MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

Interesting read on Goshen College not playing The National Anthem before games.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Indiana-college-not-playing-the-national-anthem-?urn=ncaab-wp4428


I think the highlite of the article was the tweet from some dude about banning Goshen from NCAA competition.     Doh!!!

[GoKnights68]

With nasty comments like that he is the one that has the superiority complex because WMU is DI.


As a recent Calvin grad, I can tell you there is quite a big superiority complex (and arrogance?) out from not only journalists but many of my friends who graduated/attend a division 1 school.  They tend to poke fun of my interest in d3 basketball.  Or as the comments above have said already...they just don't understand d3 basketball.

There is a certain university in the state of Michigan whose fans/grads are the most annoying when it comes to the topic.

[HopeConvert]

Interesting read on Goshen College not playing The National Anthem before games.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Indiana-college-not-playing-the-national-anthem-?urn=ncaab-wp4428


I think the highlite of the article was the tweet from some dude about banning Goshen from NCAA competition.     Doh!!!

Would that all sporting events banned the national anthem from being played prior to the commencement of the contest.

[Gregory Sager]

Interesting read on Goshen College not playing The National Anthem before games.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Indiana-college-not-playing-the-national-anthem-?urn=ncaab-wp4428


I think the highlite of the article was the tweet from some dude about banning Goshen from NCAA competition.     Doh!!!

Yeah, that cracked me up, too. "What? You mean that Goshen College is already banned from NCAA competition? Oh ... it's not a member of the NCAA? Uh, never mind."

The Goshen basketball team might find that it has better luck with "America the Beautiful" than it did with "The Star-Spangled Banner", seeing as how the Maple Leafs went 11-18 and finished last in the nine-team Mid-Central College Conference last season. Hey, it worked for the Philadelphia Flyers. In the '70s the Flyers started playing a recording of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" before home games in lieu of the national anthem, and the "Broad Street Bullies", as the Flyers were nicknamed back then, went on to win a couple of Stanley Cups.

Problem is, "America the Beautiful" doesn't fit Goshen College's core values, either, as it's not a pacifistic song. Here's the third verse:

    O beautiful for heroes prov'd
    In liberating strife,
    Who more than self their country lov'd,
    And mercy more than life.

Of course, if Goshen College was truly attempting to reflect the community in which it's located, it'd play "Himno Nacional Mexicano" before every sporting event.

[Dark Knight]

The ad-hoc committee tasked with making a recommendation about whether to add football at Calvin has gone into the public phase, where they're talking about their work and surveying students, faculty, staff, alumni, etc. They'll make a recommendation to the planning and priorities committee in a couple of months.

The say that adding football would require about $9 million in startup costs to build new football, soccer, and track facilities, etc. They say that they constructed a financial model, and depending on assumptions the program would pay for itself in something like 7 to 30+ years. Less if donors cover part of the startup costs. Their financial model took into account an average enrollment increase of 49 students when schools add football programs and figured their tuition into the model. My concern was that they seemed to overlook the fact that some of that tuition should be used for, well, tuition.

Interesting tidbit: most MIAA schools are much more sports-oriented than Calvin. Adrian leads the way with a whopping 47% of students participating in intercollegiate athletics, with Olivet close behind. I think Hope had more than a third of its students participating. Calvin had 10%, and only St. Mary's had a smaller percentage, at 9.9%.  Kind of surprising, considering that Calvin took 5th place nationally in the Learfield competition last year--without a football program, not to mention fencing, downhill skiing, or 'snoot biathalon.'

The speaker from the kinesiology department made it clear that the sports programs are there first of all for the student athletes, not the fans in the stands, and that many sports go under the radar, not receiving much visibility on campus. They're fine with that.

They addressed the injury issue, and yes, there are serious injuries in football, but the rate of injury is comparable to other sports. Women's soccer appears to be the most dangerous. Parents, don't let your daughters play soccer.

He also pointed out that Calvin is unusual in its faculty-coach model, and that any football coach would also have to be a faculty member and teach a class. That (along with the college's other requirements) cuts down on the pool of potential coaches, and of course selection of the right coach is crucial.

He said that someone asked Frank DeFord about whether Calvin should have a football program when he visited last year, and he didn't have an opinion about that, but he did say that if Calvin has a team, it should be sure to have a good team, as football has very high visibility. Having a weak team looks bad. For some reason, Hope was used as an example in much of this discussion.

Big, unanswered question: cheerleaders and a marching band at Calvin!?

[KnightSlappy]

I vote 'no' on the cheerleaders becuase, what's the point (although I don't really care too strongly about this).

Marching band, on the other hand, I would be strongly opposed. They would be terrible, and nothing's worse than a terrible marching band. Marching band takes a ton of commitment to do well (and you really do want it done well), and I don't think Calvin's music department would be up to the task.

