In the second part of some pre-season questions to consider for the 2011 Hoyas, this column focuses on defense.
1. How good can this defense be? In many years, the defense was considered as good enough to hang in games, but not enough to counter a noticeably weaker offense. In 2011, the Hoyas return seven starters on defense, as experienced a group on the field as any Georgetown team since its days as a MAAC power.
The return of Dan Lenihan to the rotation will certainly help the loss of two starters from 2010, so the Hoyas are almost looking at eight returning starters. But if the defensive line is really going to elevate its role in stopping rush-based offenses (read= Colgate and Lehigh, where the Hoyas are a combined 0-18 since 2001), look to sophomores Charlie Dann (6-2, 285) and John Porter (6-3,250) to be a part of that. Dann is ready for a move into the starting lineup but will have to fight for it, and freshman Mike Roland (6-4,310) can't be overlooked.
Georgetown finished the 2010 season ranked fourth of six PL teams in defense. Yes, there's experience, but yes, there's more to be done.
2. Can the linebackers step up? The pre-season prospectus wrote that "Three of the team's top nine tacklers, all three inside linebackers have graduated, including...Nick Parrish."
If Robert McCabe and Jeremy Grasso are the mainstays on the outside, a new middle LB will be vital for setting the tone for the defense. Senior Nate Zimmel didn't get as much starting time behind the mainstay of Parrish, and freshman Nick Alfieri could have a role before all is said and done. Sophomores Jon Brucia and Sean Campbell are at a point when they can legitimately challenge in the two-deep, but the sooner the Hoyas can settle on an middle LB, the sooner the outside backs can begin to get a rotation and into a rhythm.
3. How good is the secondary? Very good. Nothing against the freshmen, but don't be surprised if you don't see much of the newcomers with five seniors and a junior ahead of them on the depth chart. Some combination of junior Jeremy Moore and seniors Wayne Heimuli and Jayah Kaisamba are all candidates for all-Pl honors.
Georgetown finished last among the six active PL schools in pass defense--while they often bent but did not break (18 INT's),teams began to respect the secondary later in the season. A strong secondary may force teams to rely more on the run, which can help the Hoyas focus more strength up front. Heimuli, who has battled injuries in his college career, was nothing sort of a fearless tackler in high school and it would be great to see him really return to that level as a senior at Georgetown.
4. Any changes at kicker? Don't expect any. Brett Weiss seems set at PK and Matt MacZura had a solid freshman season at punter. For the first time in the Kelly era, the Hoyas did not add a kicker to the recruiting class, and that's a sign that its kicking staff (including sophomores David Conway and Devon Papandrew) can get it done in the years to come.
5. Can Time of Possession Be Controlled? This statistics has bedeviled the Hoyas over the years. As I wrote last year, "However, there is one statistic that cannot be ignored: time of possession. Georgetown's defense was on the field over 35 minutes a game last season, and you cannot win consistently when the defense gets worn out like that over the course of a season. Obviously, the offense could do a lot more on its part, but for its own sake the defense needs to work on improving third down conversion rates, particularly early in the season when the legs are still fresh and injuries and attrition have not yet taken its toll."
This year's defense is strong enough and experienced enough to do its part; inevitably, the offensive game plan will drive much of the inequity on time of possession that saw Georgetown average less than 26 minutes a game in possessions--which begets a tired defense.
With five straight road games from Sep. 17 through Oct. 22, the defense will be tested to be rested and ready. if the Hoyas have what it takes to weather this storm, it will be led on the defensive side of the field.
In Kevin Kelly's five seasons the defense has held opponents to 10 of fewer points just five times. Not encouraging, of course, but realize that three of those five were accomplished last year (Davidson, Holy Cross, Marist). 2011 could be an opportunity to match those numbers and give the offense a chance to compete into the fourth quarter of games that once were not competitive.
The experience is there, now it's time to put experience to the test.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Five Questions, Offense
There's no denying it--football season is around the corner, and for those that wonder about it, Georgetown is back at work trying to improve on a 4-7 record which looks better than what it was.
The Hoyas started 3-1, yes, but thee of these opponents were in their first game against Georgetown's retooled offense and Holy Cross took a siesta in the second half in the fourth. While Georgetown played well in these games, the element of surprise was in force in the Lafayette win and the near-upset at Yale. By October, with tapes exchanged and opposing coaches tuned in to the style of play, Georgetown dropped quickly, losing six straight before earning a 14-7 win over Marist that should not been that close.
So, half-full or half-empty? It's August, so I'll go with half-full. And returning to some pre-season questions, fans need to take note of a simple truism--the defense will come to play every week, but unless the offense steps it up, it'll be another long season.
1. Quarterback-- Safety or security? The Darby-Kempf rotation returns for a third season. Is experience the better teacher, or is Georgetown playing it safe with the platoon system? In Scott Darby, you have a quarterback which can run the option and lead the various run-heavy formats that Dave Patenaude (and before him, Jim Miceli) favored, but he has never been a prolific pocket passer. By contrast, Isaiah Kempf is comfortable looking downfield, but seems a step slow in the backfield. I think there were two, maybe three games where opposing coaches saw this too, keying on the Darby-Kempf rotations as telegraphing Georgetown's game plan. In one game, Kelly substituted the two QB's by play, which was no less successful in 2010 than it was nearly forty years earlier, when Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry tried to solve the riddle of his own QB dilemma by substituting Craig Morton and Roger Staubach likewise, and all it did was give the Chicago bears' defense a field day in the backfield.
Georgetown needs to see more efficiency from its quarterbacks and a little more in the way in surprises. Absent an unforeseen appearance from backups Aiken and Skon, the two veterans provide a level of comfort for the coaches in that they understand the system better than anyone, but it's got to work better than it did in the second half last season.
2. Are the backs too small? It seems that there hasn't been a sizeable running back at the Hilltop since when, Marcus Slayton? With the likes of 5-8 Wilburn Logan, 5-8 Dalen Claytor, and 5-7 Brandon Durham figuring to get many of the carries, the coaching staff should be taking a look at 6-0, 215 lb. Nick Campanella, who moves into the backfield in 2011. No, there isn't a Slayton or even Charlie Houghton out there, but if Campanella can reduce some of the defensive keys on the smaller backs, Georgetown may be able to build a more effective running game and not one where the defense floods the holes for the backs and puts Darby and/or Kempf on improvisation mode. Since the position of fullback has fallen out of the GU vocabulary in lieu of the slot receiver, the Hoyas could use some bigger backs to help out Logan and Claytor hitting the trenches. For now, anyway, smaller ball is what they have to work with.
3. Watch That Line. After years of the Hoyas fielding the smallest offensive line in the patriot league (once starting a 240 lb. center), this year could see a change in that perception. With five returning linemen over 300, the Hoyas have size, but must replace four starters up front which is never easy.
A big addition will be the return of junior Fino Caliguire from injury, and the efforts of Donald Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan continue to improve each season. Two to watch from the underclassmen will be sophomore Fred Eggert and sophomore Thomas Gallagher. That Gallagher was a little too big for the line was in evidence last season, when his 365 lb. frame could not fit into a standard sized jersey--he's dropped 20 lbs. according to the pre-season prospectus and could be a big help on the line if his conditioning improves.
Patriot League teams win on the offensive line.
There's a big difference whey Lehigh and Colgate are playing in late November and Georgetown and Bucknell are making plans for basketball season--it's the line. A step up for the Georgetown line this fall is two steps up for the team.
4. Just Given Them The $%$%# Ball! No, there's no Keyshawn Johnson on the sidelines, but for the first time in Kevin Kelly's six seasons on the unfinished Multi-Sport Field, he has some real options at receiver. The return of Brandon Floyd, the speed of Ken Furlough, and the toughness of Patrick Ryan could give the quarterbacks a number of options down the field...if Georgetown will do so. Line of scrimmage passing, made somewhat famous at GU by Matt Bassuener shortens the field and allows opponents to jam Georgetown inside. Slot backs are fine for the line of scrimmage, but this is the year Georgetown needs to start looking long--if the line can do its part, Floyd, Furlough, and Ryan can as well. Georgetown had just three completed pass plays over 40 yards all season, and they should at least twice that this year if the gamelan accounts for it.
5. Who Will be The Player To Watch? I'll admit it, I've proven a poor prognosticator in picking a player that will take games over, once hoping Tucker Stafford would get his shot at QB, that Charlie Houghton would get a second wind, or that Keerome Lawrence would put down the jitters and hold on to the big catch. Instead, in 2011 I'm rooting for Donald Rhodes across the line, an outside candidate for all-PL honors based on his development over his first two years. No matter how many of the PL experts would hold their nose to select a Georgetown lineman to league honors, if Rhodes and the line can do its part, the Hoyas have a lot more options to make a difference on the offense, and a lot less excuses than they've had in recent years.
One of the by-products from the 2010 season is that the Hoyas can't sneak up on anyone this year. When Frank Tavani and Tom Gilmore warn their squads about Georgetown, the kids will listen this time. It's time to add a couple more believers from the PL coaching fraternity that this offense is capable of knocking them around.
The Hoyas started 3-1, yes, but thee of these opponents were in their first game against Georgetown's retooled offense and Holy Cross took a siesta in the second half in the fourth. While Georgetown played well in these games, the element of surprise was in force in the Lafayette win and the near-upset at Yale. By October, with tapes exchanged and opposing coaches tuned in to the style of play, Georgetown dropped quickly, losing six straight before earning a 14-7 win over Marist that should not been that close.
So, half-full or half-empty? It's August, so I'll go with half-full. And returning to some pre-season questions, fans need to take note of a simple truism--the defense will come to play every week, but unless the offense steps it up, it'll be another long season.
1. Quarterback-- Safety or security? The Darby-Kempf rotation returns for a third season. Is experience the better teacher, or is Georgetown playing it safe with the platoon system? In Scott Darby, you have a quarterback which can run the option and lead the various run-heavy formats that Dave Patenaude (and before him, Jim Miceli) favored, but he has never been a prolific pocket passer. By contrast, Isaiah Kempf is comfortable looking downfield, but seems a step slow in the backfield. I think there were two, maybe three games where opposing coaches saw this too, keying on the Darby-Kempf rotations as telegraphing Georgetown's game plan. In one game, Kelly substituted the two QB's by play, which was no less successful in 2010 than it was nearly forty years earlier, when Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry tried to solve the riddle of his own QB dilemma by substituting Craig Morton and Roger Staubach likewise, and all it did was give the Chicago bears' defense a field day in the backfield.
Georgetown needs to see more efficiency from its quarterbacks and a little more in the way in surprises. Absent an unforeseen appearance from backups Aiken and Skon, the two veterans provide a level of comfort for the coaches in that they understand the system better than anyone, but it's got to work better than it did in the second half last season.
2. Are the backs too small? It seems that there hasn't been a sizeable running back at the Hilltop since when, Marcus Slayton? With the likes of 5-8 Wilburn Logan, 5-8 Dalen Claytor, and 5-7 Brandon Durham figuring to get many of the carries, the coaching staff should be taking a look at 6-0, 215 lb. Nick Campanella, who moves into the backfield in 2011. No, there isn't a Slayton or even Charlie Houghton out there, but if Campanella can reduce some of the defensive keys on the smaller backs, Georgetown may be able to build a more effective running game and not one where the defense floods the holes for the backs and puts Darby and/or Kempf on improvisation mode. Since the position of fullback has fallen out of the GU vocabulary in lieu of the slot receiver, the Hoyas could use some bigger backs to help out Logan and Claytor hitting the trenches. For now, anyway, smaller ball is what they have to work with.
3. Watch That Line. After years of the Hoyas fielding the smallest offensive line in the patriot league (once starting a 240 lb. center), this year could see a change in that perception. With five returning linemen over 300, the Hoyas have size, but must replace four starters up front which is never easy.
A big addition will be the return of junior Fino Caliguire from injury, and the efforts of Donald Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan continue to improve each season. Two to watch from the underclassmen will be sophomore Fred Eggert and sophomore Thomas Gallagher. That Gallagher was a little too big for the line was in evidence last season, when his 365 lb. frame could not fit into a standard sized jersey--he's dropped 20 lbs. according to the pre-season prospectus and could be a big help on the line if his conditioning improves.
Patriot League teams win on the offensive line.
