and I believe
winning is a habit, but so is losing. 

There were some bright spots this year, and room for vast improvement.

[70_dc_alum]

I was a Sr the year Coach Barth was at Defiance and then played with him for a year in the Arena ball on a different team but had lost touch of him since.  Real good guy and easy to get along with which should help him at EC.  he needs to players in there with some volume to have a little depth and build experience, unless you have numbers it will never get out out of the cellar.

I would not look down on his coaching experience.  if you really think that someone with more experience than that would have interviewed you are crazy and HC expereince at D3? seriously like there are a lot of those unemployed much less looking to come to the middle of nowhere IL (granted you could always head to Big Al's in Peoria for coaching meetings).  he has 4 years college and 1 year post college playing with ~10 yrs coaching with lots of college and 4 yrs are as a HC.  that is better than what a lot of places get.  of course experience does not drive if he will be a success, se how many freshman show up in August and how many of the current players return in January.  Hopefully he can rally the existing players before they leave for christmas and  tell their parents to look at transfering

[Andras Bacia]

I just looked at EC's website and Coach Barth is the only football coach listed right now.

It appears they cleaned house for 2009!

[BCFootball]

Probably most will overlook this, any with football and Blackburn College in the same sentence.

The school is suppose to be making the announcement tomorrow of cancelling the football program. Coach Vandezande's role to destroy a program was exactly what Pres. Mim Pride wanted when she brought him in. All current players went to the college provost and said either Coach V goes or we go. The school said football goes.

It's hard to believe that in the mid 90's there were 115 kids on the roster, 9 game varsity schedule with a 8 game JV schedule.

Hopefully they'll shut down the school and go bankrupt in a couple years. BC was supposed to be the summer home for the St. Louis Rams. The Rams wanted to redo the stadium, upgrade a dorm, build an artificial turf field. Financial Director Fanning said it was too much money out of BC's pocket, and shot down the idea. They estimated that the town would bring in $400,000 a week if the Rams came.

If administration got their heads out of their asses, BC might be a good place to go.

[Hawks88]

I hate it for all these young men if this is true. Hopefully it isn't a done deal and something can be worked out.

[AF4]

Hay

i looked around the web and couldn't find anything about Blackburn dropping football ..perhaps i am looking in the wrong places ?

Hawks88  - i pray u had a wonderful Christmas and New Years

keep the faith

pugh

[Hawks88]

AF4,
Pretty good holidays here except for the father-in-law having some health problems. He needs lots of prayer. Hope you guys had a great holiday.

You heard anything about next season's schedule yet? I thought I had heard that we were going to be playing B'ham Southern but they have posted their schedule and we aren't on it.

You have a good one.

Go Hawks!

[Devils 50]

BC football:
Is there going to be a write-up anywhere about the college cancelling the football program? I hope they rethink this idea so your players have an opportunity to play.

My high school was a small 1A school and cancelled our program for two years my junior year. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I transfered to a private school to play my senior year, where I had a break out year and met life long friends. So if Blackburn does cancell football, hopefully some good will come out of it for your players, like it did for me.

Does anyone know if there is any penalty (time that you must sit out) if you transfer D3 to D3. I know you can't transfer up to D2 or D1 without a penalty but I don't know about D3 to D3, and if so, would the NCAA make an exception because of the situation? 

[Ralph Turner]

BC football:
Is there going to be a write-up anywhere about the college canceling the football program? I hope they rethink this idea so your players have an opportunity to play.

My high school was a small 1A school and canceled our program for two years my junior year. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I transferred to a private school to play my senior year, where I had a break out year and met life long friends. So if Blackburn does cancel football, hopefully some good will come out of it for your players, like it did for me.

Does anyone know if there is any penalty (time that you must sit out) if you transfer D3 to D3. I know you can't transfer up to D2 or D1 without a penalty but I don't know about D3 to D3, and if so, would the NCAA make an exception because of the situation? 

No penalty on transferring from D3 to D3.

I don't know if you would have to sit out a season if you transferred to a D2 or a D1 from a program that gave up football.

I would defer to the NJAC guys, back when New Jersey City gave up football earlier in the decade.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I seem to recall that when SMU got the "death penalty", players were allowed to transfer without sitting out.  I'd assume shutting down football entirely would be viewed the same.

