Jim Grobe to Army?

[PhDeac]

Stupid Grobe and his redshirt policy not being applied to Barclay and others cost them an ACC ring.

:-D

Reminds me of something Brad White said on Friday night in Jacksonville during dinner: "This is great, but I wish it was 'THE TIME WAS THEN' instead of 'THE TIME IS NOW.'"

It would have been great to have Plack and Barclay on the 2006 team, but I don't know if we make the Seattle Bowl without them and I don't know if we get the 2003-05 recruits without the Seattle Bowl.

 

[liveanddiedeac]

Stupid Grobe and his redshirt policy not being applied to Barclay and others cost them an ACC ring.

:-D

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame Grobe for playing Barclay as a true frosh, I just wish he'd been on that 2006 team.

 

[TBR]

Yeah, I was probably wrong on that, considering the state of the football program and TBRs comments.

I just don't understand an either/or argument. Football and science should just steer clear of each other. Let them both generate money, and pride for Wake Forest.

I absolutely agree with that, but any ties go academics, and the truth is Wake has a lot of acreage tied up in on-campus athletic facilities. I also see how an on-campus practice field could be a big draw for recruits because it positively emphasizes the small school environment. At the same time, because it's minimally improved and is relatively prime real estate (compared to, say Spry, or the golf facility), it also seems pretty vulnerable. I think you could probably push it further back (into what are now woods) though should that space be needed.

I would guess that, in 15-20 years, there will probably be dorms where the practice field is today.

 

[SDeacz]

Reminds me of something Brad White said on Friday night in Jacksonville during dinner: "This is great, but I wish it was 'THE TIME WAS THEN' instead of 'THE TIME IS NOW.'"

It would have been great to have Plack and Barclay on the 2006 team, but I don't know if we make the Seattle Bowl without them and I don't know if we get the 2003-05 recruits without the Seattle Bowl.

Eh. Steve Hale and Terrence Williams (had he remained healthy) would have done a fine job I think. Calhoun gets us to a Bowl game that year I think no matter what.

 

[SDeacz]

I absolutely agree with that, but any ties go academics, and the truth is Wake has a lot of acreage tied up in on-campus athletic facilities. I also see how an on-campus practice field could be a big draw for recruits because it positively emphasizes the small school environment. At the same time, because it's minimally improved and is relatively prime real estate (compared to, say Spry, or the golf facility), it also seems pretty vulnerable. I think you could probably push it further back (into what are now woods) though should that space be needed.

I would guess that, in 15-20 years, there will probably be dorms where the practice field is today.

and more time to study instead of shuttling over to Groves to practice.

 

[TBR]

Well at any football playing school you've basically got 2 sports, with football being the biggest, supporting all the other sports that you have to have under Title 9 don't you? So even though your entire athletic department is breaking even, the money brought in by football and basketball is a very big deal, am I wrong?

This is true, but we can't have football and basketball without field hockey, women's soccer, women's basketball, etc.

We could theoretically cut some of the men's sports, but I'm 99% sure golf is self sufficient; soccer is probably close, and track and field is probably super cheap. Baseball would be the only obvious low hanging fruit there.

 

[SDeacz]

Reminds me of something Brad White said on Friday night in Jacksonville during dinner: "This is great, but I wish it was 'THE TIME WAS THEN' instead of 'THE TIME IS NOW.'"

It would have been great to have Plack and Barclay on the 2006 team, but I don't know if we make the Seattle Bowl without them and I don't know if we get the 2003-05 recruits without the Seattle Bowl.

Its also very interesting that he burned Barclay's shirt with Tarence, Birgs and Burney all available along with us actually utilizing our Fullback Ovie and Fabian Davis getting a few carries on orbit sweeps as well.

 

[PhDeac]

Eh. Steve Hale and Terrence Williams (had he remained healthy) would have done a fine job I think. Calhoun gets us to a Bowl game that year I think no matter what.

Williams was fantastic, no doubt. I think the sets with Williams and Barclay together in the backfield were key to that season.

 

[liveanddiedeac]

Williams was fantastic, no doubt. I think the sets with Williams and Barclay together in the backfield were key to that season.

Damn I hope Clawson is the guy to get us back to the days I felt good about our offense.

 

[Marietta Deac]

I feel good about our offense...Lobo is gone.