There's a big difference whey Lehigh and Colgate are playing in late November and Georgetown and Bucknell are making plans for basketball season--it's the line. A step up for the Georgetown line this fall is two steps up for the team.
4. Just Given Them The $%$%# Ball! No, there's no Keyshawn Johnson on the sidelines, but for the first time in Kevin Kelly's six seasons on the unfinished Multi-Sport Field, he has some real options at receiver. The return of Brandon Floyd, the speed of Ken Furlough, and the toughness of Patrick Ryan could give the quarterbacks a number of options down the field...if Georgetown will do so. Line of scrimmage passing, made somewhat famous at GU by Matt Bassuener shortens the field and allows opponents to jam Georgetown inside. Slot backs are fine for the line of scrimmage, but this is the year Georgetown needs to start looking long--if the line can do its part, Floyd, Furlough, and Ryan can as well. Georgetown had just three completed pass plays over 40 yards all season, and they should at least twice that this year if the gamelan accounts for it.
5. Who Will be The Player To Watch? I'll admit it, I've proven a poor prognosticator in picking a player that will take games over, once hoping Tucker Stafford would get his shot at QB, that Charlie Houghton would get a second wind, or that Keerome Lawrence would put down the jitters and hold on to the big catch. Instead, in 2011 I'm rooting for Donald Rhodes across the line, an outside candidate for all-PL honors based on his development over his first two years. No matter how many of the PL experts would hold their nose to select a Georgetown lineman to league honors, if Rhodes and the line can do its part, the Hoyas have a lot more options to make a difference on the offense, and a lot less excuses than they've had in recent years.
One of the by-products from the 2010 season is that the Hoyas can't sneak up on anyone this year. When Frank Tavani and Tom Gilmore warn their squads about Georgetown, the kids will listen this time. It's time to add a couple more believers from the PL coaching fraternity that this offense is capable of knocking them around.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Eight Ways To Improve The Patriot League
Tuesday marks the Patriot League’s annual Media Day, though if you live in Washington, New York, or anywhere west of Allentown, PA, chances are you’ll read very little or nothing about it.
The event, conveniently located for the press that covers Lehigh and Lafayette sports, allow sportswriters to enjoy a luncheon and ask some questions to the coaches of the various schools in advance of game day stories this season.
Most of the cast is familiar with each other, even Kevin Kelly, returning for his sixth media day, the most of any Georgetown coach. With no changes in the head coaching ranks among the member schools, the questions figure to be much the same and the responses much the same, mixed in with some coach-speak. For example, which of these quotes from last season’s media day could be attributed to Coach Kelly’s thoughts on the 2010 season?
a) “My biggest concern is getting through healthy. We don’t have a lot of depth right now; our numbers are down a little bit.”
b) “We're worried about where we finish, not where we start.”
c) “Don't let the past affect you too much, don't let the future affect you too much. Live in the moment. If we can master that, and it's hard because this is an emotional game, we've got a chance.”
Actually, none of these. These were quotes by a) Colgate’s Dick Biddle, b) Lafayette’s Frank Tavani, and c) Bucknell’s Joe Susan, but you get the idea. No one is going to say something too far off script (well, maybe Tavani) and no one is going to upset their athletic director’s lunch by teeing off on the scholarship divide or the Patriot’s diminishing returns as a competitive I-AA conference. Everyone’s 0-0 and looking forward to the opening of the season.
As for the pre-season polls, Colgate and Lehigh will be at the top of the coaches and media poll (again), Bucknell and Georgetown at the bottom (again), and all is well at the Green Pond Country Club.
The scholarship issue hasn’t gone away, however. In December 2010, we wrote:
“The presidents arrived last week to make a decision [on scholarships] , and they decided, well, not to decide at all. There’s a old saying that “not to decide is to decide.” But in this case, it is not a decision as much as a stalemate, for as Samuel Johnson observed centuries earlier, "Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages." In football terms, the scholarship issue was on the 20-yard line. The league could go in for the score, or punt. Instead, it took a knee and ran out the clock. What does this mean (or in this case, not mean) for Georgetown?...This is an alarm clock ringing on the future of the Patriot League and of Georgetown’s options within it. Georgetown can use this as a clarion call to reengage a increasingly distant alumni population which has grown tired in the Kevin Kelly era, to build a culture of sustained giving, one which men’s basketball and rowing has successfully maintained for two decades, but which football has never mustered the cause to develop….Or, Georgetown can hit the snooze button and wake up in two years, and found that the house has burned down.”
This is but one of a number of issues, some great, some small, which the PL would do well to reflect and refocus on before the house really does comes down. With that in mind, eight suggestions to (re) start the dialogue:
1. Make a decision: introduce scholarships for football, beginning in the 2014 season. The raison d'etre of the PL was never a ban on athletic scholarships, but of student athletes being representative of their class. For those that proffered the argument that an athletic scholarship would be an impediment to a representative class, well, that ship sailed with the rest of the league’s sports nearly a decade ago when scholarships were approved. So why not football?
If the argument can be made that athletic scholarships in basketball and other sports have been introduced and have proven successful towards the PL’s goals of student athletes that are consistent with the league’s goals, the time has come to acknowledge that it can do so in football without the irrational fear that Lehigh will not become the next Ohio State or that the Colgate will adopt the same standards as Ole Miss.
Yes, there are Title IX and competitive considerations, each of which can be addressed by two points: 1) no school is required to offer and athletic scholarships, and 2) to address the short-term needs of the conference to meet these considerations, the PL would adopt a plan by which no amount of aggregate merit (athletic) scholarship aid would exceed the amount of need-based aid offered in a four year average of recruiting classes. Put another way, the PL would move towards a 31.5 scholarship plateau, with the option to award enough need-based aid so that those schools who wish to be a counter for I-A non-conference purposes (57 merit and/or need equivalencies across no more than 85 players) could do so by awarding a comparable amount of need-based aid. A school could offer full scholarships, half scholarships, or such money as it sees fit for Title IX purposes, but so that the merit portion of the aid awarded would not exceed the need based aid awarded.
And yes, this recommendation does not bring Fordham back. A school with 63 scholarships by 2013 isn’t dropping half of them for the purpose of rejoining the league. The PL can’t get the votes for 63 scholarships this and last year’s tabling proved it. Could the PL get a vote internally for fewer grants instead? I think it can.
Would 31.5 scholarships affect competitiveness? Of course it would. Not every school has the ability to offer this much aid (read=Georgetown), but most do and none would not be required to do so, anyway. Of the six PL schools excepting Fordham, four offer at least 31 or more in need-based equivalencies right now, with Bucknell close behind. If a school couldn’t offer as many for Title IX or financial reasons based on a 25 man class (more on that below), that’s OK--what it could offer would still be better from a competitiveness quotient against schools outside the PL that is hurting the league ability to compete.
This recommendation impacts Georgetown the most in the near-term, but it’s the long term interests on scholarships that will sink or the swim the league as a whole. Sure, the PL could stay non-scholarship among GU, Lafayette, Holy Cross, and Bucknell, and give a pass to Colgate and Lehigh. But the day Colgate or Lehigh leaves the league to pursue scholarship football elsewhere, the Patriot League must end its sponsorship in football. Why? The PL bylaws require five full-member schools to play in a sport for the league to sponsor it, and only five such schools do so now. Barring the development of intercollegiate football at American (unlikely), the PL can only continue if all five current full-member schools stay together, regardless of Fordham or Georgetown.
And what about Georgetown? Can it cover an additional $3 million in scholarships a year across football and comparable women’s sports? As of this writing, no. But even as few as four scholarships a year could give the coaches options with kids that it cannot even get close to today, all because of the cost of higher education and the inability of GU to offer aid to parents with higher family incomes. As cited on this blog in 2010:
Can Georgetown even compete against scholarship schools? Its record against scholarship programs outside the league since 2000 isn’t great (2-10, .200), but compared to its record in the PL during that same period (8-52, .133), it begs the question—if Georgetown can schedule Wagner, Howard, or Sacred Heart (all of which offer football scholarships), and live to tell the tale, why wouldn’t it do the same with Lehigh and Colgate?
This recommendation is not intended to be Solomonic. Instead, a scholarship policy that rests on twin pillars of merit and need could allow the PL to be as competitive in football as it is on other sports without destroying its relationships with the Ivy League, while improving the student-athlete experience for those that can attend and excel, but may lack the means to do so without scholarship support.
Finally, a brief note about the Ivies. Adding scholarships in basketball did not cause the PL to run over the Ancient Eight: last season, the scholarship PL was a mere 9-12 (.428) against the non-scholarship Ivy in men’s basketball. Given the Ivies’ advantages in recruiting lower income families with full need aid, the rivalries can be enhanced by a more competitive product against the Ancient Eight across the sidelines, and in a way that does not split the PL in two.
2. Remove standardized test scores from the Academic Index. The Patriot is one of three conferences in college sports (the other being the Ivy and the Division III NESCAC) which artificially limit athletic recruiting classes based on the self-satisfying perception that grades and SAT scores qualify an athlete for admission. Note that no such index is used to admit or deny music majors, English majors, or the like at any of these schools, only self-identified athletes.
While I would do away with the Index altogether, this mathematical exercise is sacrosanct in many PL quarters north of the Mason-Dixon Line. What I would then offer is to end the use of the SAT scores in index consideration, moving the banding process to one based on grade point averages, or what is called the converted rank score (CRS).
The bias inherent in standardized testing are well known. Holy Cross no longer requires the SAT as a means of admission, and a growing number of SAT-optional schools could render the Index inert in quantifying recruits which take the SAT and those that do not. Four years in a classroom is a better predictor for college than four hours in a SAT test, and if banding of recruits is considered essential for the PL, let’s focus on core grades and not on the vagaries of standardized testing, which would also make the PL more attractive to possible expansion (more on this below, too.).
The PL will not go the way of Oklahoma if recruits are banded by GPA’s. If an index must be maintained, the CRS may be the fairest way to do it.
3. End the association with Fordham University. That’s a difficult recommendation to a fellow PL school after 20+ years in the league, but Fordham is clearly moving its program beyond the league and it’s time for all parties to be up front and admit it. Unless the league completely adopts Fordham’s scholarship model in 2013 (and shows no signs of doing so), the Rams are leaving, and everyone knows it. What does another season in 2012 accomplish at this point?
If 60+ scholarships doesn’t change your view of the future of Fordham football, perhaps Vaughn Scott will. Over the summer, Fordham signed Scott, a talented RB who was considered a non-qualifier after a combination of GPA and ACT scores left him below the NCAA minimum for a grant-in-aid (a number that is leagues below the Patriot’s Academic Index scores.)
Scott was headed to a prep program called the Atlanta Sports Academy when his high school coach recalculated his GPA and found him eligible to earn a scholarship after all. Fordham was one of four schools which offered along with Towson, Stony Brook and Monmouth. “I thought I’d have to take that extra year and raise my grade-point average, but now I can start my college career”, Scott said.
We wish Scott well, but Fordham is clearly planning for a future that does not involve the PL’s goals and/or its academic restrictions. Recruiting and signing the best players available at the NCAA threshold is neither immoral nor unethical, and it’s accepted practice at over 200 Division I schools from Alabama to Youngstown State. But for the Patriot League, it is not and has never been.
Fordham, to its credit, made its own decision that it was no longer willing to play under the PL’s rules to build its football program. That having been said, the PL is not under any duty to maintain ties with a school whose admissions standards and scholarship commitments are now reaching outside the league’s bylaws. Maintaining an extra year with Fordham on everyone’s schedule (that does not count in the standings) does neither side much good in the long run— a scholarship Fordham may pummel around a lot of PL teams on its way out the door in 2012, and it’s not a good thing for potentially the best team in a conference to be ineligible for its title in the first place.
The PL presidents should give Fordham its notice at the conclusion of the 2011 season, allow the Rams the option to continue to play some or all the PL schools previously scheduled in 2012, and wish the Rams well in its transition to a new conference affiliation. When Georgetown left the MAAC in 1999, five schools opted to continue to play the Hoyas in its transition year, but three did not. Georgetown went 3-2 against the five MAAC teams and went 0-3 against pending PL foes Holy Cross, Fordham, and Bucknell, finishing 5-6.
