<p>Bay, where should I send you a check?</p>
<p>jk</p>
<p>My D is in the UCLA Marching Band, and for the past couple years has had to be back on campus on the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend to practice for the big USC-UCLA game, which is always on that Sat. So she gets a one-day Thanksgiving. We live in L.A.,so she was able to come home for that one day. But lots of the band members are not from close by. It would have been nice if the football team at least provided a Thanksgiving meal for the band kids. After all, the band is much better than the football team!
That being said, I have no problem with a self-supporting football program or athletics in general. It brings school spirit and a high profile as well as money to the campus. There are multiple intelligences, and athleticism is one of those. But as we have seen with the Penn State scandal, things can get completely out of whack. I don’t see that happening at UCLA, however. Football is just part of campus culture, not the be all and end all. </p>
<p>And I think staying in hotels before games is par for the course, to mix my sports metaphors.</p>
<p>The University of Maryland just announced they would be cutting the following athletic teams in July: Men’s cross country, indoor track, outdoor track, tennis, swimming and diving teams, as well as the women’s acrobatics and tumbling, swimming and diving, and water polo teams. The decision affects about 166 athletes and 12 coaches.</p>
<p>"A university commission charged with reducing the $4.7 million budget deficit in the athletics department recommended the cuts. The Athletic Department’s cumulative deficit is anticipated to rise to about $8.7 million by the end of the 2013 fiscal year without action by the school. </p>
<p>What we have here is a case study in the true priorities of big NCAA member institutions. Except for men’s tennis the teams being cut have some of the Maryland athletic program’s highest graduation rates. Ninety percent for men’s cross country and track. Fewer than half of the Maryland men’s basketball players and fewer than sixty percent of football players graduate. </p>
<p>But football and basketball are “revenue sports”; their income subsidizes all the other sports. So they were spared, even though they also account for the vast bulk of the athletic department’s costs, in the form of the football team’s 85 scholarships, head football Coach Randy Edsall’s $2 million salary, and men’s basketball Coach mark Turgeon’s $1.9 million annual pay. </p>
<p>The justification for these salaries and scholarships is that you can’t make money unless you win, and you can’t win unless you pay for the best coaching and playing talent. Yet revenue from men’s basketball and football has been declining for years. </p>
<p>(Part of the reason the Athletic department has been losing money is due in part to a $50 million expansion of Byrd Football Stadium completed in 2008.)</p>
<p>The teams MAY be spared if they are able to raise eight years’ worth
of operating expenses = about $30 million = between now and June 2012." (“Maryland’s plan to cut 8 varsity teams shows its true colors” Washington Post)</p>
<p>Not feeling the love or the need for the U-Md football team, at least, to be spending money for anything BUT a Motel 6 right now.</p>
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<p>I wish more athletic departments were self-supporting. Unfortunately it’s not always the case. What upsets me most is those who claim that “drama departments aren’t supposed to make money” and then turn around and say “the football team is losing money!” </p>
<p>They both support the university and its overall cause. They just have different ways of going about it.</p>
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<p>Impressive performance on Saturday night, congrats to you and your D.</p>
<p>Even though the dorms at UCLA were open over the Thanksgiving break, the dining halls were closed. It makes sense to put them in a hotel, and ensure they got a good night sleep and were well fed. That being said, they looked pitiful yesterday.</p>
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<p>Oh please. Do you USC/UCLA people have any clue how tiresome, pointless and boring your rivalry is to everyone else, and how stupid it makes you look?</p>
<p>What USC-UCLA rivalry? As far as I know there hasn’t been any rivalry in football recently. Since 2000, UCLA has won once.</p>
<p>PG,
I thought you were the queen of not caring what other people think. :)</p>
<p>It certainly is interesting for a USC person to start an anti UCLA football program, hotel and California public school rant right after USC defeated UCLA 50-0 . Wasn’t the beatdown enough?</p>
<p>“The University of Maryland just announced they would be cutting the following athletic teams in July: Men’s cross country, indoor track, outdoor track, tennis, swimming and diving teams, as well as the women’s acrobatics and tumbling, swimming and diving, and water polo teams. The decision affects about 166 athletes and 12 coaches.”</p>
<p>They have no educational value. Only football (and basketball) have educational value. If they had educational value, the university would be providing them with funds.</p>