[Gregory Sager]

Interesting tidbit: most MIAA schools are much more sports-oriented than Calvin. Adrian leads the way with a whopping 47% of students participating in intercollegiate athletics, with Olivet close behind. I think Hope had more than a third of its students participating. Calvin had 10%, and only St. Mary's had a smaller percentage, at 9.9%.  Kind of surprising, considering that Calvin took 5th place nationally in the Learfield competition last year--without a football program, not to mention fencing, downhill skiing, or 'snoot biathalon.'

There's nothing surprising about this at all, DK. I can explain it with this simple chart:

MIAA Undergraduate enrollment
(co-ed schools only)

Adrian	1,308
Albion	1,860
Alma	1,444
Calvin	4,015
Hope	3,230
Kalamazoo	1,369
Olivet	1,004
Trine	1,779

Big, unanswered question: cheerleaders and a marching band at Calvin!?

Why would this be a big question? Marching bands are very rare on the D3 level. According to www.collegetoolkit.com and www.marching-band.net, of the 450 or so schools that are D3 members, only eight currently have marching bands: MIT, McMurry, Mississippi College, Oberlin, Sewanee, Vassar, UW-Whitewater, and Wooster. Of course, that number drops down to seven once McMurry transitions to D2.

[oldknight]

Good stuff DK. Thanks for the insights.

[oldknight]

Big, unanswered question: cheerleaders and a marching band at Calvin!?

Why would this be a big question? Marching bands are very rare on the D3 level.

He didn't use the emoticon but I visualized a tongue-in-the-DK-cheek when I read the question.

[KnightSlappy]

The say that adding football would require about $9 million in startup costs to build new football, soccer, and track facilities, etc. They say that they constructed a financial model, and depending on assumptions the program would pay for itself in something like 7 to 30+ years. Less if donors cover part of the startup costs. Their financial model took into account an average enrollment increase of 49 students when schools add football programs and figured their tuition into the model. My concern was that they seemed to overlook the fact that some of that tuition should be used for, well, tuition.

This reminds me of the old engineering joke:

"we assumed the horse to be a sphere to make the math easier."

[KnightSlappy]

The say that adding football would require about $9 million in startup costs to build new football, soccer, and track facilities, etc. They say that they constructed a financial model, and depending on assumptions the program would pay for itself in something like 7 to 30+ years. Less if donors cover part of the startup costs. Their financial model took into account an average enrollment increase of 49 students when schools add football programs and figured their tuition into the model. My concern was that they seemed to overlook the fact that some of that tuition should be used for, well, tuition.

This reminds me of the old engineering joke:

"we assumed the horse to be a sphere to make the math easier."

[Happy Calvin Guy]

Their financial model took into account an average enrollment increase of 49 students when schools add football programs and figured their tuition into the model. My concern was that they seemed to overlook the fact that some of that tuition should be used for, well, tuition.

What exactly does it mean to "use it for tuition"?  Tuition is a revenue item for the college, not an expense item.  If you look at the total expense structure of running a college like Calvin, the marjority of the budget is fixed costs, and the minority of the budget is variable costs.  Tuition is the largest revenue source with which to cover these fixed costs.  Therein lies the challenge the school has had recently:  how to cover its mostly fixed cost structure with a variable (and recently declining) revenue base. 

If Calvin increased enrollment by 50 students, revenue goes up by 50 tuition payments, but only certain parts of the cost structure go up.  For instance, Calvin would not need to add any additional administrative salaries, would not need to maintain the facilities to any higher degree, etc.  Perhaps a professor or two would need to be hired (insert joke about stereotypical football player major here), and the dining halls would need to produce proportionally more food, etc, but it certainly would not increase the total expenses of the college proportionally, as it would the revenues.  Other expenses like the the salary of coaching staff and equipment/facilities for the football program need to be evaluated as direct (also fixed) costs of starting a program.

[dahlby]

Gregory,

What is/was your definition of a marching band? Chapman has a "pep" band that marches at halftime of the football games. There are only 20 or so volunteer members, but they put on one heck of a halftime performance, drawing much response from the fans. Their routines are a riot...sort of like a Standford band without as many members.

Between the band and the cheerleaders, it has really "upped" the fan experiece. And after they performed at our last home game last fall, the players went over and gave them an ovation...both the cheerleaders and the band.

[Pat Coleman]

I think 49 is a very conservative estimate but then again, Calvin already has a fairly large student population.

http://www.d3football.com/notables/2005/adding-football-why-and-how

This story goes back a bit but I don't think the base reasonings behind it change.

[Gregory Sager]

Gregory,

What is/was your definition of a marching band? Chapman has a "pep" band that marches at halftime of the football games. There are only 20 or so volunteer members, but they put on one heck of a halftime performance, drawing much response from the fans. Their routines are a riot...sort of like a Standford band without as many members.

Between the band and the cheerleaders, it has really "upped" the fan experiece. And after they performed at our last home game last fall, the players went over and gave them an ovation...both the cheerleaders and the band.

I'm agnostic on the subject of what does or does not constitute a marching band, Dahlby. I've honestly never given it a thought. I simply copied down the names of the eight D3 schools from the two websites I cited in my previous post. I would consult them to learn their definitions of what constitutes a marching band, particularly www.marching-band.net.