FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[BTEXPRESS]

One other tidbit from the Jackson newspaper that relates to the difference between D3 and D1. 

Kent Austin, the 2009 Offensive Coordinator at Ole Miss, left that position to take the head coaching job at Cornell.  Austin still had one year left on his Ole Miss contract which paid $305,000 per year.  That's a lot of money and my guess is that a coordinator's job at a bigger school pays a bigger salary.  It would be hard for any D3 school to compete with those numbers and I can see where it would be hard for a coach to resist the lure of moving up to the D1 level.

That being said, I can't believe Cornell pays their Head Coach that kind of $$$. Maybe they do but the Ivy league is still 1AA right? I was always under the assumption  that most IAA Head Coaches made between $100,000 to $200,000 a year. Maybe that SEC mentality has tricked down the ranks???

[awadelewis]

well, at least milsaps possible presidential choices look impressive:

Rob Pearigen would be a good choice for the President's job at Milsaps.   He was one of the leading candidates for the same position at Sewanee  and was the favorite amongst those of our alumni who wanted to see one of our own in the position.  However, our search committee decided to go for the candidate who was better known on the national stage (much like what Milsaps did with hiring Coach Dubose).

As for the football coaching position, I'd say go with Coach Caffey given how well the Majors have performed  past few years.  He would be a good fit and you avoid the continuity problems that bringing in someone new would cause.

[D3_DPUFan]

That being said, I can't believe Cornell pays their Head Coach that kind of $$$. Maybe they do but the Ivy league is still 1AA right? I was always under the assumption  that most IAA Head Coaches made between $100,000 to $200,000 a year. Maybe that SEC mentality has tricked down the ranks???  

Yeah, definitely not making close to that at Cornell. Sometimes coaches make moves for reasons other than money. Buddy Teevens (a Dartmouth alum) certainly doesn't make as much at Dartmouth as he did as head coach at Stanford.  I'm not sure what IAA guys make. For reference, MAC head coaches are in the $150-300k range, although Al Golden at Temple is close to $600,000!  

[frank_ezelle]

While waiting on news regarding the next Millsaps head football coach, some of you may find it interesting to look at the Millsaps coaching history of the past (or you may want to skip down to the part about DuBose).  It has some relevance to the current situation (grab a beer—this is really long, even by my standards):

---The media guide shows coaching records from 1957 through 2008.  From 1957 through 1963, 5 coaches combined for a 11-42-5 record.  How many of you remember C.M. "Sammy" Bartling (2-5 in his last season which was 1957), Marvin G. Smith (4-21-2 in 3 seasons), Flavious J. Smith (1-5-2), Bill Dupes (3-4-1) and Ray Thornton (1-7)?

---The good news about the above lack of success, is that it dulled the pain of the 7-23-2 record compiled by Harper Davis from 1964-67.  The legendary Harper Davis wasn't fired after that start, staying on for 25 years and compiling a 140-78-4 record.  In today's culture, the 1-6-1 record in 1967 would have been his last season for sure.

---When Harper retired, he was replaced by long time assistant Tommy Ranager (this didn't upset the other assistant coaches because there were no others—Harper and Tommy were the entire coaching staff back in the 70's and 80's).  Coach Ranager compiled a 32-31-2 record from 1989-95.

---Former Millsaps player Ron Jurney started his 4-year tenure with a bang in 1996, going 8-2 in route to an SCAC Co-Championship and Coach of the Year honors.  Unfortunately, the next 3 seasons were 3-7, 3-7, and 2-8.

---Here's where Millsaps started looking towards the D1 level for coaches.  In 2000, they brought in former MS State head coach Bob Tyler.  Okay, so his stint at MS State was from 1973-78 and he had been out of coaching since 1981.  He was still a successful SEC head coach during his prime.  On the field, his MS State teams were 39-25-3.  A long and unsuccessful court battle by MS State against the NCAA resulted in MS State forfeits after the fact that reduced Tyler's official record to 21-44-2.

