(07-23-2016 01:22 PM)Hambone10 Wrote: (07-23-2016 11:49 AM)Antarius Wrote: Hambone- what you suggest isn't that much different from D3. Smaller sports, scholarships if any are academic.
What benefit does D1 with a bunch of obscure and low exposure sports give us? Other than higher expenditures?
In some ways, it is d3... But it's d3 for everyone. What it does is reduce the concentration of football athletes among the total, and it gives us SOME exposure, albeit to a limited audience... We would own that audience... If we added 3 sports and I'd assume we'd field high academic and high performance athletes in those sports and thus potentially Olympic mention at the trials at least every few years, and also when reports like this come out, we wouldn't only be 71%, but more like 81% or even 91%, and 14 "top performers' rather than 10 without having to improve the academic performance of the big3. More important in my mind is that it makes a higher percentage of our students 'College Athletes' which ultimately is good for attendance and the big 3. This is part of what Stanford did. Notice how many more sports they sponsor than say Northwestern or Vandy
The 'additional expenses' are really part of student life... And of course the scholarships are academic scholarships (we could have an unofficial 4.0 2300 SAT minimum for Bowling)
Not to mention that kids who are into fencing or bowling are into fencing and bowling. It wouldn't take much to 'market' to this group and the sport expenses you could probably get sporting goods companies to sponsor some of it, since they don't get much advertising for their foils
Also as others have mentioned it gives us the potential to be in conference with 'the big boys' in something, which means we are talking more, which gives us opportunities to make our case, and prove it, albeit on a small stage.
Antarius,
As someone who competed in one of those low exposure sports, I lament that this option is no longer available to one of my gender at Rice. Our budget back then was minimal, no schollies for the guys and every expense possible, coaches, rented pool time, transport to meets was allocated to our women's half of "the team." We were just happy to be in the pool together and compete, providing additional training partners in practice, challenging them and admiring their "All American" level prowess at a sport that by our gender's norms we were average to below average by DI standards at best. Yet we excelled in the classroom and had a positive outlet for the excess energy most 18-22 year olds have. And we had the honor of representing the blue and grey. That is what Hambone is getting at!
Going forward, Rice has to get back to the big kids table or we will never see these sports that you only hear about every four years, at least for the government designated "overrepresented" sex.
Rice would be an asset, APR, geographically, even athletically to any conference it joins. For reasons stated next I advocate some affiliation with the SEC!
b12 expansion is potentially poaching on SEC territory with talk of Memphis, Tulane and Cincy (really northern Kentucky, or at least the airport is). Rice offers a way for the SEC to shore up Texas (the state.) Another AAU school for the SEC.
SEC shores up Texas with teams having games in Houston. Playing against Rice is a better recruiting tool for the other SEC teams than facing 100K rabid aggies in CS. For Rice, we are instantly in a conference with two former SWC rivals, the hated ags and Arky. LSU is a traditional rival from waaaay back. If we don't move soon that history will be forgotten. If the SEC isn't ready to take the plunge with us, sweeten the deal, 10 years, limited conference money or an all sports except football deal with a scheduling alliance giving us a limited 4 SEC games each year to supplement our now football indy status.
Consider this, Vandy and Rice move one home game a year to the Superdome against a distant conference rival, say South Carolina v. Vandy and/or Florida v. Rice as a destination early or late season reward trip, preferably at the same time as a Tulame home game v. Iowa State or Baylor. Provide options for the big boys (hope JK is already working something like this behind the scenes.)