4. Commit to expansion as early as the 2014 season. “When we first started the league and the presidents would meet, we would tell one another 'We're building a model that others will follow,” former Holy Cross president John Brooks S.J. once said. “So far,” he added, “no one has followed." And to be frank, no one will join the PL in its current form with the Scylla and Charybdis of non-scholarship football on one side of the harbor and a SAT range out of reach for nearly every school outside the Ivy League across the other side. Reforming the league’s scholarship policy and its means of evaluating recruits could open the door to some interest by those schools to whom the PL would be a more competitive proposition under those parameters than what it currently maintains.
With Fordham departing, the PL needs eight schools, not six or seven, to maintain competitive conference play and to achieve numerical parity with the Ivy League. To that end, it should approach two schools for full membership—the Virginia Military Institute and Bryant University. In the absence or failure of those discussions, it should consider associate memberships in football for Duquesne University and Marist College.
For all the past talk about inviting the likes Villanova, Richmond or William & Mary, that ship has sailed, nor will schools like Maine and New Hampshire risk a fan insurrection to move teams to what is considered an inferior conference to the CAA. By contrast, VMI (enrollment: 1,375) fits the PL standard of academic and athletic excellence, has a natural affinity with the service academies, and forms a geographic pairing with Georgetown in football and American in other sports. The Keydets have always fought above its weight class in the competitive Southern Conference, and in moving to the Big South Conference, the wins haven’t followed, either. As anyone at Annapolis or West Point will tell you, athletic recruiting is challenging at a military academy. It’s a little shocking to think that VMI hasn’t posted a winning season in football since 1981, but anyone who has seen them play knows VMI gives 110% in every game and a gameday in Lexington is a tradition all its own.
VMI would be an outstanding candidate for PL admission, and grandfathering its existing scholarship support gives the school the opportunity to move without the backlash that other rumored PL candidates of the past soon faced.
Similarly, Bryant would be more amenable to considering the PL with a scholarship component, adds a New England tie with Holy Cross, and has the rising academic chops to build the PL brand. Bryant is a newcomer to the scene, having started football in 1999 under former Georgetown offensive coordinator Jim Miceli. In the last five seasons, Bryant is 35-20 (.636), defeated Fordham last season in its only prior meeting against the PL, and opened a small but functional 4,400 seat stadium before it moved to Division I-AA. Visiting its web site, it’s clear Bryant has institutional aspirations beyond that of most NEC schools, and has an enrollment (3,370) and accept rate (43%) common with many PL schools.
If neither of these schools seek to move, Duquesne and Marist, the last of the MAAC survivors, might be options, at least for football. Each fits the current PL footprint, already compete against PL schools, and would not upset the current eight team alignment in other sports (i.e, Army, Navy, and American). The move to the PL would be a step up for both schools, as it was for Georgetown, but would also provide renewed interest in their football programs and open the door for games with the Ivy League. And while schools like Monmouth would appear a more competitive football-only option, Monmouth cannot play football in the Patriot and remain in the Northeast Conference for other sports; of course, it hasn't shown interest in leaving the NEC and this continues to be the case. On the other hand, Duquesne (A-10) and Marist (MAAC) can federate (play in the PL) for football and still maintain their membership in their primary conferences, much like Georgetown and the Big East.
Villanova could do so as well, but did we already say that the ship has sailed?
5. Establish an Ivy-Patriot challenge week. Any new school to the PL is going to learn a lesson that Georgetown has faced for the last decade—getting on an Ivy schedule is a political and logistical nightmare. Not only do some PL schools enjoy 3-4 Ivy games a year and don’t want to give that up, but the vagaries of the 10-week Ivy schedule may not give some PL schools the means to play them amidst their open dates.
Resolved: block out the PL’s week 3 (week 1 in the Ivy calendar) with all eight PL and Ivy teams facing each other that weekend, rotating each year so that over an eight year period, every PL school will play every Ivy school at least once. (If the opponents for any one year intersect with an existing series, that series would be adjusted so the teams do not play twice in the season.) Example:
These names were picked largely at random, but not quite. For instance, Harvard has never played Georgetown, nor Brown vs. Bryant, and Penn and VMI have only met twice (last in 1921). But it’s also surprising that in 120 years of football and all the supposed ties between the Ivy and PL, Dartmouth and Lafayette have met just eight times ever, Princeton and Holy Cross just ten. A week where new rivalries are explored and old ones revisited each year offers schedule stability for both leagues, and renewed interest at the member schools.
Instead of Georgetown playing Yale for six straight seasons in week 3, for example, it would rotate through games like Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc., providing interest for fans and recruits alike. Properly promoted by both leagues, this would be a win-win for teams that are hardly recognized in the college football landscape by mid-September.
6. Limit freshman recruiting to 25 signings. With or without scholarships, schools that are signing 30 or more freshmen (and inevitably losing a certain number of these a year later) are not well served by large recruiting classes, which invites claims of overrecruiting of positions to which the previous class was signed.
Patriot League schools don’t need to sign 30 kids because somehow only 20 will be eligible in the fall, nor does anyone want a situation where financial aid and/or scholarships are put into question when a player is less than productive after a season. Continue to allow walk-ons, but limit signings (and the presumed admissions offers these entail) to a more representative number of recruits each year (which would include transfers) that works for the coaches, for the recruits, is favorable to Title IX pressures, and is a reasonable impact upon the sport as a whole. If the Southeastern Conference can get by with 25 signings, so can the Patriot League.
7. Standardize the schedule. Did anyone find it strange that Georgetown was nearly finished with its 2010 league schedule when Lehigh was just about to start theirs? The odd juxtaposition of Patriot league schedules to accommodate Ivy League slots for some schools and not for others needs to be fixed. The last five weeks of the Ivy League season are for in-league competition only. The Patriot League should adopt the same rules, and with an eight team schedule as envisioned above, no one would need to be playing out of conference after mid-October to fill out a schedule.
Further, what prevents the league from standardizing and promoting rivalry games beyond Lehigh-Lafayette? The Bethlehem and Easton folks get one game to end the season, every year but no one else does. Colgate’s regular season finales over the last four years have been Bucknell, Holy Cross, Georgetown and Fordham and while there may be a rivalry game in there somewhere, it’s not always much to end a season on. Why is this? Is the league telling us that only one rivalry game matters, and the others are out of luck?
If Lafayette-Lehigh can always be the end of the season, so can Colgate and Bucknell, Georgetown-Holy Cross, or whatever matchups it sees fit, but let’s get them set. Attendance at Fisher Stadium won’t be harmed if another rivalry game is recognized at week 12 on the PL calendar.
8. Develop a strategy for league-wide TV and radio coverage. The league congratulated itself last month for entering into a two game national package with CBS College Sports for PL football—yet, only one of the two games is actually a conference game. For a league which has severed ties with the Worldwide Leader and figures to get even less ESPN coverage as a result, what does one league game do per year to a highly fractious media strategy across some schools which maintain their own TV and radio networks, and some which have neither?
Regardless if the broadcast is carried through WFMZ, Time Warner Cable, FiOS, or the like, the PL would be well served by some sort of “Patriot League Network” branding which would allow these games tape-delay carriage across other platforms, including the CBS cable channel or other sites, and including a PL online channel. The opportunities for a branded streaming broadcast seems an unappreciated opportunity for a league that recruits nationally, with parents and alumni across the nation who would not otherwise see their teams play. Similarly, why not investigate opportunities in satellite radio? Sirius has a lot of extra bandwidth on Saturdays that could host a Patriot League game on one of its channels.
Lots of points to consider, any one of which would make the Patriot a different and potentially more competitive league in the months ahead. For now, anyway, it’s on to Media Day , where at least one coach will claim his team has a chance to compete for the championship, and three months later, will see it come to fruition.
The event, conveniently located for the press that covers Lehigh and Lafayette sports, allow sportswriters to enjoy a luncheon and ask some questions to the coaches of the various schools in advance of game day stories this season.
Most of the cast is familiar with each other, even Kevin Kelly, returning for his sixth media day, the most of any Georgetown coach. With no changes in the head coaching ranks among the member schools, the questions figure to be much the same and the responses much the same, mixed in with some coach-speak. For example, which of these quotes from last season’s media day could be attributed to Coach Kelly’s thoughts on the 2010 season?
a) “My biggest concern is getting through healthy. We don’t have a lot of depth right now; our numbers are down a little bit.”
b) “We're worried about where we finish, not where we start.”
c) “Don't let the past affect you too much, don't let the future affect you too much. Live in the moment. If we can master that, and it's hard because this is an emotional game, we've got a chance.”
Actually, none of these. These were quotes by a) Colgate’s Dick Biddle, b) Lafayette’s Frank Tavani, and c) Bucknell’s Joe Susan, but you get the idea. No one is going to say something too far off script (well, maybe Tavani) and no one is going to upset their athletic director’s lunch by teeing off on the scholarship divide or the Patriot’s diminishing returns as a competitive I-AA conference. Everyone’s 0-0 and looking forward to the opening of the season.
As for the pre-season polls, Colgate and Lehigh will be at the top of the coaches and media poll (again), Bucknell and Georgetown at the bottom (again), and all is well at the Green Pond Country Club.
The scholarship issue hasn’t gone away, however. In December 2010, we wrote:
“The presidents arrived last week to make a decision [on scholarships] , and they decided, well, not to decide at all. There’s a old saying that “not to decide is to decide.” But in this case, it is not a decision as much as a stalemate, for as Samuel Johnson observed centuries earlier, "Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages." In football terms, the scholarship issue was on the 20-yard line. The league could go in for the score, or punt. Instead, it took a knee and ran out the clock. What does this mean (or in this case, not mean) for Georgetown?...This is an alarm clock ringing on the future of the Patriot League and of Georgetown’s options within it. Georgetown can use this as a clarion call to reengage a increasingly distant alumni population which has grown tired in the Kevin Kelly era, to build a culture of sustained giving, one which men’s basketball and rowing has successfully maintained for two decades, but which football has never mustered the cause to develop….Or, Georgetown can hit the snooze button and wake up in two years, and found that the house has burned down.”
This is but one of a number of issues, some great, some small, which the PL would do well to reflect and refocus on before the house really does comes down. With that in mind, eight suggestions to (re) start the dialogue:
1. Make a decision: introduce scholarships for football, beginning in the 2014 season. The raison d'etre of the PL was never a ban on athletic scholarships, but of student athletes being representative of their class. For those that proffered the argument that an athletic scholarship would be an impediment to a representative class, well, that ship sailed with the rest of the league’s sports nearly a decade ago when scholarships were approved. So why not football?
If the argument can be made that athletic scholarships in basketball and other sports have been introduced and have proven successful towards the PL’s goals of student athletes that are consistent with the league’s goals, the time has come to acknowledge that it can do so in football without the irrational fear that Lehigh will not become the next Ohio State or that the Colgate will adopt the same standards as Ole Miss.
Yes, there are Title IX and competitive considerations, each of which can be addressed by two points: 1) no school is required to offer and athletic scholarships, and 2) to address the short-term needs of the conference to meet these considerations, the PL would adopt a plan by which no amount of aggregate merit (athletic) scholarship aid would exceed the amount of need-based aid offered in a four year average of recruiting classes. Put another way, the PL would move towards a 31.5 scholarship plateau, with the option to award enough need-based aid so that those schools who wish to be a counter for I-A non-conference purposes (57 merit and/or need equivalencies across no more than 85 players) could do so by awarding a comparable amount of need-based aid. A school could offer full scholarships, half scholarships, or such money as it sees fit for Title IX purposes, but so that the merit portion of the aid awarded would not exceed the need based aid awarded.
And yes, this recommendation does not bring Fordham back. A school with 63 scholarships by 2013 isn’t dropping half of them for the purpose of rejoining the league. The PL can’t get the votes for 63 scholarships this and last year’s tabling proved it. Could the PL get a vote internally for fewer grants instead? I think it can.
Would 31.5 scholarships affect competitiveness? Of course it would. Not every school has the ability to offer this much aid (read=Georgetown), but most do and none would not be required to do so, anyway. Of the six PL schools excepting Fordham, four offer at least 31 or more in need-based equivalencies right now, with Bucknell close behind. If a school couldn’t offer as many for Title IX or financial reasons based on a 25 man class (more on that below), that’s OK--what it could offer would still be better from a competitiveness quotient against schools outside the PL that is hurting the league ability to compete.