Tyler did alright at Millsaps, going 5-5, 6-4, and 3-6 during his 3 seasons.  It was better than the 8-22 of the 3 seasons prior to his arrival, but the program wasn't really going in the right direction when Coach Tyler left.

---In 2003, Millsaps looked to the D1 level again, hiring Ole Miss assistant coach David Saunders.  He almost killed the program.  I mean that literally.  Upon discovering that some players would miss some practices because of afternoon labs, Coach Saunders found a solution.  Football practice would be at 6 a.m. instead of in the afternoons.

Now 8 a.m. classes in college are always tough, but think about having those classes after meeting with a study group at 10 in the evening, working past midnight, then getting up at 5 for a 90 minute football practice, and then having to skip breakfast in order to get to class on time.  My nephew was on that team and I talked with many of the parents that season.  Over and over I heard parents say something like, "I've always told my son to finish what they start, but this is the one time when I would back them 100% if they want to quit in the middle of the season."  It was a very bad year in a lot of ways and at times it really looked like they might not have enough players left to field a team.

Saunders lasted 3 seasons and compiled a 7-21 record.  His most notable accomplishment by far was the hiring of Mike DuBose as the defensive coordinator in 2005.

---Most of you know that DuBose took over as head coach in 2006 and in his 4 years as head coach he won 4 SCAC Championships, compiled a 33-10 record (24-2 in the SCAC), and he took the team to the playoffs twice, the first playoff appearances since 1975.  I personally wish Coach DuBose had stayed on for 15 more years.  The next guy is going to have some very big shoes to fill, and in all likelihood, the next coach will have a resume that pales compared to the last 4 years.

HOWEVER, let's not forget that people had some real doubts and concerns when Coach DuBose was hired.  Do you remember?  There were plenty of Alabama fans who predicted that Millsaps would be sorry about the hire and there were some Millsaps fans wondering if former D1 coaches were really capable of acclimating to the D3 environment.  It hadn't worked very well in the past for Millsaps.  To jog your memory, le's turn the clock back a few years.

When DuBose was hired at Millsaps, he brought with him an SEC Coach of the Year award.  He also brought a 24-23 record as the Alabama head coach for 4 seasons, a stretch between 1997 and 2000 that had plenty of controversy both on and off the field.  After the SEC, DuBose served 3 years as a high school head coach, compiling an overall record of 20-17.

So, prior to taking over as the Millsaps head coach, Mike DuBose had a 44-40 record as a head coach.  He did have a reputation as a defensive specialist, but during his one year as the Millsaps defensive coordinator the team gave up 315 points in 9 games, a 35 point per game average.  By the way, that average was better than the first 3 Millsaps games the next season when the defense gave up 52, 41, and 35 points.

Now let's be clear on something, I'm not writing any of the above in an effort to criticize Coach DuBose.  I'm just trying to remind people that the Coach DuBose's resume after the 2005 season would pale in comparison to his resume after the 2009 season.  To be honest, back in 2006 I was more excited about Saunders leaving than I was about DuBose taking over.  Heck, I would have been happy with Flavious J. Smith coming back from the dead (or the nursing home) just as long as there was a coaching change.

When the new coach is named at Millsaps in a few days or weeks, remember that DuBose didn't have 4 straight conference championships on his resume or the distinction of having won 92% of his conference games.  He didn't even produce great stats in his one year as an assistant, but look what he did for the program as the head coach. Give the next guy a chance to succeed and he might just take the program to an even higher level.

[Patriot_Pride]

Word out of Jackson today is that it's narrowed to eight finalists with a decision to be announced Feb. 15.

[frank_ezelle]

A skinny post:

Local newspaper about the Saints training camps at Millsaps:  http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20100129/COL0504/1290334/1287/SPORTS/It-all-started-here

[Ron Boerger]

For those interested in such things, the latest NACUBO endowment report is out.  As you might expect, it's not pretty given that it covered the period 1 Jul 08-30 Jun 09. 

BS-C, the school with the smallest endowment, also took the largest hit (27.2% loss) during the period, but all SCAC schools lost 15% or more of their endowment, including those which were actively raising funds during the period.

