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Post by Aggie Monster on Oct 30, 2010 20:43:29 GMT -5
Damn, I keep saying this. Aggie pride had this board blind. I hadn't been to a practice and could tell by what you guys were telling me that this staff was soft. After seeing the first couple of games it was confirmed. My first tip off was the all the hoopla over a good 7-on-7 summer. Good teams( and OCs) give 2 shits about winnning 7-on-7. Good teams use it to practice execution, even if it means getting "beat" to expose some of your own weaknesses.
Our execution and technique has been horrible, but all we kept saying was "boy, if we only had a QB". I got a thread in the private forum about the 44 scholarships thing. YES, its tough with only 44, but our staff is still not getting it done. I've seen better technique and execution on some high school teams. Neither has anything to do with athletic prowess.
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Post by aggiechamp on Oct 30, 2010 21:38:21 GMT -5
This season is over and we stink. I keep reading where everybody has blamed all the participants in this fiasco for the state of Aggie football except one group. I'm talking about us my friends, the die hard Aggie fans that live and die with actions of very young kids in all our athletic programs. Yes they have made mistakes. And so have the coaches. But we too my friends are responsible for the sad state of Aggie athletics. We want a Division I program but we don't want to pay for it. Don't you suppose it would be easier to get the steps in Wiiliams cafeteria to have a training table if we had the funds to pay for a second stairway. (By the way, I support not using the room if there is only one exit out. Let's put that in perspective.!!) Don't you suppose it would be easier to coach a kid up if the cooordinator did not have to also have secondary responsibilities for some other aspects of the team. By the way, who thinks its easy to win a game when you have to ride a bus 15 hours to Florida or play a team with 44 scholarship players when the other team has a full complement. Not I. All these problems could be remedied with more funding. That's where we come in. If you are honest, you must admit that more can be done to support A&T in general and Aggie athletics in particular. Chancellor Martin has developed a new booster club that could potentially solve some of financial problems with our athletic programs. However, his new booster club and our University cannot be successful unless WE commit to making it successful. It really is this simple. If we want a successful Division I program/A&T, then we must pay for it. If we provide adequate funding to our school and our athletic programs, then we have the right to complain when the other participant/students/coaches don't perform very well. At the present time, we haven't. Until we do, then we should expect the kind of results that we have been getting in athletics/university. I commit to doing better in the future. How about you? Or, are we going to be here next year and the year after and the year after making to the same old arguments. Having said that, I can't promise you that the athletics programs will be any better in the future. I can say with certainty, however, that if athletics does not get any better, no one will have the excuse that one participant in this fiasco, i.e., the loyal and die hard A&T fans and supporters, didn't do all that they could do to bring our athletics and our university back to prominence that made us the envy of all other HBCUs and many PWCs. There is a price to be paid. Will we pay it? Aggie Pride
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Post by thefriscotxaggie on Oct 30, 2010 22:34:47 GMT -5
I hear you aggiechamp but money is not keeping us from being compettitve on the HBCU front it does against other FCS conferences.
Juat as an example Cookman is 8-0 and I am sure their budget is smaller than ours. In addition, they take the bus to. And they always have a minimum of 5 hours. Cookmans ride to Dover or Baltimore is longer than any of our bus rides.
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Post by aggiechamp on Oct 30, 2010 23:09:21 GMT -5
Really? You are partially right, but my point is, if you want a Division I program you have to pay for it. The truth is, none, with the exception of one or two, of the programs, that we compete against have adequate financial support from their alumni for any of their programs, athletic or otherwise. We complain about our athletics, our academics, our this our that and its always the students, the university, the administrators fault. Many times it is but I'm tired of the argument that other underfunded or equally underfunded programs do better or equally as well with less. Let's remove that from the discussion and then we can complain if we underperform.
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Post by Aggie Monster on Oct 31, 2010 7:46:13 GMT -5
I also disagree with you aggiechamp. The entire MEAC is underfunded. We are always one of the top giving alumni for an HBCU, but yet we are the only ones with winless or one-win seasons(except Howard). We also have one of the highest paid staffs. I remember people used to say "if you pay for someone they will win". Us being in a 7 year drought has nothing to do with funding.
The ironic part is, after years of ineptitude it makes you NOT want to gve because they haven't been doing anything with it. Right now, I'd considering giving to the school and not athletics.
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Post by ohsixrain on Oct 31, 2010 8:14:20 GMT -5
aggiechamp, i do hear your argument. however, with all the giving you are charging us to do, that doesn't guarantee our product on the field will be better. case and point, lee fobbs, he came we paid him top dollars as coach and increased his recruiting budget so he could go get the athletes he claimed he needed to be successful on the field. but, what happened? he was all out in california trying to recruit guys he knew he had no chance in getting...wasting money. now, if the current coaching staff was getting the most out of the dollars they are getting, then i can agree totally. but, it's evident they are not either...they are not maximizing all resources available to them to be successful. that, in and of itself, makes one not want to just throw dollars at the program. throwing dollars at the program in this case doesn't seem to be the answer.
