Changes

[Steve]

Word around town that major changes are coming for GWU athletic department. Conference move? Staff or leadership change? Seems early for the latter. Who knows and don’t know what else it could be. Maybe somebody on here has heard something more specific.

[gwebb1994]

Been begging for a SOCON move forever. About the only conference move that makes sense at this point.

[Steve]

Jan 4, 2024 9:13:41 GMT -5 gwebb1994 said:

Been begging for a SOCON move forever. About the only conference move that makes sense at this point.

Guy who told me seemed to hint that conference move maybe wasn’t it. Didn’t have time to grill him. Not sure what he was getting at but didn’t know if anyone had heard anything. Don’t know what else it could be. Probably just the snak shop rumor milll.

Socon would be awesome but dang the funding would have to jump. Faculty would revolt if they spent anything else on sports. They don’t seem to like athletics.

[thebigdawg]

Jan 4, 2024 9:05:02 GMT -5 Steve said:

Word around town that major changes are coming for GWU athletic department. Conference move? Staff or leadership change? Seems early for the latter. Who knows and don’t know what else it could be. Maybe somebody on here has heard something more specific.

To be frank. Changes are needed.

Sports Information has needed changes and restructuring for years. We are still stuck in 2010 when it comes to content and media. We arent producing content at a D1 level. Content leads to interest and helps in recruiting. The whole department has already been gutted. University made a temporary hire for 2023.

Conference needs major work. The Big South is dead. We all see it. There is no reviving the Big South. I think we end up taking this thing all the way until it dies but we are going to really regret that. ASun would probably be a better fit financially than the SoCon. Would set us up with a local rival in Queens.

[Marino13NFL]

Staffing shortages are the primary issue. Looking at administrative rosters for other similar small d1 schools and some regional d2 schools it doesn’t make sense. GW has far fewer people and positions. Significantly lower. I know athletic training is down several people and that creates stress on the remaining people. SID people have been understaffed for a decade or more. You’re correct about low quality of content, but how many people do they have? Strength staff is a skeleton crew. We are talking about an athletic department with 20+ sports and you have less than a dozen people between combined in training, SID and strength to cover 600 athletes. Scary really.

Limestone has more administrative staff. GW has one person (Pam Scruggs) and that’s it. Why? Trustees and other campus leadership to know that the quality of the experience for kids currently on campus is poor as a result. Nevermind the ability to recruit new athletes. There is no marketing group in athletics and that is extremely odd for any level of college sports. There are zero content positions. One facility man for who knows how many acres and facilities.

It’s an unfortunate cycle. Poor experience equals poor giving habits down the road. Whose fault is it? I’m less inclined than some I’ve read on here to lay it all at the current president’s feet. It predates his tenure by many years. The new AD has apparently made a basket full of promises that haven’t materialized, but I don’t know that he knew exactly what he was diving into. Can’t over promise. That only delays the improvement needed and fractures relationships.

What to do? Good question. Suggestions would be fun to read at least, so share away. Most would quickly say a new president and/or AD, but these issues mainly predate both. A more aggressive board?

Discuss.

[Guest2024]

Jan 4, 2024 10:46:57 GMT -5 Marino13NFL said:

Staffing shortages are the primary issue. Looking at administrative rosters for other similar small d1 schools and some regional d2 schools it doesn’t make sense. GW has far fewer people and positions. Significantly lower. I know athletic training is down several people and that creates stress on the remaining people. SID people have been understaffed for a decade or more. You’re correct about low quality of content, but how many people do they have? Strength staff is a skeleton crew. We are talking about an athletic department with 20+ sports and you have less than a dozen people between combined in training, SID and strength to cover 600 athletes. Scary really.

Limestone has more administrative staff. GW has one person (Pam Scruggs) and that’s it. Why? Trustees and other campus leadership to know that the quality of the experience for kids currently on campus is poor as a result. Nevermind the ability to recruit new athletes. There is no marketing group in athletics and that is extremely odd for any level of college sports. There are zero content positions. One facility man for who knows how many acres and facilities.

It’s an unfortunate cycle. Poor experience equals poor giving habits down the road. Whose fault is it? I’m less inclined than some I’ve read on here to lay it all at the current president’s feet. It predates his tenure by many years. The new AD has apparently made a basket full of promises that haven’t materialized, but I don’t know that he knew exactly what he was diving into. Can’t over promise. That only delays the improvement needed and fractures relationships.

What to do? Good question. Suggestions would be fun to read at least, so share away. Most would quickly say a new president and/or AD, but these issues mainly predate both. A more aggressive board?

Discuss.

Chatting with some of the coaches there definitely seems to be a disconnect and a concern with the lack of staff in some areas of athletics.

