I have heard Coach Warren speak a couple of times and he continues to state that until the local golf programs start preparing their players to play at the college level there is no way he can spend the time to bring local players up to spead for the national college game.

Most high schools only play 18 holes in a day apparently where alot of times college teams play 36. The college teams also play from longer tees. In addition he needs to recruit players that compete against the best. Most local players never play in tournaments outside the area. While I would love to have local players on the team, I would much rather have internationals who come to call ETSU home and win then local players who would take one of our premier sports (success wise) and put it in the dumpster.

As far as the money spent on recruiting internationals. I may be wrong but Fred Warren seems to raise most of his own budget through his fundraising efforts. So its not coming out of anyone else's pocket to do it. Also I wanted to confirm what Rod Shaw said about the donor. He was a huge golf nut.

Its the same thing as the Carillon on campus. The students didn't necessarily want it but a group of other individuals did and they paid for it. If a donor wants to support a specific project then you can't complain about what they want to support. Just be happy they want to support the school and maybe next time some other dollars will go to a project you support.

And here's where we need somebody who has the numbers, but I'd like to see where that $750,000 for the clock tower all came from. I heard (unofficially, of course) that they took money from the ETSU foundation (money donated generally to the university) and used it to build a clock tower. They asked a few people to donate who did, maybe a few businesses too, but otherwise most of it came from "general" donations to the ETSU foundation. I know I never received a letter asking for money for a clock tower.

I know for fact that the 750 came from donors. The foundation put nothing into that project. No school or foundation funds went into that project. If you go look at the names that were put on each bell that will tell you who donated money for those. The rest was payed for by private donations.

My new favorite word is "disingenuous."

Because Warren is disingenuous.



We are to believe that the women's golf team can find a player from Newport who can shoot within three strokes of the foreign players on her team at ETSU, but we cannot find this with the men?

High school baseball players only play seven innings a game. Here they are expected to play nine.

Are we to believe, therefore, that they cannot play nine in college, as it was asked to believe an 18-hole golf player in high school cannot play 36 in college?

These excuses don't hold up to face!

IF this was any kind of a sports area, Warren would be held up to these comments, much like Mushnick held up SUNY-Albany's roster makeup.

You can make an arguement to fire Warren for being a liar.

Pitt there is a huge difference in playing 2 extra innings then playing another complete game. Come on thats a stupid comparsion. 22% more vs 100%.

If I'm on 100 pitches and I have to go nine- I would say pitching two more innings is going to require more endurance than to walk 18 holes.

Putting on the catcher's gear for two innings as compared to walking 18 also might apply.

But you're missing the point. The point is any high school athlete is going to have to step up his endurance in college no matter what sport he plays.

Also, I simply can't believe that Clemson can win a national golf championship with a roster completely comprised of South Carolinians, but ETSU cannot finish No. 23 without comprising a roster completely with Europeans.

You still have to swing the club that many more times and mantain your power and accuracy from hole 1 to hole 36. I would think an extra 18 holes could be hard on your swing if not used to it and scores could suffer. I don't think Warren would want a guy who could shoot a 68 the first time then an 80 because he got tired.

R

As everyone knows, golf is mostly a mental game. Yes there is a physical component but it can be brutal on the mind. If you have a bad first round then it can very easily lead to a bad second round if you are not mentally strong. The only way you build that strength is by doing it. So there is a huge difference.

Also on the baseball side, being a team sport there is a huge difference. For position players and extra 2 innings is nothing. Most pitcher's don't pitch complete games, even in college, so not much of a problem there. Catchers actually have the toughest job going from 7 innings to 9, but if you asked them to go from 7 to 14, then it would kill them. Look at double headers, the catcher is always changed out if possible.

Even in the pros If it is night game followed by a day game the catcher is usaully switched.

Quit missing the point and shilling for Warren!

ANY athlete is going to have to step up his endurance in college.

Doesn't matter with baseball or golf or football or volleyball or whatever.

So Warren's statement does not apply.


And yes, I would take catching nine innings or throwing 150 pitches on a hot day ahead of walking in the woods and swinging a stick.

I am not shilling for golf but make a comparsion that is relevant.
I know you have a deep hatred of golf but I don't see that it is helpful.
Destroying the golf program at ETSU is not going to bring back football or make the basketball team better. You have some personal grudge againist Warren. Like you always say go after Mullins and Stanton and stop focusing on unimportant stuff and distacting people from the main goals.

What I am saying is that its eaiser to up physical endurance in other sports than to up mental endurance in golf. Warren runs a national golf program, that competes at a high level, he doesn't have to time to train local kids to be college golfers just like Phil Fulmer doesn't have time to train up local players for D1 football players. No one gives big sports grief when they have non local players.

I am sure if there were a kid that was ready to be in the upper echelon of D1 golf in the area that Warren would recruit them.

Plus what does it really matter if Warren raises his own budget if he chooses to spend it to bring in foreign players. As long as he wins does it matter if there are local kids on the team? If Rhys Davies had gone to Oklahome State like he almost did would you be critizing Warren for not going after the best college player in the country?

I would make the arguement it requires more mental concentration to hit a pitched baseball than a golf ball on a tee.

