BB: WIAC: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[02 Warhawk]

This isn't high school....college teams don't draw their athletic players from their student population. They recruit before students enroll...just like every other collegiate sport at any level.

You can say it all you want, it's not going to make it true.

Student population and school size and budget size leads to a larger budget to recruit those students before they enroll. Not everyone has the same amount of money in their budget.

You're right, not many schools can budget for 15 men's sports like some private schools can.

This "poor us" attitude from some private schools is getting tiring. Especially when (like Pat said), over 3 quarters of all DIII championships have been won by private schools over the past 18 years. Which is proportionate to the amount of public/private schools there are in DIII.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree...which is usually the case with these private/public debates. Have a good weekend Spence, thanks for making these boards interesting the past few days. 

[Pat Coleman]

Didn't hear much complaining about public schools when the private schools were winning six consecutive national titles, including Spence's alma mater winning two of them.

According to the most recent figures each school submits to the U.S. government to comply with federal law, Marietta spent $87,709 on baseball and Whitewater spent $83,512 for the 2012-13 season.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx

[jackson5]

I don't necessarily think that size matters that much, but it is more about what kind of academic $$ are available, plus other local dynamics.  Certainly in Wisconsin the lack to good D1 programs have an impact. If I was from Wisconsin, I would want to get the He11 out of dodge and go play some place more hospitable to baseball (weather wise of course), but that is coming from a West Coast warm weather perspective.  I have no idea on the academic $$ availability from those schools, but seems to me that would have a larger impact than size. It is not how many are in your pool of players, but who you have attracted to play for you. Certainly facilities impact this.

If you look at the size of the recent CWS winners they have enrollments of (approx) 2,220, 1,450, 10,300 (St Thomas) and 2,160.

Well said. Enrollment size only really matters in (public) high school. Where athletes are picked from your school's enrollment. However, in college, athletes are recruited prior to enrolling.

I know we keep alluding to this, but a perfect example is Mount Union's and Whitewater's football programs. Both our outstanding football programs with completely different enrollments.

Budget sizes are completely different between large and small schools. Much easier to raise 100K to pay a coach or bring in new equipment when you have 10K students and 50K alumns to draw from than 2K students and 10K alumns. Mount Union is good in football, but none of their other sports are national powers because they have to put all their eggs into the football basket. It's not the fact that Whitewater can randomly draw 100 good football players, 13 basketball players and 30 baseball players from their 10K students that gives them the advantage. It's that its much easier for them to draw the funds needed to support their teams compared to the average D-3 school.

I've been to many small private DIII schools, and from what I can see there's little problem with funding. There's some excellent facilities out there, both public and private. I'm not buying that private schools can't hang dollar for dollar with public schools. The big difference is allocation of money. Some private schools don't consider athletics as important as other private schools, so their facilities lack. so instead their funds are given to a new liberal arts building or something. Then you have a schools like St. Thomas, North Central, etc. that are serious about athletics, and their facilities are some of the best in DIII. Almost forgot about Mary Hardin-Baylor (private)...their new football stadium would rival some DI facililties. Good God is that stadium huge!!!

That's not really true about Mount Union (you're probably just looking at the football, baseball and basketball). In fact, Mount just became national champs in men's track and field last week. Many Mount fans have told me that their Track team has been solid for the past 40+ years.

This isn't high school....college teams don't draw their athletic players from their student population. They recruit before students enroll...just like every other collegiate sport at any level. It's not dumn luck that the best DIII football talent just happens to enroll at Mount Union every year? Of course not, they are heavily influenced to come to Mount out of high school to play football for the purple raiders.

Once again, the size issue has nothing to do with being able to draw from the general student body. It's the funding. Yeah you have some exceptions, the NESCAC's and some other schools who have huge endowments and happen to have the desire to put money into sports.  But the truth is that Whitewater has a huge advantage over other schools by having 10K students to draw funding from and pack their huge stadium in football and have support for their other sports.

[Spence]

Didn't hear much complaining about public schools when the private schools were winning six consecutive national titles, including Spence's alma mater winning two of them.

According to the most recent figures each school submits to the U.S. government to comply with federal law, Marietta spent $87,709 on baseball and Whitewater spent $83,512 for the 2012-13 season.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx

It's tracking money and not sources of money. I don't particularly think the government needs to know that and so that's fine, but I'm really sure it's not a direct flow of funds and the school is not allocating nearly 88k to baseball game day expenses (another issue is that it's game day expenses, but there's nothing better in the data really since they combined everything not basketball or football). I also notice that UW-W's total athletic spend is almost double Marietta's.

I don't really feel like it's appropriate to pat anyone in particular on the back because it's an effort of so very many people a lot of whom never put on a uniform (I wish I had a dollar for every time Don Schaly said that), but Marietta is in no way a typical case. I hope I didn't need to tell anyone that, and I hope Marietta's championship success continues to skew these numbers.

[mideastfan2]

Didn't hear much complaining about public schools when the private schools were winning six consecutive national titles, including Spence's alma mater winning two of them.

