College and the demographics cliff

Some schools just don't need to be Division I.

 

A lot of schools don't need to be D-1, including a bunch that have moved "up" in the past 20 years.

 

Good thing Lindenwood started a Division I men's hockey program. They started DI women's hockey as a Title IX counter to football, then the men's club coach seems to have convinced the school to start a varsity program. They're 13-40-5 in two seasons, and just fired the coach. Twenty-five percent of the program's wins have come against Stonehill, which also just moved its hockey program to Division I. They couldn't draw flies if they were dead for a week and the program is likely hemorrhaging money. But they're in Division I - in every sport! Who needs to further the academic mission of the university when we can have Division I sports?

And yes, I do think there is educational value in college athletics. But that doesn't mean every school needs to be in Division I.

 

NPR's 1A did a show on college closings this morning. They said that currently there is a college closing every week.

 

Didn't realize Lindenwood had canned Rick Zombo. Former Blues defenseman. Was pretty popular. Seems like he's coached at just about every amateur level possible in the STL area.

 

So many have moved up. So few have actually achieved anything at the lower levels that suggested they deserved the promotion.

 

He was in wayyyyyy over his head. I think he really believed that coaching NCAA Division I hockey would be no different than coaching the club program. I give him credit it for selling the administration on having the program and building it from the ground up, including putting together a relatively tough schedule the first year.

But if you're the coach of a program that the administration views as a revenue sport (even if it isn't), you've gotta win, and Zombo wasn't anywhere close to getting it done.

 

Two years is very long. Whatever.

 

Methodist has a thriving professional golf management program, which is a big deal for their athletics department. They're very competitive at the DIII level and churn out a bunch of PGA professionals, we have plenty of Methodist alums working at courses in Virginia.

 

For 10 years, Lindenwood had a billiards program that they were trying to make a model for what other schools could emulate. It wasn't an NCAA sport obviously, but you got a partial scholarship and competed against other schools (Purdue and Michigan being two of them). The program was starting to gain traction but they started to dismantle it when the economic problems started at Lindenwood five years ago, then stripped it down to a club sport only during COVID.

 

St. Aug's managed to get its accreditation back, staving off the rapid spiral of death of not being able to accept students getting federal financial aid.


St Augustine's University reinstated as accredited institution

 

Old Tulane joke: What does the N in UNO stand for? Nowledge!

School slashing jobs, athletics budget by 25%.

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/...dles/289-f1d5ff84-72f7-4c17-8583-bc652ed530b6