[cush]

School/Current Endowment/ % loss:

Trinity            850M/ -17.8
Depauw         425M/-21.9
CC                 400M/-18.7
Sewanne        246M/-21.4
Rhodes           229M/-18.5
SW                  226M/-19.2
Centre            159M/-16.6
Hendrix            115M/-21.8
Austin              109M/-22.3
BSC                 72M/-27.4
Milsaps            71M/-19.8
OU                   not listed

[Ralph Turner]

OU

The endowment listed at US News and World Report is $20,555,912

[D3_DPUFan]

Trinity            850M/ -17.8
Depauw         425M/-21.9
CC                 400M/-18.7
Sewanne        246M/-21.4
Rhodes           229M/-18.5
SW                  226M/-19.2
Centre            159M/-16.6
Hendrix            115M/-21.8
Austin              109M/-22.3
BSC                 72M/-27.4
Milsaps            71M/-19.8
OU                   not listed

$850 million??? You think Trinity could carve a buck or two to imrpove those God -awful facilities:)

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity            850M/ -17.8
Depauw         425M/-21.9
CC                 400M/-18.7
Sewanne        246M/-21.4
Rhodes           229M/-18.5
SW                  226M/-19.2
Centre            159M/-16.6
Hendrix            115M/-21.8
Austin              109M/-22.3
BSC                 72M/-27.4
Milsaps            71M/-19.8
OU                   not listed

$850 million??? You think Trinity could carve a buck or two to imrpove those God -awful facilities:)

DPU, from your lips to the ears of the Trinity administration.   

Speaking of that, here's an Express-News interview with new president Dr. Dennis Ahlberg, who comes to Trinity from UC-Boulder and has some serious goals for the school.  Nothing here about athletics, but still a good read.  I hope he's successful in breaking down some of the virtual walls that the school has erected around itself the last 20 or so years. 

[D3_DPUFan]

Speaking of that, here's an Express-News interview with new president Dr. Dennis Ahlberg, who comes to Trinity from UC-Boulder and has some serious goals for the school.  Nothing here about athletics, but still a good read.  I hope he's successful in breaking down some of the virtual walls that the school has erected around itself the last 20 or so years. 

Sounds like he has some definite ideas, including engaging the community, which could potentially be a great thing for football (and all athletic programs). It's amazing what strong leadership can do for a university or for that matter any organization. Hope he does great things for Trinity.

[cush]

I looked for OU on that list but couldn't find them...that 20m figure from us news is from last year, so it might be 20% cut from that level but than again all those endowments are probably 10% or so higher from those figures given the market move (might not last) from june 2009. Some other  possible future scac school's:

Berry College 558m (-13.8) good chunk of their endowment is land holdings
Centenary College 89m (-20.3)

[DPU3619]

I'd be bracing for impact in regards to next year's tuition bill if I had a youngster at one of those schools down over 20%. 

DePauw's been blaming their tuition hikes on that for a decade.  That's when it was only going down like 5%.  DePauw losing a full fifth of the endowment is going to send tuition even FURTHER through the roof than it already is.  Unless they now have better reasons for setting the price of admission, I suppose.

[Ron Boerger]

I'd be bracing for impact in regards to next year's tuition bill if I had a youngster at one of those schools down over 20%. 

DePauw's been blaming their tuition hikes on that for a decade.  That's when it was only going down like 5%.  DePauw losing a full fifth of the endowment is going to send tuition even FURTHER through the roof than it already is.  Unless they now have better reasons for setting the price of admission, I suppose.

Wes, remember that these figures were as of the end of June '09 (and represent an increase from the nadir reached in the Feb-Mar '09 time frame).  If schools were going to jack up tuition, they probably would have done it this year on an emergency basis. 

It's possible (and perhaps likely) that most of the schools on this list have recovered half or more of their losses since this data point was taken.  It would also be interesting to go back and see how these numbers relate to endowments of, say, 2005 or 2006.  You'd likely see a much different picture over that period.