[gwebb1994]

D2/NAIA mindset still in place. We moved up two decades ago. Either fund things properly or stop this charade.

[SnackyShopper]

Jan 4, 2024 10:46:57 GMT -5 Marino13NFL said:

Staffing shortages are the primary issue. Looking at administrative rosters for other similar small d1 schools and some regional d2 schools it doesn’t make sense. GW has far fewer people and positions. Significantly lower. I know athletic training is down several people and that creates stress on the remaining people. SID people have been understaffed for a decade or more. You’re correct about low quality of content, but how many people do they have? Strength staff is a skeleton crew. We are talking about an athletic department with 20+ sports and you have less than a dozen people between combined in training, SID and strength to cover 600 athletes. Scary really.

Limestone has more administrative staff. GW has one person (Pam Scruggs) and that’s it. Why? Trustees and other campus leadership to know that the quality of the experience for kids currently on campus is poor as a result. Nevermind the ability to recruit new athletes. There is no marketing group in athletics and that is extremely odd for any level of college sports. There are zero content positions. One facility man for who knows how many acres and facilities.

It’s an unfortunate cycle. Poor experience equals poor giving habits down the road. Whose fault is it? I’m less inclined than some I’ve read on here to lay it all at the current president’s feet. It predates his tenure by many years. The new AD has apparently made a basket full of promises that haven’t materialized, but I don’t know that he knew exactly what he was diving into. Can’t over promise. That only delays the improvement needed and fractures relationships.

What to do? Good question. Suggestions would be fun to read at least, so share away. Most would quickly say a new president and/or AD, but these issues mainly predate both. A more aggressive board?

Discuss.

Best idea. Domed stadium. That would fix it.

[Marino13NFL]

Jan 4, 2024 11:25:52 GMT -5 gwebb1994 said:

D2/NAIA mindset still in place. We moved up two decades ago. Either fund things properly or stop this charade.

I don’t completely disagree. The idea of d1 is definitely front and center with expectations, especially from the top chairs of administration. I’d use the word d2 approach instead of mindset. The mindset is “doing more with less” as a badge of honor or something similar.

Your thought on funding isn’t wrong. Need money. Where does that come from? And we aren’t talking six figure improvement. Millions per year are needed to make the thing run correctly. Some significant debt may be needed initially and the school historically doesn’t have the stomach for that fiscal risk.

Worked for High Point, Mercer and Campbell. Have to invest money to make progress churn. Student athletic fees would help, but I know that has been a non starter in the past.

[thebigdawg]

This line "Most would quickly say a new president and/or AD, but these issues mainly predate both" Anyone who as a connection with the university knows that the roots of these problems run so deep that theres going to be pain and anger that results from attempting to fix. Not sure current president is in a place where he can do that.

Im not a Downs hater. In my opinion he has done some hard things in attempts to fix historical issues at GWU similar to what athelics faces. But in doing those things he has caused some pain and he does not have the equity right now.

[Marino13NFL]

Jan 4, 2024 14:26:31 GMT -5 thebigdawg said:

This line "Most would quickly say a new president and/or AD, but these issues mainly predate both" Anyone who as a connection with the university knows that the roots of these problems run so deep that theres going to be pain and anger that results from attempting to fix. Not sure current president is in a place where he can do that.

Im not a Downs hater. In my opinion he has done some hard things in attempts to fix historical issues at GWU similar to what athelics faces. But in doing those things he has caused some pain and he does not have the equity right now.

Probably should have written “some” instead of “most”. There are definitely still a few haters on here from a quick read through. I agree, the issues run much deeper than two men. Good points.

[Steve]

Interesting. What are the solutions?

[gwebb1994]

It won't happen, but going D3 non scholly in football like PC has and spreading the money savings to other sports to properly fund them would be logical.

[Guest012]

Jan 4, 2024 18:14:48 GMT -5 gwebb1994 said:

It won't happen, but going D3 non scholly in football like PC has and spreading the money savings to other sports to properly fund them would be logical.

Never a good solution. Ask Campbell how much they saved by going to athletic scholarships in football and cutting out the crazy cross country travel. Pioneer League is wild.

They spent close to as much with their institutional scholarship dollars putting packages together to attract kids to play football as they did when they started giving athletic grants. Just from a different pot. Smoke and mirrors.

Hasn’t helped PC much anyway. They’re rumored to be borrowing money from their endowment to stay open. Never, ever good. Enrollment has dipped under 1,000. They’re in bad shape. Maybe worse shape than Limestone.

[gwujake08]

Talking to members on the academic side of campus, they all seem to favor a drop to D2 for what it's worth