This recommendation impacts Georgetown the most in the near-term, but it’s the long term interests on scholarships that will sink or the swim the league as a whole. Sure, the PL could stay non-scholarship among GU, Lafayette, Holy Cross, and Bucknell, and give a pass to Colgate and Lehigh. But the day Colgate or Lehigh leaves the league to pursue scholarship football elsewhere, the Patriot League must end its sponsorship in football. Why? The PL bylaws require five full-member schools to play in a sport for the league to sponsor it, and only five such schools do so now. Barring the development of intercollegiate football at American (unlikely), the PL can only continue if all five current full-member schools stay together, regardless of Fordham or Georgetown.
And what about Georgetown? Can it cover an additional $3 million in scholarships a year across football and comparable women’s sports? As of this writing, no. But even as few as four scholarships a year could give the coaches options with kids that it cannot even get close to today, all because of the cost of higher education and the inability of GU to offer aid to parents with higher family incomes. As cited on this blog in 2010:
“In past years, Ivy and PL schools followed similar aid formulas that made it theoretically comparable to accept an offer from Brown versus, say, Colgate. That has changed. Examples are noted at FinAid.org:
•Brown: Eliminated parent contribution in financial aid formula. Eliminated any loans for household incomes (HHI) under $100K, caps total indebtedness to $20,000 for any student with a HHI over $150,000.
•Columbia: Eliminated parent contribution, replaced all loans with grants. No debt for HHI under $60,000.
•Cornell: Eliminated parent contribution for HHI under $75,000. Caps loans at $3,500 per year for HHI under $120,000, caps loans at $7,500 above $120,000.
•Dartmouth: No loans for HHI under $75,000.
•Harvard: No parent contribution needed, no loans offered. Families with HHI over $120,000 expected to pay no more than 10% of their income for tuition.
•Pennsylvania: No loans.
•Princeton: All loans converted to grants.
•Yale: No parent contribution under $60,000, sliding scale of 1%-10% of income expected to pay for tuition.
"There are some families that will pay less for their kid to go an Ivy League school than they would if their kid went to a state school," said financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz to FinAid.org.
And they are not alone. In addition to schools like Duke, Stanford, North Carolina, Caltech, and more than two dozen no-loan programs among major colleges, Patriot League schools are getting into the fray: At Lafayette, no loans are offered to families with a HHI under $60,000, and cap loans above this at $2,500 a year. A similar program is found at Lehigh.
Where you won't find this--football or not, is Georgetown. The money's not there. And as Ivy and PL schools become more competitive aid-wise, scholarship or not, the means by which Georgetown can remain competitive for students and student-athletes becomes ever less productive. “
Can Georgetown even compete against scholarship schools? Its record against scholarship programs outside the league since 2000 isn’t great (2-10, .200), but compared to its record in the PL during that same period (8-52, .133), it begs the question—if Georgetown can schedule Wagner, Howard, or Sacred Heart (all of which offer football scholarships), and live to tell the tale, why wouldn’t it do the same with Lehigh and Colgate?
This recommendation is not intended to be Solomonic. Instead, a scholarship policy that rests on twin pillars of merit and need could allow the PL to be as competitive in football as it is on other sports without destroying its relationships with the Ivy League, while improving the student-athlete experience for those that can attend and excel, but may lack the means to do so without scholarship support.
Finally, a brief note about the Ivies. Adding scholarships in basketball did not cause the PL to run over the Ancient Eight: last season, the scholarship PL was a mere 9-12 (.428) against the non-scholarship Ivy in men’s basketball. Given the Ivies’ advantages in recruiting lower income families with full need aid, the rivalries can be enhanced by a more competitive product against the Ancient Eight across the sidelines, and in a way that does not split the PL in two.
2. Remove standardized test scores from the Academic Index. The Patriot is one of three conferences in college sports (the other being the Ivy and the Division III NESCAC) which artificially limit athletic recruiting classes based on the self-satisfying perception that grades and SAT scores qualify an athlete for admission. Note that no such index is used to admit or deny music majors, English majors, or the like at any of these schools, only self-identified athletes.
While I would do away with the Index altogether, this mathematical exercise is sacrosanct in many PL quarters north of the Mason-Dixon Line. What I would then offer is to end the use of the SAT scores in index consideration, moving the banding process to one based on grade point averages, or what is called the converted rank score (CRS).
The bias inherent in standardized testing are well known. Holy Cross no longer requires the SAT as a means of admission, and a growing number of SAT-optional schools could render the Index inert in quantifying recruits which take the SAT and those that do not. Four years in a classroom is a better predictor for college than four hours in a SAT test, and if banding of recruits is considered essential for the PL, let’s focus on core grades and not on the vagaries of standardized testing, which would also make the PL more attractive to possible expansion (more on this below, too.).
The PL will not go the way of Oklahoma if recruits are banded by GPA’s. If an index must be maintained, the CRS may be the fairest way to do it.
3. End the association with Fordham University. That’s a difficult recommendation to a fellow PL school after 20+ years in the league, but Fordham is clearly moving its program beyond the league and it’s time for all parties to be up front and admit it. Unless the league completely adopts Fordham’s scholarship model in 2013 (and shows no signs of doing so), the Rams are leaving, and everyone knows it. What does another season in 2012 accomplish at this point?
If 60+ scholarships doesn’t change your view of the future of Fordham football, perhaps Vaughn Scott will. Over the summer, Fordham signed Scott, a talented RB who was considered a non-qualifier after a combination of GPA and ACT scores left him below the NCAA minimum for a grant-in-aid (a number that is leagues below the Patriot’s Academic Index scores.)
Scott was headed to a prep program called the Atlanta Sports Academy when his high school coach recalculated his GPA and found him eligible to earn a scholarship after all. Fordham was one of four schools which offered along with Towson, Stony Brook and Monmouth. “I thought I’d have to take that extra year and raise my grade-point average, but now I can start my college career”, Scott said.
We wish Scott well, but Fordham is clearly planning for a future that does not involve the PL’s goals and/or its academic restrictions. Recruiting and signing the best players available at the NCAA threshold is neither immoral nor unethical, and it’s accepted practice at over 200 Division I schools from Alabama to Youngstown State. But for the Patriot League, it is not and has never been.
Fordham, to its credit, made its own decision that it was no longer willing to play under the PL’s rules to build its football program. That having been said, the PL is not under any duty to maintain ties with a school whose admissions standards and scholarship commitments are now reaching outside the league’s bylaws. Maintaining an extra year with Fordham on everyone’s schedule (that does not count in the standings) does neither side much good in the long run— a scholarship Fordham may pummel around a lot of PL teams on its way out the door in 2012, and it’s not a good thing for potentially the best team in a conference to be ineligible for its title in the first place.
The PL presidents should give Fordham its notice at the conclusion of the 2011 season, allow the Rams the option to continue to play some or all the PL schools previously scheduled in 2012, and wish the Rams well in its transition to a new conference affiliation. When Georgetown left the MAAC in 1999, five schools opted to continue to play the Hoyas in its transition year, but three did not. Georgetown went 3-2 against the five MAAC teams and went 0-3 against pending PL foes Holy Cross, Fordham, and Bucknell, finishing 5-6.
4. Commit to expansion as early as the 2014 season. “When we first started the league and the presidents would meet, we would tell one another 'We're building a model that others will follow,” former Holy Cross president John Brooks S.J. once said. “So far,” he added, “no one has followed." And to be frank, no one will join the PL in its current form with the Scylla and Charybdis of non-scholarship football on one side of the harbor and a SAT range out of reach for nearly every school outside the Ivy League across the other side. Reforming the league’s scholarship policy and its means of evaluating recruits could open the door to some interest by those schools to whom the PL would be a more competitive proposition under those parameters than what it currently maintains.
With Fordham departing, the PL needs eight schools, not six or seven, to maintain competitive conference play and to achieve numerical parity with the Ivy League. To that end, it should approach two schools for full membership—the Virginia Military Institute and Bryant University. In the absence or failure of those discussions, it should consider associate memberships in football for Duquesne University and Marist College.
For all the past talk about inviting the likes Villanova, Richmond or William & Mary, that ship has sailed, nor will schools like Maine and New Hampshire risk a fan insurrection to move teams to what is considered an inferior conference to the CAA. By contrast, VMI (enrollment: 1,375) fits the PL standard of academic and athletic excellence, has a natural affinity with the service academies, and forms a geographic pairing with Georgetown in football and American in other sports. The Keydets have always fought above its weight class in the competitive Southern Conference, and in moving to the Big South Conference, the wins haven’t followed, either. As anyone at Annapolis or West Point will tell you, athletic recruiting is challenging at a military academy. It’s a little shocking to think that VMI hasn’t posted a winning season in football since 1981, but anyone who has seen them play knows VMI gives 110% in every game and a gameday in Lexington is a tradition all its own.
VMI would be an outstanding candidate for PL admission, and grandfathering its existing scholarship support gives the school the opportunity to move without the backlash that other rumored PL candidates of the past soon faced.
Similarly, Bryant would be more amenable to considering the PL with a scholarship component, adds a New England tie with Holy Cross, and has the rising academic chops to build the PL brand. Bryant is a newcomer to the scene, having started football in 1999 under former Georgetown offensive coordinator Jim Miceli. In the last five seasons, Bryant is 35-20 (.636), defeated Fordham last season in its only prior meeting against the PL, and opened a small but functional 4,400 seat stadium before it moved to Division I-AA. Visiting its web site, it’s clear Bryant has institutional aspirations beyond that of most NEC schools, and has an enrollment (3,370) and accept rate (43%) common with many PL schools.
If neither of these schools seek to move, Duquesne and Marist, the last of the MAAC survivors, might be options, at least for football. Each fits the current PL footprint, already compete against PL schools, and would not upset the current eight team alignment in other sports (i.e, Army, Navy, and American). The move to the PL would be a step up for both schools, as it was for Georgetown, but would also provide renewed interest in their football programs and open the door for games with the Ivy League. And while schools like Monmouth would appear a more competitive football-only option, Monmouth cannot play football in the Patriot and remain in the Northeast Conference for other sports; of course, it hasn't shown interest in leaving the NEC and this continues to be the case. On the other hand, Duquesne (A-10) and Marist (MAAC) can federate (play in the PL) for football and still maintain their membership in their primary conferences, much like Georgetown and the Big East.
Villanova could do so as well, but did we already say that the ship has sailed?
5. Establish an Ivy-Patriot challenge week. Any new school to the PL is going to learn a lesson that Georgetown has faced for the last decade—getting on an Ivy schedule is a political and logistical nightmare. Not only do some PL schools enjoy 3-4 Ivy games a year and don’t want to give that up, but the vagaries of the 10-week Ivy schedule may not give some PL schools the means to play them amidst their open dates.
Resolved: block out the PL’s week 3 (week 1 in the Ivy calendar) with all eight PL and Ivy teams facing each other that weekend, rotating each year so that over an eight year period, every PL school will play every Ivy school at least once. (If the opponents for any one year intersect with an existing series, that series would be adjusted so the teams do not play twice in the season.) Example:
Brown vs Bryant
Columbia vs. Colgate
Cornell vs. Bucknell
Dartmouth vs.Lafayette
Harvard vs. Georgetown
Pennsylvania vs.VMI
Princeton vs. Holy Cross
Yale vs. Lehigh
These names were picked largely at random, but not quite. For instance, Harvard has never played Georgetown, nor Brown vs. Bryant, and Penn and VMI have only met twice (last in 1921). But it’s also surprising that in 120 years of football and all the supposed ties between the Ivy and PL, Dartmouth and Lafayette have met just eight times ever, Princeton and Holy Cross just ten. A week where new rivalries are explored and old ones revisited each year offers schedule stability for both leagues, and renewed interest at the member schools.
Instead of Georgetown playing Yale for six straight seasons in week 3, for example, it would rotate through games like Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc., providing interest for fans and recruits alike. Properly promoted by both leagues, this would be a win-win for teams that are hardly recognized in the college football landscape by mid-September.
6. Limit freshman recruiting to 25 signings. With or without scholarships, schools that are signing 30 or more freshmen (and inevitably losing a certain number of these a year later) are not well served by large recruiting classes, which invites claims of overrecruiting of positions to which the previous class was signed.
Patriot League schools don’t need to sign 30 kids because somehow only 20 will be eligible in the fall, nor does anyone want a situation where financial aid and/or scholarships are put into question when a player is less than productive after a season. Continue to allow walk-ons, but limit signings (and the presumed admissions offers these entail) to a more representative number of recruits each year (which would include transfers) that works for the coaches, for the recruits, is favorable to Title IX pressures, and is a reasonable impact upon the sport as a whole. If the Southeastern Conference can get by with 25 signings, so can the Patriot League.
