05-10-2005, 02:34 PM
Diles resigns amidst controversy
EMU investigates football, basketball attendance reports
By Nathan Bomey / News Editor
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2005
An internal committee set up to investigate Eastern Michigan's home football and basketball attendance figures has delivered its report to the university president.
The report has not been released yet, but committee chairman Jim Vick indicated that it could have an impact on how EMU reports its attendance figures. He also said the report could have "implications for the league," the Mid-American Conference.
EMU interim President Craig Dean Willis ordered the investigation last month after the Echo published a report detailing major discrepancies between football attendance figures reported by the university and numbers produced by the ticket management office.
Willis said he is not yet ready to release the details of the report. He has contacted the NCAA and the MAC to discuss attendance figures and the new attendance policy established by the NCAA Division 1 Board of Directors on April 28. He said he wants to know how the policy will affect the university.
For the first time, EMU officials publicly questioned the authenticity of the attendance figures being reported by the rest of the schools in the MAC.
"All the other schools in the MAC inflate their numbers, too," Willis said.
The committee's report, which apparently runs close to seven pages, doesn't refute figures printed in the Echo, Willis and Vick confirmed.
"It substantiates everything that [was] reported in the paper," Vick said. "The information from the Echo report was corroborated."
On the committee, Vick worked with Karen Simpkins, the associate vice president for student affairs, and faculty union President Howard Bunsis, who also serves as faculty representative to the athletic department. Vick is the vice president for student affairs.
During exams week last month, Athletic Director Dave Diles announced his resignation to become the athletic director of Case Western Reserve University, a Division III school in Cleveland.
What the committee's report will reveal about how Diles and the rest of the department handled the attendance numbers remains unclear.
Diles has not responded to Echo calls seeking comment since his resignation. But in the Detroit News on April 27, he called the original Echo report "well-intentioned but misinformed."
"It's a lot to do about nothing," he told the paper.
Diles started working for Case Western on Monday. But he won't be there full-time until after May 31, his last official day at EMU, Willis said.
News that the report has been completed comes after the NCAA Board of Directors voted to alter the attendance requirement April 28.
The old requirement stipulated that universities had to average 15,000 people in "actual attendance," meaning that schools couldn't count people who had a ticket but didn't attend a game. Coming short of that requirement would have put universities in danger of losing Division 1 status.
But the policy was changed to require universities to average 15,000 in paid attendance in one of every two years. That will be easier for schools to meet, primarily because season ticket holders who don't attend games can now be counted.
However, EMU didn't come close to 15,000 in paid attendance last year. For the five games at Rynearson Stadium, the university distributed a total of 22,258 tickets, according to university documents obtained by the Echo through the Freedom of Information Act. That's equal to an average of 4,451 per game, a figure that includes sold tickets and complimentary tickets.
Those numbers do not include students, who get free admission to all EMU home athletic events. But the difference between 15,000 and 4,451 is equal to almost half of Eastern's student population.
The average number of fans who attended the five games at Rynearson last year was 6,188, according to figures produced by the ticket management office. If the reported attendance figure for the game played at Ford Field last year is included in that average, it comes to 9,227.
Last fall, the university reported an average of 16,060 fans for the six home dates.
EMU investigates football, basketball attendance reports
By Nathan Bomey / News Editor
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2005
An internal committee set up to investigate Eastern Michigan's home football and basketball attendance figures has delivered its report to the university president.
The report has not been released yet, but committee chairman Jim Vick indicated that it could have an impact on how EMU reports its attendance figures. He also said the report could have "implications for the league," the Mid-American Conference.
EMU interim President Craig Dean Willis ordered the investigation last month after the Echo published a report detailing major discrepancies between football attendance figures reported by the university and numbers produced by the ticket management office.
Willis said he is not yet ready to release the details of the report. He has contacted the NCAA and the MAC to discuss attendance figures and the new attendance policy established by the NCAA Division 1 Board of Directors on April 28. He said he wants to know how the policy will affect the university.
For the first time, EMU officials publicly questioned the authenticity of the attendance figures being reported by the rest of the schools in the MAC.
"All the other schools in the MAC inflate their numbers, too," Willis said.
The committee's report, which apparently runs close to seven pages, doesn't refute figures printed in the Echo, Willis and Vick confirmed.
"It substantiates everything that [was] reported in the paper," Vick said. "The information from the Echo report was corroborated."
On the committee, Vick worked with Karen Simpkins, the associate vice president for student affairs, and faculty union President Howard Bunsis, who also serves as faculty representative to the athletic department. Vick is the vice president for student affairs.
During exams week last month, Athletic Director Dave Diles announced his resignation to become the athletic director of Case Western Reserve University, a Division III school in Cleveland.
What the committee's report will reveal about how Diles and the rest of the department handled the attendance numbers remains unclear.
Diles has not responded to Echo calls seeking comment since his resignation. But in the Detroit News on April 27, he called the original Echo report "well-intentioned but misinformed."
"It's a lot to do about nothing," he told the paper.
Diles started working for Case Western on Monday. But he won't be there full-time until after May 31, his last official day at EMU, Willis said.
News that the report has been completed comes after the NCAA Board of Directors voted to alter the attendance requirement April 28.
The old requirement stipulated that universities had to average 15,000 people in "actual attendance," meaning that schools couldn't count people who had a ticket but didn't attend a game. Coming short of that requirement would have put universities in danger of losing Division 1 status.
But the policy was changed to require universities to average 15,000 in paid attendance in one of every two years. That will be easier for schools to meet, primarily because season ticket holders who don't attend games can now be counted.
However, EMU didn't come close to 15,000 in paid attendance last year. For the five games at Rynearson Stadium, the university distributed a total of 22,258 tickets, according to university documents obtained by the Echo through the Freedom of Information Act. That's equal to an average of 4,451 per game, a figure that includes sold tickets and complimentary tickets.
Those numbers do not include students, who get free admission to all EMU home athletic events. But the difference between 15,000 and 4,451 is equal to almost half of Eastern's student population.
The average number of fans who attended the five games at Rynearson last year was 6,188, according to figures produced by the ticket management office. If the reported attendance figure for the game played at Ford Field last year is included in that average, it comes to 9,227.
Last fall, the university reported an average of 16,060 fans for the six home dates.
by the Alumni & Institutions to PROMOTE their programs and until we can get PROFESSIONALS who know HOW to do THAT then the "pissing in the wind festival" will continue. Personally I am ALL FOR ATTENDANCE MANDATES!!! Get off your lazy, coat-tailing turd outlets and make it happen! I am afraid with the ambiguity surrounding this issue of late along with the addition of the 12th game ( which I love) the programs that are not forced to comply will instead skate