College and the demographics cliff

[John]

RIP Birmingham-Southern College.

https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/birmingham-southern-college-closing-its-doors-may-31/

For those of you that have ever covered games at Legion Field, this is the private school with the fenced off campus just west of the stadium. That's a ton of soon to be vacant property in an already depressed part of town.

I remember covering Birmingham Southern in a baseball regional in Athens 20 years ago, I think right around the time they announced they were leaving Division I. I guess things never got better after that.

 

[dixiehack]

A president or two back they had a guy who spent like a drunken sailor and never fully recovered, although they were diligent in cleaning up as much of the mess as they could.

Last year the state legislature pashed a loan guarantee program for them to take advantage of, which I wasn't wild about. But the way they wrote it left the state treasurer in charge of approving and distributing funds and he told BSC to Pish off, allegedly because he has a grudge against the bank that was to be involved in the transaction. I really didn't care for him superseding the clear will of the legislature, but the bill to fix it apparently got lost in the weeds on Goat Hill.

 

[franticscribe]

St. Aug's in Raleigh is teetering and I doubt will be open much longer. They had their accreditation pulled by SACS a few weeks ago over financial mismanagement and are fighting it. Meanwhile, the food service company hasn't been paid in so long that they're stopping work at the end of this week and the university is kicking students off campus/switching to online learning for the remainder of the year.

Former HBCU president talks about the fight Saint Augustine's faces in trying to stay accredited

 

[UPChip]

One private school in Michigan, Finlandia, closed about a year ago and several others are teetering, including Concordia University.

Two of the Concordias - in Wisconsin and Ann Arbor - have a combined governing board, and the universities are running a combined $9 million deficit. There's been a lot of talk on the Ann Arbor campus recently about what could happen, including selling buildings, cutting staff , separating the two schools' governance or eventually closing, though it will remain open through the 2024-25 school year. Selling buildings will be a challenge on such a small campus.

The Ann Arbor campus added several sports, including football, in the last several years in a successful attempt to increase enrollment, but I wonder how much of that effort is draining the university's overall budget. The football team has had a successful run, including a win over NCAA Division II Wayne State (of Detroit) in 2023, but at what cost? It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out.

Public universities in the state also have taken major hits, namely Eastern Michigan (my alma mater), Central Michigan and Michigan-Flint.

Both of my kids graduated from the local community college debt free. They had the grades to get into four-year schools, but didn't want to be saddled with student loans that help pay for things they don't care about, like football teams.

To make it an official U.P. threadjack, Finlandia was located in Hancock, just across the Portage Canal from Michigan Tech. I was in that market when they tried to double down on the whole athletics-as-recruitment-tool thing by starting a football program (which is kind of hilarious considering they had 400 students at the time). They had five wins and four head coaches in seven seasons. Other than hockey, FU's problem was always a conference. The only time anyone ever wanted them was to make up the numbers, and even then only if they were desperate. They have been somewhat respectable from time to time in a couple sports, women's basketball, men's hockey, softball, but all the factors mentioned here plus geography killed them. Finlandia was the only D-III school for four hours in any direction.

The closest thing they might have had to a peer, Northland College in Ashland, Wis., is similarly on life support. Northland focuses on environmental subjects and said they needed $12 million by the end of the month to avoid closure at the end of the school year. Could be a real blow for that region, which would then have no four-year higher ed in northern Wisconsin other than Wisconsin-Superior.

Cardinal Stritch, a NAIA school in Milwaukee that died last year, is another one you can add to your list.

 

[I Should Coco]

UP threadjacks always welcome here, UPChip!

On the other end of the Upper Peninsula, I can't imagine Lake Superior State is doing too well enrollment wise.

 

[Woody Long]

UP threadjacks always welcome here, UPChip!

On the other end of the Upper Peninsula, I can't imagine Lake Superior State is doing too well enrollment wise.

It's all gone downhill at Lake State since Frank "Standsalone" Anzalone left (the second time)...

 

[UPChip]

It's all gone downhill at Lake State since Frank "Standsalone" Anzalone left (the second time)...

You could argue it was going downhill well within that second tenure. There were players wearing sandwich boards around campus to drum up support.

 

[Woody Long]

You could argue it was going downhill well within that second tenure. There were players wearing sandwich boards around campus to drum up support.

One of the worst personalities I've ever had to deal with professionally...

Last I heard, he was living in Johnstown, running hockey clinics and occasionally scouting.

 

[Big Circus]

This wasn't the thread I expected to find reference to the Roanoke Express coach of my youth.

 

[Cosmo]

I remember covering Birmingham Southern in a baseball regional in Athens 20 years ago, I think right around the time they announced they were leaving Division I. I guess things never got better after that.

They were in the Big South when I first started covering Liberty sports in the mid-2000s. Had a decent basketball program at the time.

 

[dixiehack]

They were in the Big South when I first started covering Liberty sports in the mid-2000s. Had a decent basketball program at the time.

Duane Reboul is one of the best coaches people never heard of. Won two NAIA titles and guided the Panthers into Division I with barely a hiccup. Even won a share of the Big South once. When the school announced it was dropping to D-III (they wanted to add football in order to boost male enrollment), he refused to continue coaching the team but made them honor his contract by continuing to employ him in the PE department.

One of the players he coached at BSC is Bucky McMillan, the whiz kid who just signed another extension at Samford. He has Reboul on staff as a special ashistant.

 

[Liut]

This wasn't the thread I expected to find reference to the Roanoke Express coach of my youth.

One-time owner of the Express, John Gagnon, was a piece of work. A few years later, I heard he ran afoul of the Feds and fled to the Dominican Republic.