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aggierattler
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Post by aggierattler on Oct 31, 2010 17:26:02 GMT -5
OHSIXRAIN-- I think that what AGGIECHAMP is saying is that our football program has NEVER been on the funding level that is needed to be successful. That goes for the entire athletics program.
There are only three possible sources of revenue for Aggie Athletics: (1) gate receipts, (2) student fees, and (3) contributions.
If we were able to raise the level of all three of these to being in the TOP THREE IN THE MEAC, I guarantee you that we would be competing for NATIONAL TITLES in most of our sports.
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Post by ohsixrain on Oct 31, 2010 18:13:13 GMT -5
I'm not totally convinced of that notion. No doubt funds are important but, you need competence to go along with $$$ to be competitive and successful. A&T has not demonstrated the competence level for which they are charged in athletics....sorry, my opinion.
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Post by aggiechamp on Oct 31, 2010 18:46:57 GMT -5
If you fund your program adequately, you can address your competence inadequacies by hiring someone else. By that comment, I don't mean to imply that our coaches are incompetent. My second point is, if we want competence from our coaches/students/administrators, we too have to be competent. We need to fund our programs at a Division I level not at a level that is comparable to HBCUs. As Michael Jackson says we need to look at the man in the mirror if we want to make a change.
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Post by aggiechamp on Oct 31, 2010 18:51:24 GMT -5
Also, we don't need to raise student fees any higher. Students already involuntarily pay some of the highest fees in the UNC system. Nope, this one should be on us. That is those of us that attend the games and make voluntary decisions not to fund a program or the university that clearly we love.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 31, 2010 19:34:08 GMT -5
I'm sorry aggiechamp, but what you are talking about is a myth. Alumni giving will never make up a significant percentage of a FCS team's operating budget.
I am sure we contribute on a higher level than any other school in the MEAC or SWAC and that only equates to a drop in the bucket.
The biggest percentage will always come from student fees, corporate development, and whatever money the board of trustees decide to earmark towards the athletic department's budget.
That is the same way it works in pro sports too. NBA, NFL and MLB front offices are not primarily concerned with individual and season ticket sales. The diehard fan is just not a major difference maker. Their main revenues come from TV/ Radio deals, and corporate sponsorships. (Toyota Center, US Air Arena, Time Warner Arena, FedEX field). Those are the bottom line items that every team president is most concerned about.
The same with A&T. If we are going to increase our funding significantly it is gonna have to come directly from Dowdy or from the athletic development office (i.e. scoreboard panel sales, stadium signage, stadium naming rights, etc).
If our athletic development office is bringing the same amount of cheese as the new aggie booster foundation, then we have already lost.
We alumni could increase our giving by 30 to 40 percent next year and it still would be small potatoes in the whole scheme of things.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 31, 2010 19:50:10 GMT -5
And I'm not saying alumni giving isn't really, really important.
But it's main function is to help the school recoup some of the money it had already decided to spend for the operating budget.
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Post by aggiechamp on Oct 31, 2010 19:52:16 GMT -5
I beg to differ BT. So we don't make that much of a dent. We can give enough so that we can hire sufficient staff to beat the bushes to reach out to those corporate interest to raise those significant funds. Perhaps, I'm naive to think that more than 10 or 11 percent of our alumni should be giving back to the unversity. Perhaps, I'm naive to think that we can get an additional $10 or so dollars from those folks that love homecoming. Think about it, if we can get an additional $10 bucks from the the fans inside the stadium, that an additional $200,000. That's $25,000 more than the Aggie Club gave to the school this year. Besides I just don't accept the dynamic that we can't do it. After all, the IPTAY club at Clemson started with the slogan I Pay Ten or Thirty A Year and look what that accomplished. Now, we shouldn't raise student fees another cent until we make a commitment to support our university in a more substantial way. By the way, while we are mainly talking about athletics, we should be having the same discussion about giving in general. I stand by my original statement, if we want a first class Division I program, we should commit to pay for it. or, we should at least commit to doing a better job than we are doing now. If not, look look to the past to see your future.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 31, 2010 20:03:12 GMT -5
I can agree with you in theory, but right now I am just talking cold hard facts.
In my opinion, it is not unrealistic to think that 25-40 percent of all our alumni should be giving back at least $300 each year towards athletics. But is that were to happen it would be the greatest improvement in the history of HBCU giving.
We both have the same vision and dream, but for the immediate future it just aint gonna happen. Getting us back to being a competitive football program has more to do with a overall change is our school's philosophy about athletics and infrastructure than it has to do with a few more diehard fans coming off a C note.
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Post by aggiechamp on Oct 31, 2010 20:14:11 GMT -5
Don't overlook the significance of the jesture. Think about it, if we increase our giving don't you think those corporate interest would be more likely to support our cause. beisde we have to reverse that attitude. We have to be expected to give back, each and everyone of us. Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I went to a PWC on scholarship. Right there on those papers that I had to sign accepting that scholarship was a statement that I have never forgotten It said..."You have a moral obligation to repay this scholarship." We have a moral obligation to support our university whether we recieved a scholarship or not.
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