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<p>FACT 1: The football and basketball programs at Maryland supply the programs, you prefer, with desperately needed funds. </p>
<p>Fact 2: Your favorite programs could not function at the level they do without the financial contribution of the UMD athletic programs.</p>
<p>Fact 3: Your argument is a zealot’s conundrum.</p>
<p>Washington Post, “Maryland Athletic Cuts only Answer to an Overdrawn Account” :</p>
<p>“Back in the days when the economy was booming and everyone seemed to have money - remember that? - former athletic director Debbie Yow was adding seats and suites to Byrd Stadium (the football stadium), additions no one but the most optimistic thought the Terps could sell out. She was betting on a bright future for the football program than never really materialized.”</p>
<p>Baltimore Sun:</p>
<p>“Maryland’s budget woes were years in the making. The commission cited revenue declines in football, men’s basketball, fundraising, and other areas. It also cited unsold luxury suites at Tyser Tower, part of Byrd Stadium. The tower, completed in September 2009, has been a financial disappointment.”</p>
<p>Any Maryland team spending money on unneccessary hotel rooms, at this particular moment in time, when other athletic teams and coaches are being cut, would send a terrible message.</p>
<p>Now it’s USC/UCLA issues moving to Maryland issues. East Coast vs. West Coast. I like it!</p>
<p>"It certainly is interesting for a USC person to start an anti UCLA football program, hotel and California public school rant right after USC defeated UCLA 50-0 . "</p>
<p>I’ve been a Calif taxpayer for a heck of a lot longer than the parent of a former USC student[ now alum], who did not choose USC because of its football team btw, so dont make assumptions you know nothing about. There are USC “people”, who could care less about sports, believe it or not. There are lots of reasons to like USC these days that have nothing to do with its athletic record. And as I mentioned earlier, I could care less about that particular rivalry. The timing of my post had nothing to do with the reason for the post. I started this thread after arriving back home from LA last night. The UCLA team could have been playing any team- that’s not what matters. It could have been the Cal team that we saw in that hotel for that matter. But apparently the concept that it might NOT be a good idea to spend $$ on housing a Public U football team in the swankiest hotel within 50 miles, while forcing huge tuition increases on its student body, is too hard a concept for some to grasp.</p>
<p>I’m a Virginia taxpayer,menloparkmom, and we have our fair share of issues in Virginia but am happy with our schools. VT just beat UVa 38-0. Not pretty.Have had one kid at each school. Viginia has had cutbacks as well with colleges . Older very high stat kid got lots of mail and email from USC encouraging him to apply but a private school in California was not our cup of tea. Glad it worked out well for you. I would imagine the athletes at both USC and UCLA are working hard .All the best.</p>
<p>and by the way, I think USC’s football program got what it had coming to them when they were hit with NCAA sanctions. The arrogance of the former coaching staff, thinking they would not be caught “helping” Reggie Bush , was disgusting. Carrol may have a been a great coach, but those recruiting abuses happened under his watch.
Both I and my hubby were rooting for the Stanford team in the only USC football game I watched this year. Does that sound like someone who cares about USC football? I think not.</p>
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<p>But not for the band members, apparently. They could just roam around the “half-empty dorms” someone else described and forage for their own food. Common decency would suggest that the football program do SOMETHING for them, out of its millions of dollars of revenue, since it is putting its precious players up at a nice hotel and providing all of their meals. Maybe a dinner? Maybe some meal vouchers?</p>
<p>No,it does not sound like you care about USC football winning,menloparkmom. But it certainly sounds like you continue to have an axe to grind somewhere where California teams are concerned.</p>
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<p>You appear to be confused. LACs are not the only schools that are supposed to teach the Liberal Arts. To begin with, the Liberal Arts consist of a lot more than just Fine Art, Drama, Music, and the other humanities. Math, Science, Languages, History, Social Sciences, etc. are all Liberal Arts.</p>
<p>LACs teach the Liberal Arts, mostly at the bachelors degree level. Universities also teach the Liberal Arts plus technical and professional majors such as Accounting, Nursing, Engineering, etc. And they also award doctorate and professional degrees. For a university to not teach any Liberal Arts or place no priority on them would be laughable, especially a comprehensive university like the University of California. Even Caltech teaches the humanities in addition to to is heavy Math (a liberal art), Science (another liberal art), and Engineering (not a liberal art) curriculum.</p>
<p>So to suggest that UCLA has no priority or responsibility to teach the Liberal Arts is simple nonsense.</p>