Atlantic Sun Conference Member Division I Jacksonville University is dropping both its men's and women's tennis programs after this year. President Kerry Romesburg is quoted as saying: "Tennis is a program in which we invest a substantial amount of funding based on the roster size, and our recommendation has nothing to do with dissatisfaction with our program, our coaches, or our student-athletes. It is driven completely by the rising cost of athletics in general, and an attempt to better focus our limited athletic resources. We realize this is a difficult and unpopular decision, especially since there are many advocates for the program and very few detractors. However, it is the best decision for our university."

Aren't they required to have tennis? I bet Dave will want them kicked out of the league.

Seems like tennis would be one of the cheapest sports to have.

It would seem like tennis would be one of the least expensive if not the least expensive. JU has one coach and one GA who coach both men's and women's teams. The head coach is quite young (but then I'm quite old so maybe he's not) and I'm guessing his salary isn't very high. They have 7 players on each roster (of the 14 only 3 are from the U.S.) so scholarships wouldn't seem to be that much money. That leaves travel which is probably pretty costly and one thing that is not talked about much when considering the escalationg costs of running a university. That's facilities maintenance. That would be the one area where they might get a significant savings. Univeristies tend to build new buildings and facilites but you hardly ever see them tearing anything down so the facilities costs just keep going up.

I believe they still have non scholarship football...no?

Wait. They dropped tennis and kept football?

They have football because they are a private university and they use it as a revenue driver because it is non-scholarship. You can't really factor the merits of football into this decision. They also have a JV football team, rowing, and lacrosse and they added sand volleyball this year. It's a different type of institution with different needs and challenges than ETSU.

As long as Country Club Dave is in charge ETSU will never drop Tennis, he would drop basketball first.

Yet they do have football in some capacity and they dropped tennis. I don't think there are too many on this board who wouldn't be for that if given the scenario.

(02-01-2012 10:58 AM)Goldfinger Wrote:  Yet they do have football in some capacity and they dropped tennis. I don't think there are too many on this board who wouldn't be for that if given the scenario.

But that's not a plausible scenario for ETSU. JU has football because it generates money for the university as a non scholarship program. ETSU can't replicate that as a public institution.

Is there something stopping us from dropping tennis if we chose to?

Just asking.

(02-01-2012 03:38 PM)BucNut22 Wrote:  Is there something stopping us from dropping tennis if we chose to?

Just asking.

We could if we wanted to I believe. You are required to sponsor 14 sports minimum (7 men's and 7 women's or 6 men's and 8 women's) to be Division I. We technically sponsor 17 sports (8 men's and 9 women's). Cross country, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field are three separate sports. So we could drop tennis and still be at the minimum. I don't think it's a core sport for the conference.

Men's soccer is required but tennis isn't?

(02-01-2012 01:00 PM)LetsgoBucs Wrote:  

(02-01-2012 10:58 AM)Goldfinger Wrote:  Yet they do have football in some capacity and they dropped tennis. I don't think there are too many on this board who wouldn't be for that if given the scenario.

But that's not a plausible scenario for ETSU. JU has football because it generates money for the university as a non scholarship program. ETSU can't replicate that as a public institution.

Not true. State schools have substantial numbers of walk-ons. The walk-ons bring friends, girlfriends, relatives, and others. And, of course marching bands add significant numbers on top of all this. It is a fact that state schools use the sport as a recruiting tool for overall enrollment growth. And, it certainly doesn't hurt the enrollment of their music departments, sports medicine departments, and other related fields. Ask Old Dominion, UNC-Charlotte, and all the other state schools that have added football recently (last nine years) or will add it soon. Not one will deny that overall enrollment growth is one of their primary objectives with football. As for ETSU, foresight could have ETSU at 20,000 students by now. Instead of cutting football in 2003, it could have been strengthened, made more competitive, and attracted more attention for ETSU - especially for potential freshmen applicants. The athletic spending numbers at ETSU would indicate that we still have football. Our athletic department spends more than Georgia Southern, for example. It was plain stupid to reallocate football money to sports that have little or no bearing on enrollment, especially undergraduate enrollment. The application pool for freshmen admissions has lagged for years at ETSU with relation to its peer regional universities. ETSU has evolved rather strong graduate programs in recent years, but has failed rather badly at maximizing its attractiveness for potential freshmen. Perhaps Dr. Noland will want to increase undergraduate - especially freshmen - enrollment now. That's exactly what Georgia State has done, dramatically increased undergraduate enrollment after establishing strong graduate programs - and that's one of the main drivers of their new football program. Can ETSU afford not to have football going forward if it is to be competitive as a major player in attracting larger, wider, and more diverse pools of freshmen applicants?

