http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/marylan...ory?page=2

Another sad excuse of a story where the Sun paper takes a shot at Towson for trying to improve Athletics. The opening of Tiger Arena should be a celebration, but the way the Sun paper makes it sound it is a bad thing the building was even built.

The biggest challenge going on with Towson Athletics is getting people to invest in the program. From what I have been told the people who are always telling everyone how much they are the "big donor deep pockets" around the program are some of the biggest problems to the program actually moving forward. One example of this is Mike Gill. In most every Sun Paper story about Towson Athletics he is the big donor that is quoted. Unfortunately for Towson, Mike Gill is not really giving a lot of money to Towson, as he did not pay off his pledge to the last capital campaign at Towson in 2010. In fact, after pledging $100,000 to the campaign he failed to pay off a single dollar of his commitment despite getting all of the benefits of the six figure pledge, including a bronze Tiger for his office over at Hoyt Capital and his name in all of the capital campaign publicity pieces. Mike Gill is a big fan of the Tiger, but his favorite Tigers are the Clemson variety. I am big friends with one of the former football coaches and he told me that in 2009 Gill came over to talk to the team in preseason and was wearing a Clemson golf shirt and actually called the Towson team Clemson during his talk.

Concerns about the viability of additional revenue bookings for Tiger Arena aren't entirely unfounded, especially in a fragile economy and an era of less-than-ironclad contracts. This Sun writer just took a dump in Towson's Wheaties, though.

TigerNation82 - I am sure (almost certain) that your information is correct, but there is no need to personally call people out on a message board. I understand your frustration, and agree that we need a changing of the guard in our boosters. I don't think people need to be called out by name. Over the years many "big dollar" guys have come and gone. None of them have made a very big splash with donations. If they did, we would see their names on buildings and plaques. All we see are guys talking the talk, but nobody has put up the kind of money to really benefit a program. If you don't know who we are talking about, look down the sidelines of a basketball game. The court side seats are filled with the flavor of the week.

I guess I am just a little tired of hearing people complain about how bad things are and how things should be and then find out that these people are not stepping up to the plate with anything but talk. Guys like Gill are a dime a dozen, all talk and no walk. There have been other donors over the past few years who have stepped up and have given strong donations. These are the people that need to be celebrated. Calling out the people like Mike Gill is exactly what is needed at Towson to get these people to finally put up or shut up. Great job by the President to kick Gary Gill off the Board of Visitors as he is just about as useless as his brother. Neither one sent their own kids to Towson and both are big donors to Clemson (Mike) and Virginia (Gary) even though they both went to Towson. All they are about is what makes them look good which is why you rarely see these guys at any Towson games unless they can sit on the floor and been seen to be the big shots of the event.