7. Standardize the schedule. Did anyone find it strange that Georgetown was nearly finished with its 2010 league schedule when Lehigh was just about to start theirs? The odd juxtaposition of Patriot league schedules to accommodate Ivy League slots for some schools and not for others needs to be fixed. The last five weeks of the Ivy League season are for in-league competition only. The Patriot League should adopt the same rules, and with an eight team schedule as envisioned above, no one would need to be playing out of conference after mid-October to fill out a schedule.
Further, what prevents the league from standardizing and promoting rivalry games beyond Lehigh-Lafayette? The Bethlehem and Easton folks get one game to end the season, every year but no one else does. Colgate’s regular season finales over the last four years have been Bucknell, Holy Cross, Georgetown and Fordham and while there may be a rivalry game in there somewhere, it’s not always much to end a season on. Why is this? Is the league telling us that only one rivalry game matters, and the others are out of luck?
If Lafayette-Lehigh can always be the end of the season, so can Colgate and Bucknell, Georgetown-Holy Cross, or whatever matchups it sees fit, but let’s get them set. Attendance at Fisher Stadium won’t be harmed if another rivalry game is recognized at week 12 on the PL calendar.
8. Develop a strategy for league-wide TV and radio coverage. The league congratulated itself last month for entering into a two game national package with CBS College Sports for PL football—yet, only one of the two games is actually a conference game. For a league which has severed ties with the Worldwide Leader and figures to get even less ESPN coverage as a result, what does one league game do per year to a highly fractious media strategy across some schools which maintain their own TV and radio networks, and some which have neither?
Regardless if the broadcast is carried through WFMZ, Time Warner Cable, FiOS, or the like, the PL would be well served by some sort of “Patriot League Network” branding which would allow these games tape-delay carriage across other platforms, including the CBS cable channel or other sites, and including a PL online channel. The opportunities for a branded streaming broadcast seems an unappreciated opportunity for a league that recruits nationally, with parents and alumni across the nation who would not otherwise see their teams play. Similarly, why not investigate opportunities in satellite radio? Sirius has a lot of extra bandwidth on Saturdays that could host a Patriot League game on one of its channels.
Lots of points to consider, any one of which would make the Patriot a different and potentially more competitive league in the months ahead. For now, anyway, it’s on to Media Day , where at least one coach will claim his team has a chance to compete for the championship, and three months later, will see it come to fruition.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Investing In Football, Part 4: Progress
In the previous entries, investing in football was more than just numbers, it was about investing in visibility, and in people. So if there’s a third element that Georgetown must consider when setting a course for football spending, it’s the investment in progress. Or more specifically, unforeseen progress, the progress to invent the future, not merely to fix the present.
A word about progress. Like apple pie, good schools and lower taxes, no one is exactly “against” progress, it’s part of the American DNA. There isn’t a college president in America that is going to come out against progress, but few will stand up solely for progress at the expense of the stasis which given colleges an institutional sense of self-satisfaction. Universities like things old, dusty, and relatively unchanged, as if to say that their progress is measured in generations and centuries, not in years. The Las Vegas mantra of “ build, demolish and build a bigger one” finds few adherents in higher education, located in a mythical place where, as Garrison Keillor intoned, “the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve ... where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average” .
But any university that measures success in athletics over the generations or the centuries probably isn’t progressing at all, merely riding the tide of upward mobility and population growth. The sheer nature of competition, fueled by television, makes it difficult for standing on the sidelines. There are a handful of schools which stepped away from major college sports, but it’s hard to say that NYU or the University of Tampa or Centenary is better for the experience, only different.
There are three dates which are mileposts in Georgetown’s athletic progress, and that they are roughly three decades apart is probably not an accident.
In 1924, Georgetown made the decision to hire a full time football coach to run an athletic department that to date, had been a student-run operation. Lou Little brought a successful if somewhat undervalued Georgetown program to the national spotlight.
In 1951, Hunter Guthrie S.J., for reasons not fully understood to this day, decoupled Georgetown from major college football train and instituted a period of athletic deemphasis—concurrent with that move was a period of academic stasis where Georgetown considered itself a fine university among the Jesuit institutions of the country, but did not have true aspirations outside that circle.
In 1979, Frank Rienzo followed the old adage that if you want something done right, do it yourself, and joined three other athletic directors and forged a new model in college athletics, the Big East conference. It would be hard to imagine a major college coming to Georgetown in the 1970’s, even with basketball, and inviting them aboard, with an $850,000 budget, a smattering of sports across Divisions I, II, and III, and a student-led drive to defund all intercollegiate sports at Georgetown with the bulk of the budget redistributed to library expenses.
The move to the Big East was the third of three paradigm shifts for Georgetown in the 1970’s, beginning with the repositioning of GU as an international university (largely through the efforts of Peter Krogh and the School of Foreign Service) and the move to need blind, full need financial aid in 1978. If someone tells you that Patrick Ewing began the admissions climb at Georgetown, tell them it started years earlier.
Georgetown’s decision to place its financial aid commitment alongside the top universities in the world not only parted it from the regional schools like St. Joseph’s, Fordham, and Holy Cross to which Georgetown was associated with, but students increasingly began to associate Georgetown alongside the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, and Duke (another fast climber in this period).
These three great changes are all, to one form another, still in effect today, but show signs of wear. Georgetown might have been one of the first schools to the political/international realm, but it’s a crowded field now. Three U.N. ambassadors from 1979-1997 were Georgetown faculty, but it’s increasingly a wider talent pool outside Georgetown and none of the last seven ambassadors have taught on the Hilltop. Financial aid elevated Georgetown, but the University now treads water financially with a huge aid commitment that is engulfing the annual budget. The Big East model of a strong basketball program carrying the budgets of smaller sports has been challenged by the rise of I-A football into the Big East landscape.
The upcoming capital campaign for Georgetown suggests rapid change ahead: the redirection of Georgetown from an international university to a global leader in higher education, a commitment of $500 million in need based aid, and some undisclosed level of financial and facilities stability for intercollegiate athletics. It is no small challenge for Lee Reed to have joined the athletic department as he did in 2010 and have this waiting on his desk. It is difficult to theorize where Georgetown will be left in the world of modern intercollegiate athletics without an enhanced level of support in this upcoming campaign. the day John Thompson III takes another job should never be a death knell for the entire program, but without some planning, Georgetown continues to rely on salad days in men's basketball without a safety net.
And as for football, this campaign offers a outstanding and much needed opportunity to invest in the unforseen progress that time, on its own, cannot. The guarded expectations of football expressed in 1964 remains in force today, but as times change there must be a road map of progress and the financial muscle needed to accomplish this. There was no Patriot League in 1964, no cable TV, and little hope of ever playing Division I programs. But times change--of the opponents played in the club football era, all but two no longer play football.
Every sport at Georgetown, and that includes men’s basketball and football, can see this capital campaign as an opportunity to map a course for the future and to solicit the transformative gifts (financial and otherwise) to meet this course. If all Georgetown did for athletics over the next six years is build a practice facility, this campaign will, at least for athletics, be a failure.
In January, 2010, I wrote:
It’s not too soon to convene a football summit at Georgetown at the conclusion of this season, bring in the AD, the coaches, parents, and major donors, get the facts on the table and start hammering out a plan of attack to move forward, to be "quick, but not to hurry.". So what does Georgetown want out of the football program and how can the community support it? What does Lee Reed want out of the football program and how can the community support it? What does Kevin Kelly want out of the football program and how can the community support it? And, of course, what can the community do about it within the parameters of where Georgetown is headed? If athletics in general and football in specific are not prepared for reaching out to its donor base at this time of the campaign, rest assured that these same donors will be cornered by every other group at Georgetown seeking to raise money.
Over generations, football at Georgetown can and will grow. But athletics no long grows by carbon-dating, and change can come suddenly and without mercy. It’s not enough to spend to elevate Georgetown football. Are we ready to invest in it?
A word about progress. Like apple pie, good schools and lower taxes, no one is exactly “against” progress, it’s part of the American DNA. There isn’t a college president in America that is going to come out against progress, but few will stand up solely for progress at the expense of the stasis which given colleges an institutional sense of self-satisfaction. Universities like things old, dusty, and relatively unchanged, as if to say that their progress is measured in generations and centuries, not in years. The Las Vegas mantra of “ build, demolish and build a bigger one” finds few adherents in higher education, located in a mythical place where, as Garrison Keillor intoned, “the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve ... where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average” .
But any university that measures success in athletics over the generations or the centuries probably isn’t progressing at all, merely riding the tide of upward mobility and population growth. The sheer nature of competition, fueled by television, makes it difficult for standing on the sidelines. There are a handful of schools which stepped away from major college sports, but it’s hard to say that NYU or the University of Tampa or Centenary is better for the experience, only different.
There are three dates which are mileposts in Georgetown’s athletic progress, and that they are roughly three decades apart is probably not an accident.
In 1924, Georgetown made the decision to hire a full time football coach to run an athletic department that to date, had been a student-run operation. Lou Little brought a successful if somewhat undervalued Georgetown program to the national spotlight.
In 1951, Hunter Guthrie S.J., for reasons not fully understood to this day, decoupled Georgetown from major college football train and instituted a period of athletic deemphasis—concurrent with that move was a period of academic stasis where Georgetown considered itself a fine university among the Jesuit institutions of the country, but did not have true aspirations outside that circle.
In 1979, Frank Rienzo followed the old adage that if you want something done right, do it yourself, and joined three other athletic directors and forged a new model in college athletics, the Big East conference. It would be hard to imagine a major college coming to Georgetown in the 1970’s, even with basketball, and inviting them aboard, with an $850,000 budget, a smattering of sports across Divisions I, II, and III, and a student-led drive to defund all intercollegiate sports at Georgetown with the bulk of the budget redistributed to library expenses.
The move to the Big East was the third of three paradigm shifts for Georgetown in the 1970’s, beginning with the repositioning of GU as an international university (largely through the efforts of Peter Krogh and the School of Foreign Service) and the move to need blind, full need financial aid in 1978. If someone tells you that Patrick Ewing began the admissions climb at Georgetown, tell them it started years earlier.
Georgetown’s decision to place its financial aid commitment alongside the top universities in the world not only parted it from the regional schools like St. Joseph’s, Fordham, and Holy Cross to which Georgetown was associated with, but students increasingly began to associate Georgetown alongside the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, and Duke (another fast climber in this period).
These three great changes are all, to one form another, still in effect today, but show signs of wear. Georgetown might have been one of the first schools to the political/international realm, but it’s a crowded field now. Three U.N. ambassadors from 1979-1997 were Georgetown faculty, but it’s increasingly a wider talent pool outside Georgetown and none of the last seven ambassadors have taught on the Hilltop. Financial aid elevated Georgetown, but the University now treads water financially with a huge aid commitment that is engulfing the annual budget. The Big East model of a strong basketball program carrying the budgets of smaller sports has been challenged by the rise of I-A football into the Big East landscape.
The upcoming capital campaign for Georgetown suggests rapid change ahead: the redirection of Georgetown from an international university to a global leader in higher education, a commitment of $500 million in need based aid, and some undisclosed level of financial and facilities stability for intercollegiate athletics. It is no small challenge for Lee Reed to have joined the athletic department as he did in 2010 and have this waiting on his desk. It is difficult to theorize where Georgetown will be left in the world of modern intercollegiate athletics without an enhanced level of support in this upcoming campaign. the day John Thompson III takes another job should never be a death knell for the entire program, but without some planning, Georgetown continues to rely on salad days in men's basketball without a safety net.
And as for football, this campaign offers a outstanding and much needed opportunity to invest in the unforseen progress that time, on its own, cannot. The guarded expectations of football expressed in 1964 remains in force today, but as times change there must be a road map of progress and the financial muscle needed to accomplish this. There was no Patriot League in 1964, no cable TV, and little hope of ever playing Division I programs. But times change--of the opponents played in the club football era, all but two no longer play football.
Every sport at Georgetown, and that includes men’s basketball and football, can see this capital campaign as an opportunity to map a course for the future and to solicit the transformative gifts (financial and otherwise) to meet this course. If all Georgetown did for athletics over the next six years is build a practice facility, this campaign will, at least for athletics, be a failure.