(02-01-2012 04:55 PM)Buc66 Wrote:  

(02-01-2012 01:00 PM)LetsgoBucs Wrote:  

(02-01-2012 10:58 AM)Goldfinger Wrote:  Yet they do have football in some capacity and they dropped tennis. I don't think there are too many on this board who wouldn't be for that if given the scenario.

But that's not a plausible scenario for ETSU. JU has football because it generates money for the university as a non scholarship program. ETSU can't replicate that as a public institution.

Not true. State schools have substantial numbers of walk-ons. The walk-ons bring friends, girlfriends, relatives, and others. And, of course marching bands add significant numbers on top of all this. It is a fact that state schools use the sport as a recruiting tool for overall enrollment growth. And, it certainly doesn't hurt the enrollment of their music departments, sports medicine departments, and other related fields. Ask Old Dominion, UNC-Charlotte, and all the other state schools that have added football recently (last nine years) or will add it soon. Not one will deny that overall enrollment growth is one of their primary objectives with football. As for ETSU, foresight could have ETSU at 20,000 students by now. Instead of cutting football in 2003, it could have been strengthened, made more competitive, and attracted more attention for ETSU - especially for potential freshmen applicants. The athletic spending numbers at ETSU would indicate that we still have football. Our athletic department spends more than Georgia Southern, for example. It was plain stupid to reallocate football money to sports that have little or no bearing on enrollment, especially undergraduate enrollment. The application pool for freshmen admissions has lagged for years at ETSU with relation to its peer regional universities. ETSU has evolved rather strong graduate programs in recent years, but has failed rather badly at maximizing its attractiveness for potential freshmen. Perhaps Dr. Noland will want to increase undergraduate - especially freshmen - enrollment now. That's exactly what Georgia State has done, dramatically increased undergraduate enrollment after establishing strong graduate programs - and that's one of the main drivers of their new football program. Can ETSU afford not to have football going forward if it is to be competitive as a major player in attracting larger, wider, and more diverse pools of freshmen applicants?

I believe that ETSU cannot afford NOT to have football going forward. That is why all the state schools sponsor some level of football. It grows the school, grows athletics, grows interest, grows giving and adds back benefits that cannot be calculated. The "we can't" era of ETSU has now come to an end and we must move and grow into the future. It is strickly in the best interests of our university to add back football.

Just to let everyone know, I once sat down with the people at JU to find out how the Dolphins' football program works.

To cut through a lot of red tape, the idea is that the players pay to go to the school since there are not athletic scholarships. Obviously they may get scholarships in other areas, perhaps academically orientated ones, but essentially the football program allows the school to take in 150 students who are paying tuition, and that adds up to millions every year.

It's been mentioned JU is able to make money on football because it is a private school, so the tuition is higher than it would be at ETSU. Still, Morehead State has been non-scholarship for nearly 20 years.

Interesting story I've told before; when Wayne Andrews became the MSU President, the people up there were kind of nervous for the future of their football program. They knew he was an architect in ETSU's decision to drop the sport.

But when he saw how the non-scholarship program there worked, he loved it. While I'm sure being a public rather than a private school means the Eagles take in less money than the Dolphins do, it still works and works well.

While it wouldn't be my first choice on how to revive the football program at ETSU, I do think non-scholarship should be looked at as a possible Plan B. And if I was the A-Sun Commissioner, I would definitely incorporate non-scholarship football as one of the sports I'd play.

In the case of JU, however, football definitely does not cost as much as scholarship tennis, especially if 11 of the 14 tennis players are foreign born. The amount of money out-of-country tuition JU would be forfeiting (though on paper), and any recruiting costs it would take to woo these players, without any notable visibility, makes this program not as lucurative as the football program at JU.