(01-31-2018 03:45 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-31-2018 12:32 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I say they drop a few sports and remain. One thing about college sports and life is pride. If Chicago State hasn't dropped, then very few will.

That seems most logical to me, they sponsor a huge number of sports.

La Salle will stay in the A10, at least for the foreseeable future. The only way to realize significant savings is for La Salle to drop to D3 which is not under serious consideration. La Salle sponsors a huge number of sports as a recruitment strategy for full-time undergrads and with exception of basketball runs those teams on shoestring budgets.

It was explained to me that Water Polo was started in 2016 to expand the student recruitment footprint into Florida and the West Coast in particular. La Salle already had the facilities and was able to join conferences that required only van travel. The coaches salaries are tiny and La Salle is discounting tuition anyway so why not call that discount a partial athletic scholarship. I don’t know enough about La Salle’s budget to know if this strategy actually makes sense but apparently it did cause a spike in applications in the target areas, almost none of the team members are locals and they were able to increase by some small amount the number of students enrolling from outside their typical geography.

La Salle has a relatively new president. She is the first person who is not a Christian Brother to hold the position. I’m pretty sure that bringing in the consultants and disclosing the discussion university-wide was another of her attempts to shake up the organizational lethargy there much more so than any real intention to drop down to any lower level of competiton. I wish her luck. She’s got a very tough job.