RE: ODU Wrestling Done
I've done my best not to go scorched earth over this but the administration refusing to answer the alumni questions and just telling the media (of which, I am a part of) they're not commenting on it anymore is just the athletic administration being straight up cowards.
Hey, if you want to make a tough decision, own it. Speak on it. Convince people this was necessary. Don't hide behind a press release and tuck tail and wait for things to blow over.
When you hire consultants, you're wasting money. They're going to pick the easiest way, get their money and go. They don't have any vested interest in who they work for. They look at the data, make a soulless decision, which is followed by the soulless leaders who were tasked to do a job and couldn't do that job, so they hired people to do their job for them.
Yes, you all know how bitter I am over this and how I've basically been scarily worried about when this day would come. Losing 2M a year just being in CUSA is enough to fund "two wrestlings." Although based on what I know from the staff, a 1M savings is funny math. But numbers are what the are, just like the release unnecessarily separating the schools who compete in D1 wrestling, but they're D2 (PSAC) and D3 (F&M) institutions. It's deliberate. To cite nearly 40 years of participation? Come on.
The lack of conference affiliation was a direct result of the move to CUSA. Wrestling had a conference home, in an all-sports conference. Wrestling did nothing wrong there. Wrestling was also academically in the Top 20 consistently, including #2 one year behind Harvard with team GPA. They fundraised well (until the school moved the goalposts - literally).
I know a lot of you won't lose a bit of sleep over this. We're going to fight to keep the program. If it was about funding, then the alumni should have been told and given the opportunity to fund it. I sense when one of the biggest money people in the region get them to the table, it's going to be a "Go To Hell" figure like 10M to bring back wrestling, but also fund another women's sport because you can't add a sport (because they would be adding in their funny math world) and not add a women's sport in this compliance situation.
Title IX compliance is also the doing of the administration. This law has been on the books since 1972 and its been wholly applied to college athletics since 1979. This is part of the job. You do not have a Title IX problem just sneak up on you. The addition of the FBS scholarships put ODU over the scholarship proportionality aspect of it. That's a direct doing of the administration. They made moves the put this program at risk.
The MAC expanded. Most of the opponents now were in NOVA, NJ and PA in the "Mac East" - the old MAC was the MAC West + SIUE. Travel costs were down. The team sent fewer backups to open tournaments.
If the current administration followed through on adding volleyball sooner and finding another women's sport to add to adhere to Prong 2 of Title IX (if softball wasn't an option, look for women's bowling or something like that). Hell, women's wrestling is on the docket to be an NCAA emerging sport. It's already been approved at D2 and D3. Beach Volleyball was another option.
The COVID-19 stuff was just the final straw. No one could have predicted this. That is NOT on the administration.
I'm holding out hope there's a solution. So for now, I'm still a giving member of the ODAF. But the alumni want answers. All non-revenue athletes should be enraged here. It shows the caste system of college athletics is alive and well with the way the athletic administration works in Norfolk.
Yes, that backup punter IS more important than the All-American tennis player and the starting goalie. Yes, that 15th MBB scholarship IS more vital to winning at ODU than the wrestler competing in the NCAA finals.
You've heard me b*tch about this kinda thing before. But the report FOIA'd by the VP/DP just puts it on wax. When my kids get to that age to choose a college, it likely won't be ODU, because dollar bills mean more to the administration than the athletes do.
Love you guys, no matter which athletes you choose to root for that wear the blue and silver.
Regards,
Jason Bryant,
ODU Class of 2004
Walking ODU Sports Billboard since 1997.
(This post was last modified: 04-03-2020 11:03 PM by ODUwildman.)
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