RE: What has happened to golf?
My original response to you was not meant to be a point-by-point rebuttal of your post. It was more meant to challenge you as someone who apparently hadn't been following the story. You did apologize in a later post, and that's the proper way to man up. Well done. In my original post on this thread, I also had not "done the math". I knew McIlroy wasn't supposed to have been an incoming freshman, but re-reading my post it appears it could have been interpreted in that way. I was more trying to communicate that it had been a litany of events - not one single thing - which caused our team to be weak this year, and to a lesser extent, the last 2 or 3 years. Rhys Enoch's brother getting killed, on top of his shoulder injury, were notable events I didn't even mention (thank you studentofthegame). Again, I wasn't trying to give a comprehensive answer. I *do* think had McIlroy come here to play golf, his impact on the program would have been massive, and again, maybe in some way he can still direct talent our way...
But to your point about the athletic budget growing, while not having football............. Of course you're right; paulie refused to "put that on the backs of the students" (possible minor paraphrasing), but then shortly after the failed vote, he did just that, and has upped that again. Why hasn't the media held him accountable for such two-faced-ness? I can't answer that. Why did they build the CPA after they went to the trouble to have two votes and both failed? The media never held him accountable for that, either. I haven't taken the trouble to look up how much of the overall athletic budget is tennis, and how much is golf, and how much of those two is given specifically for those programs. That last answer may not even be public - and if not, it would be because it would be embarrassing to mullins.
I completely agree with you that it's absurd, to put it mildly, that we have grown that budget that much, and we dropped football for (a supposed) lack of only $1 million. There is little argument there. Also, remember what MamaBear pointed out repeatedly - that the debt on both the Culp Center and the Dome was being retired, thus freeing up money to put towards athletics, should they choose to do so. I don't know that that occurred, but it wouldn't surprise me if it has. (She was sure that was the plan.) I think it's hard from the outside to follow that kind of money trail, and unless Manahan or Dave Collins comes on here to tell us, we're going to be in the dark about that.
But, finally, it's not accurate to say that golf and tennis have been built up at the expense of football. I couldn't say NO money has been sent their way, but I can say that both those sports are largely, or significantly, self-supporting. The money "saved" (lol) by eliminating football has been spent on other projects, futbol, women's softball, the Dome seating upgrade, another partial layer of bureaucracy (gag), higher salaries, ASUN travel expenses (a biggie), and so forth. Here's an exercise: compare how many people in Athletics were on salary when football was cut (NOT including football staff) vs. how many are on salary now. Compare the overall salary budget then vs. now. I don't know those numbers, but I think one would see a vast increase in both.....
Really, as we know, it all comes back to stanton and mullins. I would love to hear stanton's answer as to why he instituted an athletic activity fee very shortly after refusing to do so to save football. That's just as key as the phantom, supposed, failed fund-raising in the three years before football was cut - the one NOBODY knew about. The one he used as an excuse to cut football. He clearly had an agenda that he's never publicly revealed, and I'm at a loss to understand that....
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