owl at the moon
Eastern Screech Owl
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I Root For: rice,smu,uh,unt
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2005 vs 2017
(10-31-2017 10:17 AM)mrbig Wrote: (10-31-2017 09:42 AM)RiceOwl53 Wrote: (10-31-2017 08:17 AM)McHargue Wrote: During my time at Rice we had
1) Black mold in the locker room
2) Rats in the ceiling
3) No warm running water in the facility (unless it was summer and the pipes warmed the water to scalding)
Some of you need to get a grip, we have the least spoiled program in the nation. They aren't welcome by a majority of the regular students because they needed assistance getting into the school. The Shepherd School students carry more celebrity that any member of the team. We built a facility for them a couple decades too late (they showed me renderings of a facility on my official visit in 2008) and ran out of money for graphics so the walls are completely empty.
We're pretty awful this year there's no doubt, but I can assure you it's not because of spoiled players.
This whole "spoiled" narrative is preposterous. Comparatively speaking, Rice is at a huge disadvantage to other schools, even with the new end zone facility. The atmosphere on campus is hostile from students and faculty, the administration doesn't prioritize football, and the budget for football is absurdly underfunded.
By the time I arrived, the black mold and rats were gone (or at least under the surface). But the showers were still either scalding or freezing, whichever one was inconvenient for the weather. Also, we had to scramble for towels after practice because we didn't have enough for everyone on the team. That's pretty ridiculous.
For my last point about the budget for football being underfunded, I would be willing to bet my paycheck that Rice Football does not pay anywhere near the national average for a coaching budget. It spends $166k for the football recruiting budget which is embarrassingly underfunded. If you don't pay coaches (mainly talking about assistants here), a competitive wage, they won't come coach at your school. If you don't have the funds comparative to other institutions to recruit, you aren't going to be able to recruit quality players.
When the baseball team made its first 2 College World Series, the team's locker room and the coaching offices were in Autry. They used the weight room at the football stadium. Baseball did not have its own trainer. Other than the locker room and the batting cage, there was no designated team meeting space. The "stadium" was largely indistinguishable from what you would see at a high school. Thankfully, no black mold or rats that I noticed and the showers at Autry worked.
I agree that the "spoiled players" narrative can be overplayed. If there are spoiled players on the team (in any sport), it is because the coaching staff recruited spoiled players and/or allowed that attitude to persist on their team. I have no insight into what is currently happening at Rice in any sport.
(10-31-2017 09:42 AM)RiceOwl53 Wrote: This whole "spoiled" narrative is preposterous. Comparatively speaking, Rice is at a huge disadvantage to other schools, even with the new end zone facility. The atmosphere on campus is hostile from students and faculty, the administration doesn't prioritize football, and the budget for football is absurdly underfunded.
For my last point about the budget for football being underfunded, I would be willing to bet my paycheck that Rice Football does not pay anywhere near the national average for a coaching budget. It spends $166k for the football recruiting budget which is embarrassingly underfunded. If you don't pay coaches (mainly talking about assistants here), a competitive wage, they won't come coach at your school. If you don't have the funds comparative to other institutions to recruit, you aren't going to be able to recruit quality players.
I mean why would you go to a company that doesn't pay as well? The same principle applies to the coaching market. It limits the options.
I think you make some extremely valid points. I have maintained for years that one way Rice can help overcome this gap is to bring former Rice players who are just getting into coaching into the program as grad assistants and assistant coaches. This would have numerous benefits:
(1) If Rice alumni want to pursue football coaching as their profession, it gives them early collegiate experience. College coaching is such an apprenticeship job situation, getting your foot in the door early can be a huge benefit to the former player / prospective coach.
(2) Rice guys are, on average, much smarter than players from other programs. While this may not always have a direct application to real-time situations on the field, I think it helps enormously for coaches.
(3) On average, I think an Rice alum coach is more likely to stay with the program an extra year even if they could get a slight promotion to a better program. Similarly, I think a Rice alum coach might take slightly less to coach at their alma mater.
(4) I think having a number of young, talent assistant coaches coming out of Rice football would help Rice make a name for itself within the football coaching community. Rice would be seen as an attractive entry-level place for talent (assuming you have a talented head coach who knew how to utilize and implement the young coaches). When these guys moved on to coach other, more prominent programs, there would be some trickle-down that could benefit Rice. Particularly true if some of these guys went to the high school ranks after being assistants at Rice.
(5) I think the understanding would have to be that these positions were ideally 2-3 year spots before a new Rice alum coach would come through. But obviously, Rice should seek to retain and internally promote any coach that showed truly outstanding capabilities.
Instead, we have guys like James Casey and Drew Mehringer breaking into the coaching profession elsewhere and quickly pricing themselves out of what Rice could afford. I have been heartened the a couple Rice guys have come in as graduate assistants the past few years (including Jaylon Finner right now). But we need a lot more of them, IMO. (I am not saying the entire staff should be Rice alums, but I think roughly half the coaching staff would be appropriate if there were a sufficient number of former players getting into coaching)
Had a similar thought recently, but didn’t quite know how to bring it up.
I like your idea and really like how you’ve laid it out.
For better or worse, “getting” (I.e. understanding) Rice is going to be a learning curve for any outsider coming in. Alums of the programs would know what they’re getting into... and that alone could help retention and effectiveness.
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