[Pat Coleman]

I called a left a message last night for Blackburn authorities. Hopefully I hear back.

[Dmags]

 As a father of a freshman football player of BC, I can clear some things up, I think.
    YES football as been terminated at blackburn.
There was termoil among players(not all) and coaching during the season. A pettion was signed by players(not all) calling for coach V to be terminated.
Some players got in trouble during the season for some thing that happened off the field (Probably happens at most schools).
    Acording to school President  Mim Pride, the Official reason for termination was a 750,000  hole in the budget.  However only football was effected.!
   The team got together( those on campus) last night to discuss there optoins.Mim Pride showed up .I don't know if she was invited or just heard about the meeting . They  ,(the boys) were discussing fund raissing and such.She told them that it was done. Didn't matter if they raised the money or not it was over.
   So that leads me to believe that money was not the reason.

  As a father investing in my son Education , As a life long citizen of Carlinville and supporter of Blackburn  I Question    (A)  My future investment in his Education at BC   (B)  If one belives you teach by example  as well as by book's..What is she teaching. That when there is a bump in the road  you make a new road instead of fixing the road you have! In my opinion maybe she just doesn't have what it takes to be able to fix a problem.  Maybe she has been there to long.
   

   Was told by Mim Pride (president) that the budget for football was $250,000 .She also told me that ,there was a coach or coach's that volunteerd to work for free, " however that wouldn't fix the problem". "Even if money was raised for the program for five years, then what". I think she just doesn't like football.
      I feel for the student that transfered to BC this semester to play football here next year.

      P.S.  According to the coaches  they had 100 RSVP's for there recruitting days for next year..  38 on the team roster to return  maybe 40-50 from the recruitting.  80 x $ 22,000=$1,760,000 
   

  Blackburn College
  1-800-233-3550   Mim Pride's Ext.4213

[AF4]

Dmags

i 'm sorry, and hate that for yall...really... bad deal...the boy said yall had nice kids (from the game)

if he wants to come south...send him to Huntingdon.... i'll see to it the boy helps him out

here is transfer info  http://www.huntingdon.edu/admissions/transfers

link to coaches and athletic staff
http://www.huntingdon.edu/athletics/coaches_and_staff

if  yall call admissions...he can apply for all manner of scholarship/grants/ etc
main web site   http://www.huntingdon.edu/index

Huntingdon College is a really, really, neat place...come on down

what ever your son and you decide to do... good luck, fight the power, backs against the wall, and all that....... but....  keep the faith

[Ralph Turner]

If the Blackburn reports are accurate, this does not impair the quest for a Pool A bid by the SLIAC.  The SLIAC still has four or more (specifically, five) core members and seven total members (including Huntingdon and LaGrange as affiliates) that fulfill the requirement of seven to earn the Pool A bid in 2010. 

[Ralph Turner]

Doing some basic research on the web about Blackburn, I saw this comment written by a parent about the cessation of football at Blackburn...

http://www.stateuniversity.com/universities/IL/Blackburn_College.html

Blackburn is listed with only 605 students.  If 60 are football players, that is a 10% knock on enrollment and an even greater dent in next year's freshman class and knocks the male-female ratio from about 45-55 to about 40-60.

Let's say $21,000 with a discount rate of "only $3000" to give $18,000 times 60 $1.08M.  That has to close to the break-even point on their budget.

http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/InstitutionProfiles/ILinstProfile.aspx?id=001639

Petersen's

http://books.google.com/books?id=2QAHGalH30YC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=Blackburn+College+Enrollment&source=web&ots=P8GlAZmGN6&sig=oCaZlD6Yhq38bOKYKVERU_D_KmA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&
ct=result

Here is the inside education article about Blackburn's attempts to draw students and compete.  The discount rate is stated to be 32%.  (Is that 32% off the $21000 that is bandied about to give that $13,500 or $15000 that we see?)

http://www.insidehighered.com/index.php/news/2008/01/15/blackburn

Here is an article in USNews. (Please scroll down to the bottom.)

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/paying-for-college/2007/10/26/a-costly-cap-and-gown.html

I still have not found an endowment number, in either NACUBO databanks or elsewhere.