gwufan3
Junior Member
Proud alum, former staff member
Posts: 79
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Post by gwufan3 on Oct 6, 2014 14:43:23 GMT -5
I kind of assumed this along with most of you, but still a shame. Will be great to have him back next season!
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gwufan3
Junior Member
Proud alum, former staff member
Posts: 79
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Post by gwufan3 on Oct 6, 2014 14:43:54 GMT -5
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Post by gwebb1994 on Oct 6, 2014 15:26:38 GMT -5
We need to start asking just what the hell is our strength and conditioning department doing or not doing? Hopefully McCray reevaluates this in light of the MASH unit we are becoming.
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gwufan3
Junior Member
Proud alum, former staff member
Posts: 79
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Post by gwufan3 on Oct 6, 2014 17:43:00 GMT -5
Fair. I think Sowders is very good and being a former college football player, he knows what he is doing. But the bigger issue is the staff. Currently all he has is a GA and even before Smoake and the other guy left, having 4 "staff" (I put that in parenthesis since some of them are GAs and not full time) is just unreasonable. This again comes down to funding and where our focus is and what is important. You can't expect good results with things as they are.
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Post by gwebb1994 on Oct 6, 2014 19:04:28 GMT -5
Indeed. With all the money floating around, you think they could afford at least one more salaried person on staff.
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Post by dawgdad on Oct 6, 2014 19:08:07 GMT -5
Fair. I think Sowders is very good and being a former college football player, he knows what he is doing. But the bigger issue is the staff. Currently all he has is a GA and even before Smoake and the other guy left, having 4 "staff" (I put that in parenthesis since some of them are GAs and not full time) is just unreasonable. This again comes down to funding and where our focus is and what is important. You can't expect good results with things as they are. Thanks for bringing this incredibly important, yet invisible issue to the fore.... Strength, conditioning, rehabilitabtion, and most important the ultimate bottom-line goal of injury prevention has been a low funding priority at GWU. What gwufan3 has written is the literal fact: all but 2 S & C Staff are unpaid volunteer Graduate Assistants! This does not mean some aren't very good. VMI actually hired away our baseball strength coach; he was superior, tho an unpaid G.A. To run a full gamut of D1 sports programs through this level of non-funding is a scam! A serious illusion with predictable consequences. Yes, we have new brick, turf and even a new sport, but we operate this in a dark shadow of severe underfunding in most areas. We've been over this topic in the past, especially when Elcid was active, but it doesn't hurt to bring it up from time-to-time. |
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Post by gwebb1994 on Oct 6, 2014 19:37:46 GMT -5
We weren't prepared at all, financially or infrastructure-wise, for the jump to D-1 when it happened, and have never seemed to fully recover in full as an athletic program. Having the appropriate staffing in strength/conditioning, compliance, academic support, etc. are musts that seem to have been ignored.
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gwufan3
Junior Member
Proud alum, former staff member
Posts: 79
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Post by gwufan3 on Oct 8, 2014 9:45:15 GMT -5
Without a doubt. gwebb1994, you take me to where I was going next. We only have one academic person (Roebuck who does a great job) for the ENTIRE athletic department! One person for every single athlete... that is absurd. Every now and then he will get a GA but again, that is criminal and handcuffs teams. I know football is the king, but teams all over campus are getting screwed because he has to go literally one at a time, through football first (which is totally fair as they are the biggest and start playing) but other teams have to wait days for meetings and have terrible practice times.
The funding and staffing is a HUGE issue. I have seen athletic departments all over the country operate and they (and this is not including big schools that obviously have better financial situations) are just in better places. We are operating at a D2 level as far as all of this is concerned and it is crippling.
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