 

[awaken]

I may be wrong, but I'd think Army's facilities are rather, uh, spartan.

 

[Neurodeac]

RGIII winning the Heisman trophy at Baylor, reportedly, earned the school 250 million. http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-fo...rt-griffin-iii-baylor-johnny-manziel-texas-am

If you read further in that article they also state they are building a new stadium. I looked up the price tag. Wanna guess? That's right.... $250 million! Football programs bring in big money but they also spend big money.

Despite all the lists that show football programs break even at best, I'm sure that football increases some revenue for the academic side, but academic monetary benefit would be dwarfed by a good science program that brings in research dollars (the Jet Propulsion Lab at Johns Hopkins brought in $450 million annually by itself back in the mid '80s)

Don't get me wrong, I want a winning football and sports program like Stanford for Wake Forest because I enjoy sports and want that name recognition for my degree, but to sacrifice academic facilities and resources because football brings in so much money is misguided at best.

 

[Lohengrin]

Athletics are the public face of a university. Better to not participate at all than to be pathetic in that pursuit. If you are terrible in sports, routinely, people will tend to believe you're generally terrible in other, academic things as well. Suck at your peril.

 

[PhDeac]

Great post, Neuro.

 

[Neurodeac]

Athletics are the public face of a university. Better to not participate at all than to be pathetic in that pursuit. If you are terrible in sports, routinely, people will tend to believe you're generally terrible in other, academic things as well. Suck at your peril.

Meh... Cal tech sucks at basketball (longest losing streak in history?) but it hasn't hurt their academic reputation. I know what you're saying, but I think most sports fans have an expectation that strong academic schools will suck at sports, despite the handful of examples like Stanford and Notre Dame to the contrary.

 

[Lohengrin]

Cal Tech isn't in a BCS conference. They actually "don't participate".

 

[SDeacz]

If you read further in that article they also state they are building a new stadium. I looked up the price tag. Wanna guess? That's right.... $250 million! Football programs bring in big money but they also spend big money.

Despite all the lists that show football programs break even at best, I'm sure that football increases some revenue for the academic side, but academic monetary benefit would be dwarfed by a good science program that brings in research dollars (the Jet Propulsion Lab at Johns Hopkins brought in $450 million annually by itself back in the mid '80s)

Don't get me wrong, I want a winning football and sports program like Stanford for Wake Forest because I enjoy sports and want that name recognition for my degree, but to sacrifice academic facilities and resources because football brings in so much money is misguided at best.

Great post and I agree. However, I think if football pays for itself, then why would we need to sacrifice academic facilities and resources for football? My point is don't sacrifice football resources for academic goals. And don't sacrifice academic resources for football goals. There are circumstances where money can be used for either or, and in those cases, academics should take priority. But that doesn't mean you neglect giving any to athletic department. A good football team with great facilities has intangible value as I stated before. It raises your brand awareness. The national science fairs don't make prime time TV. Football does.

But we've generated plenty of revenue from football that should pay for decent facilities and yet we don't have them. I could probably guess one of the problems is a head coach making over 2 million and not selling out games. But it should be a priority when funds are available.

 

[Neurodeac]

Cal Tech isn't in a BCS conference. They actually "don't participate".

I know that they are not in a BCS conference but they have gotten national publicity for sucking at basketball at an absurdly low level. The almost universal reaction is not "they must suck at academics too" but instead "Haha, nerds can't play sports, but they'll likely be our bosses and win Nobel prizes".

I think the exact opposite of your premise is true. If an academic institution becomes good at a sport, the almost universal assumption is that they must be compromising their academic standards to do so. We were subjected to that speculation in 2006 and we have accused Vanderbilt and Duke of the same.

I don't point this out to say it is ok to suck at sports, or that we shouldn't strive to win at the highest level. There are great benefits to a university for a winning sports program that is in the public eye. There are also a multitude of negative consequences to losing. I just don't think that losing academic reputation is one of them.

 

[wsc8521s]

I don't think message board rumblings about how easy athletes may/may not have it at certain schools has a significant impact on how a school's academic reputation is perceived.

But hey, maybe that's just me

 

[JKW385]

I've never understood why they never initially built the Football Stadium on Campus when WFU moved to Winston-Salem. Basketball I can understand as teams didn't really play in an arena in the 1950's. Any of the historians know why that didn't happen? Seems like there was plenty of land.