St. Cloud State may cut football

[jackrabit1]

Interesting article from the St. Cloud Times about one of our former NCC rivals. Sad, but at the same time it makes me glad that we're moving forward with our athletic department and not backward.

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100...tball-the-boot

[propar80]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

Interesting article from the St. Cloud Times about one of our former NCC rivals. Sad, but at the same time it makes me glad that we're moving forward with our athletic department and not backward.

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100...tball-the-boot

This is sad, but not surprising for this alum. I called Morris Kurtz, SCSU's AD, out a long time ago.
They might as well cut all the sports at SCSU besides Men's and Women's Hockey, because that's all he cares about. Talk about the complete wrong direction for this school. Instead of being the biggest NCC school and going D-1 with the rest, 8 years later they're talking about putting the axe to the football team and begging the NSIC to keep them without a football team.
The ONLY way this athletic dept. ever saves face with this alum, is if by cutting the football program they plan to jump to D-1, and getting rid of FB was the only way to do it(ala, Marquette, Horizon league schools, etc). But I guarantee this line of forward thought is not remotely close to reality in St. Cloud. What a mess.

I vividly remember going back to St. Cloud to play in the "Huskey Sportstacular Golf Event" in 2004 and asking Morris when SCSU was going to move up with SDSU/NDSU/UNC. He just laughed and asked me if I really thought SDSU...in Brookings SD nonetheless...can really support a d-1 program?
Right there, I was just glad he wasn't running the ship in Brookings and just how lucky SDSU was to have the Administrators they had in place at that time of unknown transition.


Go Jacks!!

[zooropa]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

I'm sure that the bosses at the U of M are happy to have a man of such vision in charge at SCSU.

[ozzie679]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

Is it normal for a DII to have six athletic directors that make a combined $428,000?

[zooropa]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

Is it normal for a DII to have six athletic directors that make a combined $428,000?

There's your shortfall right there.

[Nidaros]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

This is sad, but not surprising for this alum. I called Morris Kurtz, SCSU's AD, out a long time ago.
They might as well cut all the sports at SCSU besides Men's and Women's Hockey, because that's all he cares about. Talk about the complete wrong direction for this school. Instead of being the biggest NCC school and going D-1 with the rest, 8 years later they're talking about putting the axe to the football team and begging the NSIC to keep them without a football team.
The ONLY way this athletic dept. ever saves face with this alum, is if by cutting the football program they plan to jump to D-1, and getting rid of FB was the only way to do it(ala, Marquette, Horizon league schools, etc). But I guarantee this line of forward thought is not remotely close to reality in St. Cloud. What a mess.

I vividly remember going back to St. Cloud to play in the "Huskey Sportstacular Golf Event" in 2004 and asking Morris when SCSU was going to move up with SDSU/NDSU/UNC. He just laughed and asked me if I really thought SDSU...in Brookings SD nonetheless...can really support a d-1 program?
Right there, I was just glad he wasn't running the ship in Brookings and just how lucky SDSU was to have the Administrators they had in place at that time of unknown transition.


Go Jacks!!

Obviously, this fellow does not have much vision. What will become of the brand new football facility if fotball is droppred? The right guy running the program could make a winner out of football. Seems like the last guy to make it work was Randy Hedberg, who is now one of Dan Lennon's assistants at SIU. Finally, having six assistants seems a little excessive on the surface, but you certainly could do some tirming in that area.

[Prairiehaas]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

This must be a poorly considered ploy to get donars to pitch in. A school with a 20k student body should be able to raise $500k with a bake sale strategy. Raffling chances on free tuition for one class at $25 per should do the trick.

Seems to me SCSU should consider dropping the ADs instead of the sports.

[MikeHenriksen]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

Keep in mind this is part of a $14 million cut across the board at St. Cloud. There are those that tell us that this is just the first Minnesota school to announce the problem, but they will not be the last. The real culprit here is the funding for colleges at the state level.

As for DI, that is never going to happen at a State school in Minnesota or Nebraska. In each of those states there is one school, and only one, that determines that. DI Hockey is a bone that was thrown in the smaller schools direction. This MAY change if there is a change at the NCAA level, where the top 120 or whatever schools form their own, new organization, or reorganize a new "Top of the NCAA" for those with budgets over $30 million. But until then, Minnesota and Nebraska will always have just one DI institution, and they will be located in Minneapolis and Lincoln.

[Prairiehaas]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

As was hinted at below, perhaps this is a spending issue and not a funding issue?

[Nidaros]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

Obviously, this fellow does not have much vision. What will become of the brand new football facility if fotball is droppred? The right guy running the program could make a winner out of football. Seems like the last guy to make it work was Randy Hedberg, who is now one of Dan Lennon's assistants at SIU. Finally, having six assistants seems a little excessive on the surface, but you certainly could do some tirming in that area.

I thought someone would chime in on the facilities that were recently acquired for football. These were built after SDSU left the NCC. I know some former players on this board recall a real mess for facilities before the new staduim was built. It really makes you wonder about the use of state funds to build a new staduim and then drop the sport.

This is link to their offical website and not the best photo of their new facility but looks pretty good from a distance.

http://www.stcloudstate.edu/athletic...es/default.asp

Some of the SCSU fans on D2 Football used to comment of the beauty of the new facility and the view of the Mississppi River.

BTW SCSU is picked finished fourth in the NICS. Seems like a waste to drop the sport, but I suppose it will have a great soccer facility.

[Nidaros]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

Keep in mind this is part of a $14 million cut across the board at St. Cloud. There are those that tell us that this is just the first Minnesota school to announce the problem, but they will not be the last. The real culprit here is the funding for colleges at the state level.

As for DI, that is never going to happen at a State school in Minnesota or Nebraska. In each of those states there is one school, and only one, that determines that. DI Hockey is a bone that was thrown in the smaller schools direction. This MAY change if there is a change at the NCAA level, where the top 120 or whatever schools form their own, new organization, or reorganize a new "Top of the NCAA" for those with budgets over $30 million. But until then, Minnesota and Nebraska will always have just one DI institution, and they will be located in Minneapolis and Lincoln.

Could this explain the Eric Eidness departure from SWMU?

[JimmyJack]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

I attended the St. Cloud State vs. Augie game yesterday.

I'm told that the St. Cloud coach was telling everybody he ran into that the decision has already been made to drop football.

By the way, it was my first time at Kirkeby-Over Stadium. That place is unbelievable. It has to be the best D2 stadium in the country. Also, Tyler Schulte could play for SDSU. He took over that game and has all those intangibles that great players have.

[Prairiehaas]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

St. Cloud State presented options today ranging from cutting no sports, to cutting football only, to cutting four minor sports. The minor sports proposed for the chopping block include women's nordic skiing and men’s golf, tennis, and swimming and diving.

I took a quick look at the proposals on the St. Cloud State web site. There was a summary of the affects of the cuts to the budget. This alos included some estimates of increasing revenue through increased fees and fundraising.

What surpised me in the estimates is that a 20,000 student university is expecting being able to increase fundraising by between $100k and $200k only. That seems low for a school this size.

[SturgisJeff]

Re: St. Cloud State may cut football

womens nordic skiing? near as I can tell there are only 39 or so schools with that and amazingly none are in florida or texas.