In January, 2010, I wrote:
The case for better football continues at the donor level. A clear positioning statement provides the donor base with a mandate on how and to what degree it can provide both substantive and meaningful support. What would one scholarship "buy" Georgetown as to its competitive position? What would ten do? What would 50 do? This is not something the Gridiron Club has done a good job in communicating, but to be fair, it's not like Georgetown has been clear about it, either, athletic or otherwise.This is the time to invest in football, but football needs a plan and needs to get it not only to seven figure donors, but to the community at large. If Georgetown is going to consider scholarships, what is the plan and how do donors support it? If Georgetown wants to upgrade its coaching, what is the plan and how do donors support it? If Georgetown wants to be the proverbial Ninth Ivy, what is the plan and how do donors support it?
Where is your $10 gift doing the most good? Your $100 gift? Your $1,000 gift? Your $1 million gift?
So, to that end, what is the priority list for Georgetown football? In any particular order, it could be:
- Finishing the MSF
- Securing better competition
- Improved recruiting budget
- Merit scholarships
- Need based aid
- Coaching salaries
- Media (TV, radio contracts)
- Travel
- Program support
- Game day activities
- Ancillary support (cheerleaders, marching band)
- Training and athletic support
The key, of course, is the order. If finishing the MSF is #4 on the list, don't treat it like it is the #1 priority. If it is #1, don't do the opposite.”
It’s not too soon to convene a football summit at Georgetown at the conclusion of this season, bring in the AD, the coaches, parents, and major donors, get the facts on the table and start hammering out a plan of attack to move forward, to be "quick, but not to hurry.". So what does Georgetown want out of the football program and how can the community support it? What does Lee Reed want out of the football program and how can the community support it? What does Kevin Kelly want out of the football program and how can the community support it? And, of course, what can the community do about it within the parameters of where Georgetown is headed? If athletics in general and football in specific are not prepared for reaching out to its donor base at this time of the campaign, rest assured that these same donors will be cornered by every other group at Georgetown seeking to raise money.
Over generations, football at Georgetown can and will grow. But athletics no long grows by carbon-dating, and change can come suddenly and without mercy. It’s not enough to spend to elevate Georgetown football. Are we ready to invest in it?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
And Then There Were None
Note: The final installment of the "Investing In Football" series follows Thursday; this article speaks to the July 25 announcement of an All-Patriot League team in conjunction with the league's 25th anniversary.
As the Patriot League continues to march towards an uncomfortable obsolescence, the league took time this week to remember better days, saluting the schools and the players that have contributed to the league over the past quarter century. In the results of this “vote”, the League is saying a lot about where it is, and ultimately where it is going.
A vote of the seven member schools was held, at least according to the press release to the press corps of the PL, otherwise known as the Allentown Morning Call and the Easton Express-Times. The league announced that "a select group of players spanning four decades and seven different schools have been honored as the best of the best in Patriot League Football history." The link to the 25th Anniversary All-Patriot League Team is linked here.
Except it wasn’t the seven schools you thought. Or the players.
In it selections, which skew to players who were selected to a similar team ten years ago (17 of the 25 selections played prior to 2000) a number of omissions follow. The great Holy Cross teams of the late 1980’s, who ranked #1 in the Division I-AA polls and squashed most of their PL contemporaries in the transition away from scholarship play, received only three selections and no others since. Would (or should) a Colgate team that advanced to the 2003 I-AA national championship have zero representation on a All-PL team whatsoever, or were there just too many from Colgate already counted? Jamaal Branch won the Walter Payton Award but there’s no room for him on a list like this? Granted, every school has a claim to one or more of those selections, right?
Well, not every school.
For, in its enduring wisdom, the Patriot League leadership opted to recognize every member school in this award except one, Georgetown, failing to place even one GU player of the last ten years on the list, and going so far as to add a selection from the expats at Towson. And while it can be argued that the best 25 PL players of all time may not include anyone from Georgetown, are these really the best of the best, or a subjective award that blends accomplishment with the current politics of the member schools?
Rarely do award votes go so clean as to offend no one, but such was (mostly) the outcome of this vote, with presumed league leaders Colgate and Lehigh having 13 selections between them, with Holy Cross, Fordham, Lafayette, and Bucknell all earning three each.
"Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out." Or something like that.
While Georgetown’s teams have admittedly not made their mark on 15 years of the PL's record books (as if Towson did, but that’s another story), ignoring the contributions of student-athletes like Luke McArdle, Michael Ononibaku, and Alex Buzbee, seems a lost opportunity. Not all three were going to be included because, hey, that’s politics. But not one?
Let’s remember some of the highlights of Ononibaku. Honorable mention All-America, scholar-athlete, two time all-PL, leading the league in sacks and ranked nationally in tackles for loss, arguably the best defender at Georgetown in a generation. Sized as a linebacker, he played defensive line because head coach Bob Benson needed him to, and Ononibaku's smarts and quickness changed the way opponents had to play the Hoyas as a result. Yet,because he played at Georgetown, hindsight means no big deal to the league's voters, few of which probably ever saw him play.
As to the snub, how should Georgetown respond? It would be s story to see Kevin Kelly and Ryan Sakamoto walk into the PL media day next week, sign their names to a blank slate of the pre-season poll, and turn it in, leaving the PL leadership to awkwardly explain why the numbers aren’t adding up this year. That wouldn’t be good sportsmanship, of course, and it also wouldn’t be Georgetown. Instead, there's not a single mention of the 25th anniversary team news release at GUHoyas.com this week, while it’s cited at every other PL football program's web site. Good for them.
Increasingly, the Patriot League is acting less a conference and more of a confederation, seeking not to offend anyone while stalling out as a result. Fordham is out the door next year, and no one wants to say otherwise. At least one other PL school wants full scholarships, but no one wants to come out and say so. A vote for full scholarships for everyone splits the league, a vote against scholarships might split the league, and a vote to do nothing (as it did in December) only extends the timeline, but doesn’t change the outcome. The PL needs a league that is working together for the future, not moving apart, and ignoring one member altogether in simple recognition events like this seems an unnecessary and petty oversight.
As for the members of the 25th anniversary team, congratulations. But without a hard look at where this league is headed in the next decade, there probably won’t be a 35th anniversary team in years to come. To that end, coming next week at this blog: ten ways to fix the Patriot League...none of which involve lists like this.
As the Patriot League continues to march towards an uncomfortable obsolescence, the league took time this week to remember better days, saluting the schools and the players that have contributed to the league over the past quarter century. In the results of this “vote”, the League is saying a lot about where it is, and ultimately where it is going.
A vote of the seven member schools was held, at least according to the press release to the press corps of the PL, otherwise known as the Allentown Morning Call and the Easton Express-Times. The league announced that "a select group of players spanning four decades and seven different schools have been honored as the best of the best in Patriot League Football history." The link to the 25th Anniversary All-Patriot League Team is linked here.
Except it wasn’t the seven schools you thought. Or the players.
In it selections, which skew to players who were selected to a similar team ten years ago (17 of the 25 selections played prior to 2000) a number of omissions follow. The great Holy Cross teams of the late 1980’s, who ranked #1 in the Division I-AA polls and squashed most of their PL contemporaries in the transition away from scholarship play, received only three selections and no others since. Would (or should) a Colgate team that advanced to the 2003 I-AA national championship have zero representation on a All-PL team whatsoever, or were there just too many from Colgate already counted? Jamaal Branch won the Walter Payton Award but there’s no room for him on a list like this? Granted, every school has a claim to one or more of those selections, right?
Well, not every school.
For, in its enduring wisdom, the Patriot League leadership opted to recognize every member school in this award except one, Georgetown, failing to place even one GU player of the last ten years on the list, and going so far as to add a selection from the expats at Towson. And while it can be argued that the best 25 PL players of all time may not include anyone from Georgetown, are these really the best of the best, or a subjective award that blends accomplishment with the current politics of the member schools?
Rarely do award votes go so clean as to offend no one, but such was (mostly) the outcome of this vote, with presumed league leaders Colgate and Lehigh having 13 selections between them, with Holy Cross, Fordham, Lafayette, and Bucknell all earning three each.
"Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out." Or something like that.
While Georgetown’s teams have admittedly not made their mark on 15 years of the PL's record books (as if Towson did, but that’s another story), ignoring the contributions of student-athletes like Luke McArdle, Michael Ononibaku, and Alex Buzbee, seems a lost opportunity. Not all three were going to be included because, hey, that’s politics. But not one?
Let’s remember some of the highlights of Ononibaku. Honorable mention All-America, scholar-athlete, two time all-PL, leading the league in sacks and ranked nationally in tackles for loss, arguably the best defender at Georgetown in a generation. Sized as a linebacker, he played defensive line because head coach Bob Benson needed him to, and Ononibaku's smarts and quickness changed the way opponents had to play the Hoyas as a result. Yet,because he played at Georgetown, hindsight means no big deal to the league's voters, few of which probably ever saw him play.
As to the snub, how should Georgetown respond? It would be s story to see Kevin Kelly and Ryan Sakamoto walk into the PL media day next week, sign their names to a blank slate of the pre-season poll, and turn it in, leaving the PL leadership to awkwardly explain why the numbers aren’t adding up this year. That wouldn’t be good sportsmanship, of course, and it also wouldn’t be Georgetown. Instead, there's not a single mention of the 25th anniversary team news release at GUHoyas.com this week, while it’s cited at every other PL football program's web site. Good for them.
Increasingly, the Patriot League is acting less a conference and more of a confederation, seeking not to offend anyone while stalling out as a result. Fordham is out the door next year, and no one wants to say otherwise. At least one other PL school wants full scholarships, but no one wants to come out and say so. A vote for full scholarships for everyone splits the league, a vote against scholarships might split the league, and a vote to do nothing (as it did in December) only extends the timeline, but doesn’t change the outcome. The PL needs a league that is working together for the future, not moving apart, and ignoring one member altogether in simple recognition events like this seems an unnecessary and petty oversight.
As for the members of the 25th anniversary team, congratulations. But without a hard look at where this league is headed in the next decade, there probably won’t be a 35th anniversary team in years to come. To that end, coming next week at this blog: ten ways to fix the Patriot League...none of which involve lists like this.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Investing In Football, Part 3: People
In this series, we’ve talked about the need to invest in key elements of Georgetown football, and, of course, there are many. But is there any element more important than investing in people?
Every school has something different it can “sell” to prospective recruits . To no surprise, Georgetown can’t sell the Golden Dome, the “Big House”, or running down a hill before 90,000 fans on a Saturday afternoon. That’s never been the driving force, anyway. What it does have, and what it can “sell”, is a student-athlete experience that allows young men to build the core foundation for a lifetime of leadership and service to one’s chosen field.
To do so, words only go so far. I’m of the opinion that while there are great assets for Georgetown, they can only be strengthened by putting more time and money into providing a better student-athlete experience. Many of the tools are already there, it’s a case of picking them up, putting them to use, and where appropriate, engaging the alumni and donor community to give it the financial and organizational support to make it happen.
One of these is the Leadership Academy. Introduced at Georgetown in 2009 (and recently added by the Patriot League as a whole), this program introduces students to workshops and mentoring opportunities to help them grow and mature as young leaders. Some take advantage of this, others not, but there is certainly room to grow the program at Georgetown to cover more student athletes and give them even more opportunities for personal and professional development. But how many alumni and donors know it exists? There’s a 2009 article archived on GUHoyas.com about the program, but who’s going to find that? Over and above the costs of running such a program, there are certainly opportunities to reach out to selected constituents in the alumni and donor community to help elevate the program to reach more students, tackle greater challenges, and make the program a standard by which other schools aspire to…and in doing so, give potential students another reason to look past the MSF and the losing records to realize that playing football at Georgetown is more than what is seems.
Is Georgetown talking about the Leadership Academy as a support opportunity for donors? It should.
Another activity that ought to be supported and funded is the mentorship program administered through the Gridiron Club. Introduced by former GC president Jim Lenihan in 2009, the program is designed for a one on one relationship between athletes and alumni in related business fields to help students get a better idea of the planning and execution required to enter the job market in that industry.
