Do we have any schools in the Sun Belt where athletes have to raise the money to keep facilities for their sport from literally falling apart? Isn't that what athletic budgets are for? And they say the Sun Belt is bad! Off the Louisiana Tech board.

The TENNIS TEAM NEEDS HELP !!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone...this is Monica Kelly and Avril Martinez from the Womens tennis team here at Tech. First of all, we want to thank everyone for all of your support in the past....your contributions to our team have helped signicantly in our travels and uniforms that we have so desperately been needing!
Now, we need your help yet again. Lately, we have been working vigorously on improving the condition and appearance of our facility. During our own practice time, we have been painting the back walls for people to hit on, the bleachers for our supporters to sit on, and the bathrooms adjacent to the courts. However, we are still missing one key component...windscreens.
This year we have put on a fundraiser tournament to help raise money, and collected over $1000 which was put toward getting new benches that should be arriving soon.
But windscreens are important, because they are vital in play. Anyone who plays a sport in outdoor conditions, knows what a key role the wind plays in activity. The reason we do not have these, is because they are old and have been ruined, and we do not have the money to purchase new ones. This would cost the program around $3000.
One other thing that we need are new nets and net straps...ours are falling apart, and obviously we cannot really play tennis without a net in the middle!!
This is where you come in! If anyone knows of anyone who can donate or sponsor us, that would be sooooo great. I know it is a lot of money, but any little bit can help. If you can help, please please please send a check to the LaTech Foundation/Tennis.
Thank you so much again for your time and consideration- we will continue our success and progress in hopes of making Louisiana Tech an athletic powerhouse in years to come!

Well, if they weren't spending so much money on travel expenses in the WAC, they'd have plenty of money left over to help the tennis team. At UL, we'll keep out #57 national ranking and always point out the fact that once again we are better than TECH in everything.

Cajunman02 Wrote:Well, if they weren't spending so much money on travel expenses in the WAC, they'd have plenty of money left over to help the tennis team. At UL, we'll keep out #57 national ranking and always point out the fact that once again we are better than TECH in everything.

Bet your team has matching uni's and a decent facility

Having coached at the La. Tech facility for some matches, it is a joke of a facility, sad thing is up until the donation for the UNT facility ours was complete and utter crap. ULL is alright just run down now. Arkansas State's is in pretty bad shape.
USA has a nice facility. UALR plays most of their matches at a country Club.
Denver has a great facility.

The best facility in the nation is Texas A&M by far.

I am though looking forward to seeing the Mean Green ladies play at their new facility next Fall.

ASU hasn't made its way around to tennis yet.

Football is getting some nice stuff. Baseball has, track & field are getting a new facility, we've just upgraded the women's basketball lockers and offices, and doing the same for volleyball, plus we've added video replay at football and in the Convocation Center and new weight and training facilities in all sports.

We'll get around to tennis, but I can honestly say that we have never had to have our messageboard people raise enough money to fly the tennis team to a tournament in order to avoid having to withdraw, which Tech did last year.

arkstfan Wrote:ASU hasn't made its way around to tennis yet.

Football is getting some nice stuff. Baseball has, track & field are getting a new facility, we've just upgraded the women's basketball lockers and offices, and doing the same for volleyball, plus we've added video replay at football and in the Convocation Center and new weight and training facilities in all sports.

We'll get around to tennis, but I can honestly say that we have never had to have our messageboard people raise enough money to fly the tennis team to a tournament in order to avoid having to withdraw, which Tech did last year.

Wasn't that to a tournament in El Paso?

Yep.

With Tennis usually the teams do not play all the conference schools, Sun Belt and WAC for sure.
Usually there is one huge trip typically over Spring Break. UNT usually goes to California or Florida, although my one year we traveled to all corners of Louisiana ending in NO.

It is sad that Tech had to cancel a trip but to be honest up until the past 2-3 years they did nothing for their team and the La. Tech team was horrible.
Now they are pretty respectable.

More problems other than tennis?



Here's a thread asking for help for the softball program. Geeze it seems that over & above donations from the Tech message board are the salvation of more than one sports program. Must be some really big problems with their athletic department.

<a href='http://www.latechbbb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25329' target='_blank'>http://www.latechbbb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25329</a>

"softball is truely a sport that is suffering under this AD and Pres. There were glory days but we are FAR removed from those. I know for an absolute fact that a deal was made for a new score board serveral years ago by an assistant I am very close to. There was going to be near zero cost to Tech for the upgrade from that 1950's scoreboard that they have now. The AD shot it down. This isn't the only sport suffering under Mr Oakes, just one I'm closer to. (M-I-C K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E)" - Choudawg

"Just another sport where we are not keeping up with the "Joneses" ??

Posted by Jay in another thread

sotball needs a complete new backstop. im trying to donate the bricks to replace the 3 ft. high wood backstop. the problem is the chainlink fence above that. sarah wants to get new posts and a rope fence to replace it. if u have ever been to a game, you know that foul balls go over the fence and pound cars a lot and she would like to keep more of them inside the field.

2 years ago i tried to donate the bricks but she couldnt get funding for the fence part.

right now we are talking about doing the bricks anyway, but leave the chain link fence up until further notice.

she also needs about $1,000 for the bricklayer.

I can find out what the rope fence would cost but im guessing $2,500 total would get all of this done.

me and my wife are good for $100, and so is my father-in-law, (my sister-in-law is a senior on the team).

so we are at $200. im sure cousin choudawg will help but i wont speak for him.

No one at TECH has ever said things are going great. I hope and pray that somehow Dan Reneau (President) and Jim Oakes (A.D.) retire soon. Our site does what it needs to keep TECH athletics from sliding further back, because our athletic administration won't. I'm not gonna sit here and compare belt vs. tech, but I will say that we are in a much worse position than we could be in if our AD had any business sense at all. GO DAWGS!!!!