According to the most recent figures each school submits to the U.S. government to comply with federal law, Marietta spent $87,709 on baseball and Whitewater spent $83,512 for the 2012-13 season.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx

does that consist of coaching salaries?  field maintenance? recruiting budgets? travel costs? all of the above? or miscellaneous items?

would be interesting to know, but I am fully aware that we never really will. 

[Spence]

There are separate categories on the site (I had to go back to /athletics/ and then navigate) pertaining to coach salaries and recruiting budgets. I think there are some discrepancies in how the recruiting reporting is handled, but whatever.

I think the biggest unaccounted for piece though related to this discussion is where the funding comes from. You probably know more about that than I do.

[02 Warhawk]

Didn't hear much complaining about public schools when the private schools were winning six consecutive national titles, including Spence's alma mater winning two of them.

According to the most recent figures each school submits to the U.S. government to comply with federal law, Marietta spent $87,709 on baseball and Whitewater spent $83,512 for the 2012-13 season.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx

It's tracking money and not sources of money. I don't particularly think the government needs to know that and so that's fine, but I'm really sure it's not a direct flow of funds and the school is not allocating nearly 88k to baseball game day expenses (another issue is that it's game day expenses, but there's nothing better in the data really since they combined everything not basketball or football). I also notice that UW-W's total athletic spend is almost double Marietta's.

I don't really feel like it's appropriate to pat anyone in particular on the back because it's an effort of so very many people a lot of whom never put on a uniform (I wish I had a dollar for every time Don Schaly said that), but Marietta is in no way a typical case. I hope I didn't need to tell anyone that, and I hope Marietta's championship success continues to skew these numbers.

Makes sense since UW-W has almost double the athletic programs to support.

Wow...then there's the NESCAC schools, that nearly equal to UW-W and Marietta combined.

Interesting website, but there's a handful of schools missing (i.e St. Johns)

[Spence]

NESCAC schools are mostly (universally?) academically very strong, turn out a lot of great alums that obviously value their experience and donate back to the school.

There's been a much needed and overdue building boom at Marietta over the last 15 years, athletic and otherwise, but almost all of it has been funded by alumni donations or seed money provided by lead donors.

I don't think the difference between UWW and MC's budgeting is a matter of programs to support; it's a matter of programs that its cash flow can support.

[ShineTime]

Did u guys here about magic Johnson?

[Pat Coleman]

Didn't hear much complaining about public schools when the private schools were winning six consecutive national titles, including Spence's alma mater winning two of them.

According to the most recent figures each school submits to the U.S. government to comply with federal law, Marietta spent $87,709 on baseball and Whitewater spent $83,512 for the 2012-13 season.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx

It's tracking money and not sources of money. I don't particularly think the government needs to know that and so that's fine, but I'm really sure it's not a direct flow of funds and the school is not allocating nearly 88k to baseball game day expenses (another issue is that it's game day expenses, but there's nothing better in the data really since they combined everything not basketball or football). I also notice that UW-W's total athletic spend is almost double Marietta's.

I don't really feel like it's appropriate to pat anyone in particular on the back because it's an effort of so very many people a lot of whom never put on a uniform (I wish I had a dollar for every time Don Schaly said that), but Marietta is in no way a typical case. I hope I didn't need to tell anyone that, and I hope Marietta's championship success continues to skew these numbers.

Makes sense since UW-W has almost double the athletic programs to support.

Wow...then there's the NESCAC schools, that nearly equal to UW-W and Marietta combined.

Interesting website, but there's a handful of schools missing (i.e St. Johns)

St. John's isn't subject to Title IX regulations, for obvious reasons, and does not have to file a report.

[John Gleich]

"I'm sure if a school wanted to make the leap they could do it,"

This is the only part of your statement that matters. They haven't done it because they don't want to; they'd rather be big fish in a small pond.

Grand Valley State is one of the top D-II programs in the country (won the Directors Cup each year between 2004-2011 and were 2nd in 2002 & 2003 and 2012 & 2013. But a few years ago, they showed the reasons WHY they remained D-II instead of D-I.

You can read it here:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/grva/genrel/auto_pdf/selgod2_09.pdf

This lays out what it takes to jump from D-II to D-I.


Jumping from D-III to D-II would be a similar jump and it's an institutional choice. The D-III model is ingrained in the WIAC and that's part f why the conference has had the success that it has had.


But the fact of the matter is that the same reason why GVSU isn't going D-I is why the WIAC isn't going D-II.

1. Institutional philosophy; and
2. How much money the school wants to spend on intercollegiate athletics


Where do you think this money is going to come from? Remember, it isn't just Men's Basketball or Baseball that is going to need to get scholarships... Football will as well and that means a slew of women's sports will get scholarships as well. And even now, in a program like UWSP basketball, which is typically in the top 5 or 6 in the country in attendance, doesn't even make up operating costs as it is WITHOUT scholarships. Where's the $$ going to come from? Even if everything else remained as they are now, UWSP would be in the top 30 in MBB attendence. There isn't much higher they can go.