More than ever, one cannot walk into an investment bank or a tech firm or even a management training program without doing some real homework and effectively building a network of contacts to be a competitive candidate. It boggles the mind to hear stories from my parents generation (that’s the grandparents’ generation to you current students) about the days when someone could get a C average at a good school, have someone make a couple of calls at graduation, and get that person a spot in law school or a job that set him up for life. For everyone else, a good alumni mentorship program is an absolutely valuable asset in a career (one that never existed in my days on the Hilltop) and one which, properly funded and positioned, could give Georgetown students an position of competitive leadership when evaluating a four year offer to attend the University.
Let’s not forget the coaches, either.
The life of a football coach is a nomadic one and unless you’re a head coach or an SEC assistant, it’s not likely to be a lucrative one. Start with Kevin Kelly’s resume—before Georgetown, he saw stops at Southern Connecticut, Bowdoin, Northeastern, Dartmouth, Syracuse, Tulane, and Marshall, all before the age of 40. He wasn't doing it dor the money, either. What’s an average salary for an assistant coach? Probably, between $30,000-50,000, much less for graduate assistants. Add in the cost of raising a family and/or living in a palce like Washington DC and that doesn’t get you very far. Further, add the percevied lack of amenities waiting for coaches at Georgetown, and it begs the question—how does Lee Reed and Kevin Kelly attract the best coaches to attract the best players to produce the best team possible?
Even with better salaries, there’s no one answer, but a powerful weapon in that regard lies just up the hill.
Unbeknownst to most Georgetown alumni, the University has a master’s degree program in sports management, featuring faculty from many of the area’s leading pro and institutional sports firms.
“Georgetown's graduate degree program in Sports Industry Management embraces real-world learning,“ reads its web site. “Learn about the latest practices in sports management from industry leaders. Work in a hands-on internship with one of the program's strategic organizational partners (including major league teams and leading sports-industry businesses and nonprofit entities). Complete a Capstone Project that lets you demonstrate real experience addressing key challenges and opportunities in the industry… Connect with the program's industry partners through mentoring opportunities and internships. Engage on key issues and discuss sports industry careers with program faculty, visiting speakers and members of the program's distinguished Advisory Board of industry leaders. Find the right place for you in one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.”
Courses include Sales Promotion, Licensing and Sponsorship Development , Social Responsibility and Diversity in Sports, Sports Business and Finance, Communications and Public Relations, Digital Media and Consumer Engagement, Global Brand Management, Sports Event Planning and Facility Management, Sports Law, Contracts, and Negotiation, Sports Leadership and Management and Sports Marketing Strategy, among others.
This would seem a tailor-made opportunity for up and coming coaches to gain practical experience in the business of sports while serving as an assistant coach at a academically prestigious university. Any assistant or GA can come to a school, get a degree and move on, but a master’s degree that can prepare them for a sports management career (in or out of the college environment) would seem, at least on the outside, as an extraordinary personal and professional opportunity for a young coach.
Is there an opportunity to fund a scholarship for an assistant coach each year to enroll in the program, to take classes in the spring and summer, and commit to the program during his studies? I suspect that there are those who avail themselves of the opportunity, but the cost of attendance is not solely covered by an employee discount for tuition. If a GA or assistant’s position was funded in conjunction with a degree program like this, could the next Urban Meyer or Gary Patterson or Chris Petersen get his start at a place like Georgetown? Each of these coaches, by the way, got a master’s degree before moving up the head coaching ranks, at places such as Ohio State, Tennessee Tech, and UC-Davis, respectively.
It also goes without saying that such an academic program on the campus could introduce students, undergraduate or graduate, to an amazing world of networking opportunities, from attending speeches by leading industry officials to inviting these faculty to speak to the team during the year. As is the case with so many things at Georgetown, a good idea usually sits dormant until someone picks up the ball and starts to run with it. But if we want to provide a better environment for learning for all of Georgetown football, why not start with the resources Georgetown already has?
And a word on investing. There are donors and alumni out there who have a capacity to support the program but have grown tired and/or disillusioned over sending in a check for “program needs” without knowing where it goes. The late philanthropist Percy Ross, who used to send checks to people that wrote to an newspaper advice column he wrote, was asked why he only gave to those requests that he approved. “He who gives while he lives,” said Ross, “gets to know where it goes.”
More to the point, another Ross quote: “You've got to ask! Asking is, in my opinion, the world's most powerful - and neglected - secret to success and happiness.”
Is Georgetown asking the right people the right questions? An amorphous “Give to the football program” for an underfunded program may not sell to an equity trader or a tech exec, but introducing a mentorship program or a master’s degree scholarship or even accepting an invite to talk to the team might pay bigger dividends down the road. I would argue that if the Gridiron Club, Annual Fund, Advancement, et al. offered a variety of options to middle and major donors to support (and participate in) efforts like this, the response would be much more impactful and allow the existing budget to cover existing needs, while these ancillary programs can continue to build up the intellectual capital that sets Georgetown apart and add to the total value of playing football and studying at Georgetown.
Or as Ben Franklin put it, “an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
Every school has something different it can “sell” to prospective recruits . To no surprise, Georgetown can’t sell the Golden Dome, the “Big House”, or running down a hill before 90,000 fans on a Saturday afternoon. That’s never been the driving force, anyway. What it does have, and what it can “sell”, is a student-athlete experience that allows young men to build the core foundation for a lifetime of leadership and service to one’s chosen field.
To do so, words only go so far. I’m of the opinion that while there are great assets for Georgetown, they can only be strengthened by putting more time and money into providing a better student-athlete experience. Many of the tools are already there, it’s a case of picking them up, putting them to use, and where appropriate, engaging the alumni and donor community to give it the financial and organizational support to make it happen.
One of these is the Leadership Academy. Introduced at Georgetown in 2009 (and recently added by the Patriot League as a whole), this program introduces students to workshops and mentoring opportunities to help them grow and mature as young leaders. Some take advantage of this, others not, but there is certainly room to grow the program at Georgetown to cover more student athletes and give them even more opportunities for personal and professional development. But how many alumni and donors know it exists? There’s a 2009 article archived on GUHoyas.com about the program, but who’s going to find that? Over and above the costs of running such a program, there are certainly opportunities to reach out to selected constituents in the alumni and donor community to help elevate the program to reach more students, tackle greater challenges, and make the program a standard by which other schools aspire to…and in doing so, give potential students another reason to look past the MSF and the losing records to realize that playing football at Georgetown is more than what is seems.
Is Georgetown talking about the Leadership Academy as a support opportunity for donors? It should.
Another activity that ought to be supported and funded is the mentorship program administered through the Gridiron Club. Introduced by former GC president Jim Lenihan in 2009, the program is designed for a one on one relationship between athletes and alumni in related business fields to help students get a better idea of the planning and execution required to enter the job market in that industry.
More than ever, one cannot walk into an investment bank or a tech firm or even a management training program without doing some real homework and effectively building a network of contacts to be a competitive candidate. It boggles the mind to hear stories from my parents generation (that’s the grandparents’ generation to you current students) about the days when someone could get a C average at a good school, have someone make a couple of calls at graduation, and get that person a spot in law school or a job that set him up for life. For everyone else, a good alumni mentorship program is an absolutely valuable asset in a career (one that never existed in my days on the Hilltop) and one which, properly funded and positioned, could give Georgetown students an position of competitive leadership when evaluating a four year offer to attend the University.
Let’s not forget the coaches, either.
The life of a football coach is a nomadic one and unless you’re a head coach or an SEC assistant, it’s not likely to be a lucrative one. Start with Kevin Kelly’s resume—before Georgetown, he saw stops at Southern Connecticut, Bowdoin, Northeastern, Dartmouth, Syracuse, Tulane, and Marshall, all before the age of 40. He wasn't doing it dor the money, either. What’s an average salary for an assistant coach? Probably, between $30,000-50,000, much less for graduate assistants. Add in the cost of raising a family and/or living in a palce like Washington DC and that doesn’t get you very far. Further, add the percevied lack of amenities waiting for coaches at Georgetown, and it begs the question—how does Lee Reed and Kevin Kelly attract the best coaches to attract the best players to produce the best team possible?
Even with better salaries, there’s no one answer, but a powerful weapon in that regard lies just up the hill.
Unbeknownst to most Georgetown alumni, the University has a master’s degree program in sports management, featuring faculty from many of the area’s leading pro and institutional sports firms.
“Georgetown's graduate degree program in Sports Industry Management embraces real-world learning,“ reads its web site. “Learn about the latest practices in sports management from industry leaders. Work in a hands-on internship with one of the program's strategic organizational partners (including major league teams and leading sports-industry businesses and nonprofit entities). Complete a Capstone Project that lets you demonstrate real experience addressing key challenges and opportunities in the industry… Connect with the program's industry partners through mentoring opportunities and internships. Engage on key issues and discuss sports industry careers with program faculty, visiting speakers and members of the program's distinguished Advisory Board of industry leaders. Find the right place for you in one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.”
Courses include Sales Promotion, Licensing and Sponsorship Development , Social Responsibility and Diversity in Sports, Sports Business and Finance, Communications and Public Relations, Digital Media and Consumer Engagement, Global Brand Management, Sports Event Planning and Facility Management, Sports Law, Contracts, and Negotiation, Sports Leadership and Management and Sports Marketing Strategy, among others.
This would seem a tailor-made opportunity for up and coming coaches to gain practical experience in the business of sports while serving as an assistant coach at a academically prestigious university. Any assistant or GA can come to a school, get a degree and move on, but a master’s degree that can prepare them for a sports management career (in or out of the college environment) would seem, at least on the outside, as an extraordinary personal and professional opportunity for a young coach.
Is there an opportunity to fund a scholarship for an assistant coach each year to enroll in the program, to take classes in the spring and summer, and commit to the program during his studies? I suspect that there are those who avail themselves of the opportunity, but the cost of attendance is not solely covered by an employee discount for tuition. If a GA or assistant’s position was funded in conjunction with a degree program like this, could the next Urban Meyer or Gary Patterson or Chris Petersen get his start at a place like Georgetown? Each of these coaches, by the way, got a master’s degree before moving up the head coaching ranks, at places such as Ohio State, Tennessee Tech, and UC-Davis, respectively.
It also goes without saying that such an academic program on the campus could introduce students, undergraduate or graduate, to an amazing world of networking opportunities, from attending speeches by leading industry officials to inviting these faculty to speak to the team during the year. As is the case with so many things at Georgetown, a good idea usually sits dormant until someone picks up the ball and starts to run with it. But if we want to provide a better environment for learning for all of Georgetown football, why not start with the resources Georgetown already has?
And a word on investing. There are donors and alumni out there who have a capacity to support the program but have grown tired and/or disillusioned over sending in a check for “program needs” without knowing where it goes. The late philanthropist Percy Ross, who used to send checks to people that wrote to an newspaper advice column he wrote, was asked why he only gave to those requests that he approved. “He who gives while he lives,” said Ross, “gets to know where it goes.”
More to the point, another Ross quote: “You've got to ask! Asking is, in my opinion, the world's most powerful - and neglected - secret to success and happiness.”
Is Georgetown asking the right people the right questions? An amorphous “Give to the football program” for an underfunded program may not sell to an equity trader or a tech exec, but introducing a mentorship program or a master’s degree scholarship or even accepting an invite to talk to the team might pay bigger dividends down the road. I would argue that if the Gridiron Club, Annual Fund, Advancement, et al. offered a variety of options to middle and major donors to support (and participate in) efforts like this, the response would be much more impactful and allow the existing budget to cover existing needs, while these ancillary programs can continue to build up the intellectual capital that sets Georgetown apart and add to the total value of playing football and studying at Georgetown.
Or as Ben Franklin put it, “an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Investing In Football, Part 2: Visibility
Before you can invest in an asset, you’ve got to know about it. Before you build a culture, you’ve got to develop one.
Kevin Kelly is a bright individual-he knows football in and out, and he can make a strong case to recruits and their parents on the value of a Georgetown education. That can build a team, but it does not build visibility. For six years (and to be fair, much longer than that), Georgetown’s visibility in football outside McDonough Gymnasium has declined to the point where many fans either don’t know Georgetown has a program, or are ashamed to say that it does. Georgetown gets one article a year in the football preview of the Post, and that’s about it. No radio. No TV. No social media.
A skeptic might think it’s on purpose, as if it’s some modern twist on a Monty Python sketch. "In this film we hope to show how not to be seen," it begins. "[First], this is Mr. E.R. Bradshaw of Napier Court, Black Lion Road, London SE5. He cannot be seen. Now I am going to ask him to stand up. Mr. Bradshaw, will you stand up, please?"