I do not hate golf. I actually have enjoyed covering it- and you know being the Pittsburgh sports fan I am there is no way I would ever dis anything having to do with Arnold Palmer.

If Phil Fulmer DOESN'T get the Tennessee kids consistently he'd be gone. In fact, he's had starting linebackers from places like Class A South Pittsburg.

Yes, they have a national recruiting base. However, if Fulmer had allowed Jason Witten to go to Virginia Tech, he'd have received a ton of criticism.

Warren doesn't get so much as a peep.

What I'm saying is that when there are 10 athletes playing golf at ETSU, and eight of them are from foreign countries- something is wrong.

And when you make this commitment, and you have made a golf complex that supposedly has given ETSU facilities on par with any program in the country, and you're in all the major tournaments-

And the best you can do is a No. 3 ranking 11 years ago.

Something is wrong.

The thing about Warren is he has always been about golf. Yes, he has his own donors, but he also hordes them and does so for a sport that gives nothing back to the community.

He is one of the power brokers at ETSU- probably more so than any other coach. He is a player that will guide success away from basketball and a potential football team for success in the non-revenue sports.

If you can't see that when a college says it can't afford to have football anymore, but they can afford to have lengthy European recruiting trips for golf and play in Puerto Rican Tournaments, and that in turn gets ETSU to

To further blow the claims that you must go overseas to recruit players-

ETSU is currently ranked No. 13 in golf by golfweek.com- which is the publication that puts out the golf poll.

The Associated Press puts out the football and basketball polls. Golf Week puts out the golf poll.

I mention that in case anyone else is thinking that Davies is giving ETSU national attention.

Back to the point- The Tennessee Vols are No. 15.

Now, the Vols do have some foreign born players on their team.

However, they also have six of their players from right here in Good Ol' Tennessee!

Furthermore, their best player is Phil Pettitt from Murfreesboro.

Now, this is where it gets SWEET!

Taking directly from utsports.cstv.com-

At the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate @ the Ridges he sank a birdie put on the 18th to give Tennessee a one-stroke team victory over host ETSU...Finished second individual with a tournament scorecard of 73-69-72--214...

If you give Pettitt a scholarship- and the only way you will ever convince Warren to do that is to cut his recruiting budget so he has to start looking at a Pettitt and not a guy from Ireland- then you win this tournament.

Less is more, folks. Less is more.

Why in Golf, a sport that is not spectator focused do you need to have local players. Warren raises his own money to go to Europe to get the talent he thinks he needs to win.

Ok say he gets the kid out of Murfreesboro and spends a little less of his recruiting budget, do you think that money would go to another sport. It won't and shouldn't. When someone works hard to raise the funds they think they need to compete they should be able to use it as they see fit.

Pettitt is a good golfer, but going by scoring average he would be 4th on our current team of 5 golfers.

Davies - 69.5 (SR)
Shaw - 71.9 (JR)
Powe - 72.1 (FR)
Pettitt - 72.19 (JR) - as a Fr he as 74, as a So he shot 73.42
McNamara - 75.00 (JR)
Findlay - 76.8 (SO)

So while Pettitt was a good player and came up big in one tournament that doesn't make him better than the ETSU players. Since TN is ranked 15th and ETSU is 13th I would take our group of golfers rather than theirs. By the way where are UT's #2 and #3 and 4# golfers from: England and Switzerland and England respectively. they may have local kids on their roster but they are tokens right now for the most part and ETSU doesn't want to bog down their other golfers by carring kids that wont play.

Gee, I don't know, K-Port.

Maybe because this is a public state school.

Let's go back to the introductory post that started this all. Phil Mushnick noting that SUNY-Albany basically went away from the school's mission, which is to give Empire State kids a college education, to get their heads chopped off in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

And by the way, nobody's saying that SUNY-Albany shouldn't have an out-of-state player or two.

It is conceivable that for whatever reason, a kid from out of state would want to attend SUNY-Albany.

But there comes a time when the SUNY-Albany AD might want to sit his coach aside and say-

"Uh, Skip- We're not Duke here. We're not Vanderbilt. We're SUNY-Albany.

And though we're most happy with that NCAA appearance, you know, we want to know why you only have one player from New York on your team."

Same thing here.

There comes a time when you say to your golf coach-

"Uh, Fred. That No. 13 ranking. That's good stuff.

But, you know, if you had focused a little more on THE MISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY- you would have been able to get Pettitt and would have won that tournament and been even higher.

Now, let's get a few things straight. We've asked you to become the AD several times to share your fundraising expertise with the rest of the University and you have turned us down.

And you know, a No. 13 ranking in a sport nobody follows just isn't enough for us to watch you be greedy while we fall to a lesser conference, lose our football team, and we see Tennesseeans on rival schools BEAT US while you're lounging around in Scotland!"

My God! No. 4 Lamar can keep with their school mission- why can't you?"

That'll never happen here to King Fred, but I'm just saying.

By the way. Austin Peay's Jimmy Humston isn't one of the Governors top players, but he is from Science Hill and is averaging a 75.

Which beats Findlay and ties McNamara- and if Warren is the coach his rep says he is and these facilities are what they say they are then it figures Humston could keep that score with more play at ETSU.