[Spence]

"I'm sure if a school wanted to make the leap they could do it,"

This is the only part of your statement that matters. They haven't done it because they don't want to; they'd rather be big fish in a small pond.

Grand Valley State is one of the top D-II programs in the country (won the Directors Cup each year between 2004-2011 and were 2nd in 2002 & 2003 and 2012 & 2013. But a few years ago, they showed the reasons WHY they remained D-II instead of D-I.

You can read it here:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/grva/genrel/auto_pdf/selgod2_09.pdf

This lays out what it takes to jump from D-II to D-I.

Wow that was really all a load of ridiculousness. They really overstate the travel case considering there are several midwestern leagues for which GVSU could be a fit. Their real problem sounds like they didn't invest in the football program, update facilities, etc. when Kelly was there. I'm amazed that they characterize their facility as below par even for D-II. If they had updated, they might be in better shape to make a move. The MAC would be the natural D-I fit for them, geographically, and I don't think it's out of their price range. But if they want to think small time and be small time, whatever. They still don't stick out in D-II as far as size/funding sources goes as much as the big public schools do in D-III.

Jumping from D-III to D-II would be a similar jump and it's an institutional choice. The D-III model is ingrained in the WIAC and that's part f why the conference has had the success that it has had.

The WIAC is really just a confederation of schools. There's nothing inherent about the WIAC that makes it only compatible with D-III...and hell the way it's looking, it is expressly incompatible with D-III since they're about to lose their automatic bid. Entire conferences have moved up and down before.

Where do you think this money is going to come from? Remember, it isn't just Men's Basketball or Baseball that is going to need to get scholarships... Football will as well and that means a slew of women's sports will get scholarships as well. And even now, in a program like UWSP basketball, which is typically in the top 5 or 6 in the country in attendance, doesn't even make up operating costs as it is WITHOUT scholarships. Where's the $$ going to come from? Even if everything else remained as they are now, UWSP would be in the top 30 in MBB attendence. There isn't much higher they can go.

As long as you think that way, that will surely be true. As for your other questions, get someone to contract with me to do some market research and maybe I'll answer them.

I actually think it would be a really smart idea for a D-III UW state school to move up. It would differentiate them from UW-everyone else. It would be particularly interesting if La Crosse did it since they have the strongest academics by a pretty significant margin. Would probably all hinge on whether they could play the politics to get the funding to grow with the move.

[badgerwarhawk]

"As long as you think that way, that will surely be true."

LMAO 

[AO]

"I'm sure if a school wanted to make the leap they could do it,"

This is the only part of your statement that matters. They haven't done it because they don't want to; they'd rather be big fish in a small pond.

Grand Valley State is one of the top D-II programs in the country (won the Directors Cup each year between 2004-2011 and were 2nd in 2002 & 2003 and 2012 & 2013. But a few years ago, they showed the reasons WHY they remained D-II instead of D-I.

You can read it here:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/grva/genrel/auto_pdf/selgod2_09.pdf

This lays out what it takes to jump from D-II to D-I.


Jumping from D-III to D-II would be a similar jump and it's an institutional choice. The D-III model is ingrained in the WIAC and that's part f why the conference has had the success that it has had.


But the fact of the matter is that the same reason why GVSU isn't going D-I is why the WIAC isn't going D-II.

1. Institutional philosophy; and
2. How much money the school wants to spend on intercollegiate athletics


Where do you think this money is going to come from? Remember, it isn't just Men's Basketball or Baseball that is going to need to get scholarships... Football will as well and that means a slew of women's sports will get scholarships as well. And even now, in a program like UWSP basketball, which is typically in the top 5 or 6 in the country in attendance, doesn't even make up operating costs as it is WITHOUT scholarships. Where's the $$ going to come from? Even if everything else remained as they are now, UWSP would be in the top 30 in MBB attendence. There isn't much higher they can go.

I would answer nearly every question with what about North Dakota State?  The same arguments were used in Fargo to oppose their move to D1.  Look at em now look at em now

[jackson5]

Division III is one-quarter state schools. This year, state schools have won one-quarter of all of the Division III national championships. (One championship, rowing, has yet to be awarded, but no state schools qualified.)

Here's the stat that tells you who truly dominates Division III. Over the past five years, all of the state schools combined have won 26 titles. In the same span, one D-III conference, the NESCAC, has won 24. Half of the rowing field is NESCAC schools, so we may see that increase to 25 this weekend.

Over the past 18 years, 23.5% of national titles have been won by state schools.

You guys are focusing on public versus private but the issue is more of size. In the past 20 years in the four major sports, baseball, basketball, football and lacrosse, 36 of the 80 champions have had undergraduate enrollments of 7,100 or greater, or 45%. Now does 45% of Division 3 schools have 7,000 undergrads or greater? And that's just champions, if you take into consideration schools that finish in the final 8 or 4 teams remaining, you'll see that the number of large schools in those spots will greatly outnumber the small schools.