The man stands up, and is promptly shot.
"This," intones John Cleese, "demonstrates the value of not being seen."
Thankfully, Georgetown does not hold such grudges, and should not be holding back any of its coaches from standing up for their program, literally or figuratively. More to the point, programs grow on talent, coaching, and success. None come without some basic visibility among recruits and the community at large, something Georgetown Football does not have and does not seem on the verge of embarking upon.
Well, what can Georgetown do to fix this? First and foremost (and I’ll say this without much further comment), it needs a public plan on the Multi-Sport Field. Ten years of hand-wringing and equivocation engender diminishing confidence in anything Georgetown says unless there is a firm commitment to move forward.
Second, football seeks visibility within its own community. The coaches and players have a story to tell, but first, it must tell it better—get the word out about mentoring, community service, leadership on campus. Coaches need to extend a hand at University events, be it orientation, parents weekends, reunion. A little extra effort? Sure, and it’s an hour coaches aren’t spending on the phone with recruits or studying film, but positive public relations pays off across the board. That alumnus in conversation could be the next football parent, the next donor or benefactor. (On disclosure: this is how my modern interest in Georgetown football took off--in 1994, while at Chadwicks, I bumped into former coach Bob Benson and heard the sales talk, the "gold mine" speech. I bought it then, and continue to buy it now. I sent in a check for $50, got a Georgetown Football sweatshirt, and got connected with the program.)
They don’t give out sweatshirts anymore, but I digress.
Third, visibility in the community is essential. Georgetown’s long-held inability to sign local recruits is troublesome, but how do these kids hear of GU in the first place? How many local players see a Georgetown ad in a Metrorail station and say, "Yeah, I’d like to play football there." The University doesn’t have to erect a television tower or buy a radio station to get the word out, because modern communications makes it so much more simpler and cost effective.
Facebook? Yes, but just one post since Oct. 9, 2010.
Twitter? No.
YouTube? No.
Email? Even this could use a second look. Not too many years ago, Georgetown would send a fax out every Monday to fans with scores and stats of Saturday’s game. Sure, the fax machine is about as relevant as a telephone extension cord today, but how do you keep people informed that aren’t plugged into social media or who don’t scour GUHoyas.com (or HoyaSaxa.com)? What the cost of a blast e-mail or text message to alumni, to prospects (within the rules), or to high school coaches by 9:00 am for 11 Mondays in a row? What’s the cost of not doing so?
Visibility doesn’t bring wins, but it’s a prelude to taking advantage of them. People ask me if Georgetown is somehow anti-football as it puts seemingly so little effort into it. I tell them it’s not anti-football, it just lacks the knowledge of what winning football can mean to a community. Eleven straight football seasons will wear out the best of fans, not to mention those who are saturated with the bright lights of men’s basketball nine months of the year. Tell me what Georgetown would be like with eleven straight 20-loss seasons in hoops.
What does visibility bring? It can bring hope. Any coach will tell you that without hope, you start from nothing. I saw it 20 years ago when a former USFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner was hired at Duke and told a group of fans there he was going to build a winning football team there--a huge leap of faith for a school that routinely turned down recruits that got in at other schools, had the poorest facilities in its conference, had posted losing seasons in eight of the last 10 seasons and did not won more than six games in a season since 1962.
Year one, he won five.
Year two, seven.
Year three: eight wins, a win over Clemson to share the ACC title, and a bowl bid.
Yes, Steve Spurrier was then hired away by Florida and in the 21 years since Spurrier left, the Blue Devils have posted 20 losing seasons; yet, the program keeps fighting not because Ted Roof or Carl Franks or Fred Goldsmith or Barry Wilson couldn’t win, but that Steve Spurrier showed them they could.
So it is with Vanderbilt. One winning season since 1982, a combined 13-67 (.162) in SEC action in the last decade, and a stadium that you could place at LSU or Alabama and still be 50,000 seats short of what they have. Oh, and the academics too. What kind of football player would want to go there? Ask James Franklin.
Franklin, a long time coordinator at Maryland who was given the "coach in waiting" title under Ralph Friedgen left for Vanderbilt when officials in College Park looked to Randy Edsall instead. As coaching jobs go, a move from Maryland to Vanderbilt was akin to an ESPN reporter packing up to join the Tennis Channel--a move towards anonymity. Can you name the last Vanderbilt head coach? Or any former Vanderbilt coach?
It’s early, and Franklin hasn’t coached a single game for the Commodores, but the visibility he has added to the Vanderbilt program in just six months should be a case study on how to jump-start a sleeping program.
He’s faced the academics issue first hand. This excerpt from SI.com: "Is it too hard? That's what people use against us," Franklin said. "Don't go to Vanderbilt. It's too hard academically. Well, what are they telling you? What are they saying to you when they say don't go to Vanderbilt because it's too hard academically?" The answer is obvious; in not so many words, Franklin has just convinced a recruit that a competing coach thinks the player is too stupid to succeed at Vandy."
"If you feel that you are the best and the brightest, come prove it with me week in and week out," Franklin said. "If you're afraid of competition, then you'd better not be playing [here]."
He’s already signed the top running back in the state of Tennessee as a junior. "Football is something that's not always promised to you. In the long run, being at a school with good academics is like a win-win situation," said RB Brian Kimbrow.
And he’s getting the visibility message out to donors and recruits. Take a look at this Vanderbilt-produced video and ask what kind of message this sends about getting motivated to play football at this school:
In the end, visibility takes investment. Videos and appearances and promotional materials aren’t free, but their cost is marginal in establishing interest and demand for a product that has atrophied over the last decade. As Georgetown’s budget for football has declined against the economic realities of the sport, it seems a stretch to expect Georgetown to plow large sums of money into a sport which has not moved forward in the public arena to make the case for it. The message and potential of the program has been under wraps for too long.
Kevin Kelly is a bright individual-he knows football in and out, and he can make a strong case to recruits and their parents on the value of a Georgetown education. That can build a team, but it does not build visibility. For six years (and to be fair, much longer than that), Georgetown’s visibility in football outside McDonough Gymnasium has declined to the point where many fans either don’t know Georgetown has a program, or are ashamed to say that it does. Georgetown gets one article a year in the football preview of the Post, and that’s about it. No radio. No TV. No social media.
A skeptic might think it’s on purpose, as if it’s some modern twist on a Monty Python sketch. "In this film we hope to show how not to be seen," it begins. "[First], this is Mr. E.R. Bradshaw of Napier Court, Black Lion Road, London SE5. He cannot be seen. Now I am going to ask him to stand up. Mr. Bradshaw, will you stand up, please?"
The man stands up, and is promptly shot.
"This," intones John Cleese, "demonstrates the value of not being seen."
Thankfully, Georgetown does not hold such grudges, and should not be holding back any of its coaches from standing up for their program, literally or figuratively. More to the point, programs grow on talent, coaching, and success. None come without some basic visibility among recruits and the community at large, something Georgetown Football does not have and does not seem on the verge of embarking upon.
Well, what can Georgetown do to fix this? First and foremost (and I’ll say this without much further comment), it needs a public plan on the Multi-Sport Field. Ten years of hand-wringing and equivocation engender diminishing confidence in anything Georgetown says unless there is a firm commitment to move forward.
Second, football seeks visibility within its own community. The coaches and players have a story to tell, but first, it must tell it better—get the word out about mentoring, community service, leadership on campus. Coaches need to extend a hand at University events, be it orientation, parents weekends, reunion. A little extra effort? Sure, and it’s an hour coaches aren’t spending on the phone with recruits or studying film, but positive public relations pays off across the board. That alumnus in conversation could be the next football parent, the next donor or benefactor. (On disclosure: this is how my modern interest in Georgetown football took off--in 1994, while at Chadwicks, I bumped into former coach Bob Benson and heard the sales talk, the "gold mine" speech. I bought it then, and continue to buy it now. I sent in a check for $50, got a Georgetown Football sweatshirt, and got connected with the program.)
They don’t give out sweatshirts anymore, but I digress.
Third, visibility in the community is essential. Georgetown’s long-held inability to sign local recruits is troublesome, but how do these kids hear of GU in the first place? How many local players see a Georgetown ad in a Metrorail station and say, "Yeah, I’d like to play football there." The University doesn’t have to erect a television tower or buy a radio station to get the word out, because modern communications makes it so much more simpler and cost effective.
Facebook? Yes, but just one post since Oct. 9, 2010.
Twitter? No.
YouTube? No.
Email? Even this could use a second look. Not too many years ago, Georgetown would send a fax out every Monday to fans with scores and stats of Saturday’s game. Sure, the fax machine is about as relevant as a telephone extension cord today, but how do you keep people informed that aren’t plugged into social media or who don’t scour GUHoyas.com (or HoyaSaxa.com)? What the cost of a blast e-mail or text message to alumni, to prospects (within the rules), or to high school coaches by 9:00 am for 11 Mondays in a row? What’s the cost of not doing so?
Visibility doesn’t bring wins, but it’s a prelude to taking advantage of them. People ask me if Georgetown is somehow anti-football as it puts seemingly so little effort into it. I tell them it’s not anti-football, it just lacks the knowledge of what winning football can mean to a community. Eleven straight football seasons will wear out the best of fans, not to mention those who are saturated with the bright lights of men’s basketball nine months of the year. Tell me what Georgetown would be like with eleven straight 20-loss seasons in hoops.
What does visibility bring? It can bring hope. Any coach will tell you that without hope, you start from nothing. I saw it 20 years ago when a former USFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner was hired at Duke and told a group of fans there he was going to build a winning football team there--a huge leap of faith for a school that routinely turned down recruits that got in at other schools, had the poorest facilities in its conference, had posted losing seasons in eight of the last 10 seasons and did not won more than six games in a season since 1962.
Year one, he won five.
Year two, seven.
Year three: eight wins, a win over Clemson to share the ACC title, and a bowl bid.
Yes, Steve Spurrier was then hired away by Florida and in the 21 years since Spurrier left, the Blue Devils have posted 20 losing seasons; yet, the program keeps fighting not because Ted Roof or Carl Franks or Fred Goldsmith or Barry Wilson couldn’t win, but that Steve Spurrier showed them they could.
So it is with Vanderbilt. One winning season since 1982, a combined 13-67 (.162) in SEC action in the last decade, and a stadium that you could place at LSU or Alabama and still be 50,000 seats short of what they have. Oh, and the academics too. What kind of football player would want to go there? Ask James Franklin.
Franklin, a long time coordinator at Maryland who was given the "coach in waiting" title under Ralph Friedgen left for Vanderbilt when officials in College Park looked to Randy Edsall instead. As coaching jobs go, a move from Maryland to Vanderbilt was akin to an ESPN reporter packing up to join the Tennis Channel--a move towards anonymity. Can you name the last Vanderbilt head coach? Or any former Vanderbilt coach?
It’s early, and Franklin hasn’t coached a single game for the Commodores, but the visibility he has added to the Vanderbilt program in just six months should be a case study on how to jump-start a sleeping program.
He’s faced the academics issue first hand. This excerpt from SI.com: "Is it too hard? That's what people use against us," Franklin said. "Don't go to Vanderbilt. It's too hard academically. Well, what are they telling you? What are they saying to you when they say don't go to Vanderbilt because it's too hard academically?" The answer is obvious; in not so many words, Franklin has just convinced a recruit that a competing coach thinks the player is too stupid to succeed at Vandy."
"If you feel that you are the best and the brightest, come prove it with me week in and week out," Franklin said. "If you're afraid of competition, then you'd better not be playing [here]."
He’s already signed the top running back in the state of Tennessee as a junior. "Football is something that's not always promised to you. In the long run, being at a school with good academics is like a win-win situation," said RB Brian Kimbrow.
And he’s getting the visibility message out to donors and recruits. Take a look at this Vanderbilt-produced video and ask what kind of message this sends about getting motivated to play football at this school:
In the end, visibility takes investment. Videos and appearances and promotional materials aren’t free, but their cost is marginal in establishing interest and demand for a product that has atrophied over the last decade. As Georgetown’s budget for football has declined against the economic realities of the sport, it seems a stretch to expect Georgetown to plow large sums of money into a sport which has not moved forward in the public arena to make the case for it. The message and potential of the program has been under wraps for too long.
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