There really is no honor among tweed | The Boneyard

There really is no honor among tweed

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I sit back on this myopic sports stuff and laugh. In the current climate of huge budget cuts, these presidents are thinking one thing: don't bother me with this minor part of the budget, just stop bleeding cash. What? You say. The TV networks want to corral the most profitable teams into 4 conferences? Good. How much they paying? $15 million per. Good. Then we don't have to subsidize you anymore. And if we don't get in, maybe all the bleeding and irrelevancy will eventually allow us to go the way of Hofstra and Boston U.!!

That's what the presidents are thinking. And I don't blame them. Bigtime sports aren't important enough for them to risk the health of their university. If someone else wants to subsidize their bigtime sports program, then they will be more than happy to let that happen. You can't go on year after year losing $20 million.

Dennis Dodd doesn't see this.
 

The Funster

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It's comforting to know that our institutions of higher learning have developed a rational plan to cut up the dollar pie with it's constituent universities rather than snatching and grabbing with little thought to the long term ramifications.

/sarcasm off
 

ctchamps

We are UConn!! 4>1 But 5>>>>1 is even better!
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I sit back on this myopic sports stuff and laugh. In the current climate of huge budget cuts, these presidents are thinking one thing: don't bother me with this minor part of the budget, just stop bleeding cash. What? You say. The TV networks want to corral the most profitable teams into 4 conferences? Good. How much they paying? $15 million per. Good. Then we don't have to subsidize you anymore. And if we don't get in, maybe all the bleeding and irrelevancy will eventually allow us to go the way of Hofstra and Boston U.!!

That's what the presidents are thinking. And I don't blame them. Bigtime sports aren't important enough for them to risk the health of their university. If someone else wants to subsidize their bigtime sports program, then they will be more than happy to let that happen. You can't go on year after year losing $20 million.

Dennis Dodd doesn't see this.
When it comes to buying a house, I'm sure he offered the owners double the market value. And when he sells his house, he offered it for 1/2 the market value. He certainly would be unique doing it. Not many people choose to make deals that "cheat" themselves. So is he saying every person in this world that has tried to get the most monies from their job, their savings, their investments are greedy? Or are they being prudent?

There is no way to define greed, because each and every one of us has different standards and different rationales for our self worth.

If we have a 1550 sq foot home we think the guy who has two homes of 5000 sq feet is greedy. But we don't look at the 80% to 90% of the people who live in shacks with less than 250 sq feet.

Personally I hate to see the BE being ripped apart. I'm not happy that an institution will make the decision based on relatively small gains relative to their overall finances. But I'm not privy to their budgets. They could be struggling and facing program cuts. I would support a move if this were the case. On the other hand if they took the extra monies created and increased their salaries, I would asked the boards to remove them. Thats just my opinion because that leadership would have crossed my line regarding fiduciary responsibility to an institution. That opinion is not based on some sort of higher moral values. It's just where I stand on these issues.
 
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When it comes to buying a house, I'm sure he offered the owners double the market value. And when he sells his house, he offered it for 1/2 the market value. He certainly would be unique doing it. Not many people choose to make deals that "cheat" themselves. So is he saying every person in this world that has tried to get the most monies from their job, their savings, their investments are greedy? Or are they being prudent?

There is no way to define greed, because each and every one of us has different standards and different rationales for our self worth.

If we have a 1550 sq foot home we think the guy who has two homes of 5000 sq feet is greedy. But we don't look at the 80% to 90% of the people who live in shacks with less than 250 sq feet.

Personally I hate to see the BE being ripped apart. I'm not happy that an institution will make the decision based on relatively small gains relative to their overall finances. But I'm not privy to their budgets. They could be struggling and facing program cuts. I would support a move if this were the case. On the other hand if they took the extra monies created and increased their salaries, I would asked the boards to remove them. Thats just my opinion because that leadership would have crossed my line regarding fiduciary responsibility to an institution. That opinion is not based on some sort of higher moral values. It's just where I stand on these issues.

Every school in America is cutting back, cutting programs. Even profitable programs are getting cut.
 

ctchamps

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Every school in America is cutting back, cutting programs. Even profitable programs are getting cut.
But if they are like the banks, corporations and governments, I would suspect salaries of top officials get increased even as they are laying off people or cutting programs. This is the behavior most people are objecting with. Even increases in coaches salaries during these times leaves a lousy taste with lots of people. Certainly it can be justified or rationalized by some supporters of coaches. But when times are bad, people look at things with hypercritical eyes.
 

intlzncster

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Every school in America is cutting back, cutting programs. Even profitable programs are getting cut.

Why are profitable programs getting cut if institutions are indeed struggling? It's not about money?
 
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But if they are like the banks, corporations and governments, I would suspect salaries of top officials get increased even as they are laying off people or cutting programs. This is the behavior most people are objecting with. Even increases in coaches salaries during these times leaves a lousy taste with lots of people. Certainly it can be justified or rationalized by some supporters of coaches. But when times are bad, people look at things with hypercritical eyes.

Most have salary freezes. Now, I think schools could save a lot more money by getting rid of efficiency experts that waste our time constantly with useless forms. Trust me, we're not purposely out to waste copy paper in the copy room. But that's a whole other story. The coaching salary thing has been a problem for awhile. In general, athletic department budgets are sacred cows. I think presidents, though, may be afraid of their own shadows at this point because even pro sports franchises are not getting much sympathy. Billionaire Ralph Wilson recently came to our county asking for a handout for the Bills, and I was mildly surprised to see so many locals up at arms over the Billionaire crying poor.
 
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Why are profitable programs getting cut if institutions are indeed struggling? It's not about money?

Because these are state institutions that realize you can cut student choices and herd them into options they don't want, and you'll still have a customer base even if down the road your school loses a bit of its reputation. So cut profitable programs and herd students into either rock-bottom essential programs or else "more" profitable programs. It's kind of like what Netflix is doing. It's getting out of the DVD by mail service even if it is still showing a profit there. It's margins are smaller and it wants to show investors that it's still a fast growing company. So it slices off a profitable wing of the company. Sometimes these decisions backfire (it's backfiring on Netflix now).

Besides, if everyone is cutting, it's more unlikely that you'll be leapfrogged. As the President of Cal said to this year's incoming class, "You're going to be paying double for a lesser education than your predecessors received."
 
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