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Wyoming Athletics - Crapping the Bed at the Wrong Time

L

LawPoke

Well-known member
While no time is good, having a horrific football season paired with mediocre seasons for basketball (men and women) couldn't happen at a worse time. Memories are short in terms of the MWC Tourney last year and football absolutely destroyed any momentum we had from that run. Between the growing split between P5 and G5, tough times with the state's economy and the state funding for competitiveness hanging by a thread...even a middle of the road year would have helped.

Having heard the banter not only in the halls if the Legislature, but also hearing bile from across the state about how UW is a fat hog compared to the rest of the state...this session and cuts to UW and UW athletics will only be the beginning. Take Nicholas and Brown out of leadership next year and it'll be Katie bar the door! If we don't get some wins, especially in football, and if the new President doesn't make some big changes in terms of leadership and getting her folks out of the ivory tower...Look Out! A good start would be for her to unwind the "Ram thru and thru" statement.
 
This match funding for athletics is going to be dicey.

If the vote was taken today, I bet it wouldn't pass.

It seems to have less to do with what UW athletics has done in the last year or two...really, it's the accumulation of a couple decades of not winning much that has taken its toll. But whatever the truth of all that, it's just tough session in Cheyenne. Every dime is being fought over and, whether anyone likes it or not, every funding decision is being stacked up against every other decision: "How in the hell can we cut $X from A, when we're giving $Z dollars to B?"

Brutal.
 
SnowyRange said:
This match funding for athletics is going to be dicey.

If the vote was taken today, I bet it wouldn't pass.

It seems to have less to do with what UW athletics has done in the last year or two...really, it's the accumulation of a couple decades of not winning much that has taken its toll. But whatever the truth of all that, it's just tough session in Cheyenne. Every dime is being fought over and, whether anyone likes it or not, every funding decision is being stacked up against every other decision: "How in the hell can we cut $X from A, when we're giving $Z dollars to B?"

Brutal.
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Yep, you nailed it.

I received the CJC piece this morning asking me to weigh in with my legislator and hype the importance of athletics to building the whole of UW. How nice would it be to be able to say, "BECAUSE we have won, we have seen a spike in applications of X%"? Instead, we are left to point to our neighbors and say, "PLEASE fund us so we can try to get competitive like Boise and Gonzaga. Don't worry about last year, we promise it will get better." Only we have 30+ years to prove otherwise.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how it came as a surprise to anyone that a basketball team that lost 4 starters from last year and having only 1 senior would struggle so much.
 
fromolwyoming said:
I'm still trying to figure out how it came as a surprise to anyone that a basketball team that lost 4 starters from last year and having only 1 senior would struggle so much.
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Yep, 4th youngest team in the nation.
 
WYCowboy said:
fromolwyoming said:
I'm still trying to figure out how it came as a surprise to anyone that a basketball team that lost 4 starters from last year and having only 1 senior would struggle so much.
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Yep, 4th youngest team in the nation.
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Isn't the fact we lost all of those seniors a direct result of Shyatt's recruiting and red shirting philosophies? He's the one that structured this team over the past 4 years, so any issues with this "young" team fall directly on his shoulders. He has nobody to blame but himself.
 
fromolwyoming said:
I'm still trying to figure out how it came as a surprise to anyone that a basketball team that lost 4 starters from last year and having only 1 senior would struggle so much.
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There certainly are excuses for why we don't win or aren't competitive and the fact we are struggling in basketball is no surprise to most that pay attention to UW athletics (which seems to be fewer and fewer of us). I was just suggesting that this was probably one of the worst times to suck in the profile sports given the national and state landscapes.
 
Sadly, I don't think any success at this point will stop or slow the gap between the P5 and G5. This is the train we're on. Accept it.
 
J-Rod said:
Sadly, I don't think any success at this point will stop or slow the gap between the P5 and G5. This is the train we're on. Accept it.
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In other words, we were screwed long before the horror of 2000-2002 under Vic Koenning.
 
J-Rod said:
Sadly, I don't think any success at this point will stop or slow the gap between the P5 and G5. This is the train we're on. Accept it.
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Fair enough and sadly all too true. I just want to be competitive in the MWC.
 
LawPoke said:
Fair enough and sadly all too true. I just want to be competitive in the MWC.
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That is attainable. Wyoming can still succeed and please fans, but the dream of being in the same sentence as college football's blue bloods is over. The P5 is actively trying to drown G5 schools with money power. We've got schools paying DCs $1.5 million now. Insane.

Goal is to focus on Wyoming and ignore others. Continue to invest. But yeah, it's time to judge Wyoming in comparison to its peers. The P5 are not our peers.
 
It is a bad time. I wish I knew how to solve it.

What are the lobbying rules? Can I set up a table outside of JFC with a booth explaining how athletics work and why (politely) the legislature should support it?
 
What drives me crazy is that half of the people bitching about 8 million dollars in matching fund are the same idiots that are championing the idea that UW can be a "Tier 1" research school. They say UW can't compete, drop down to FCS, athletics means nothing, blah blah blah. I hate to break it to you guys but it would be easier and cheaper for UW to compete with the SEC than for us to ever compete for NSF dollars with the likes of any Tier 1 research school. These morons are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on the high bay building with oil at 20 bucks a barrel. They are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on a new engineering building which NOT ONE department will be relocating to. No, the new engineering building will be for all these new hotshot "Tier 1" hires. They love building a new 80 million dollar building for the "Science Initiative" so that a couple cry baby departments can move closer to Old Main and away from the east side of campus. We have near the same enrollment as we had in 1990, but we have added 50% of the square footage to this campus since then. But no let's get all worked up about 8 frickin million dollars that will be matched dollar for dollar by CJC. Let's investigate which legislators have given money to CJC. Heaven forbid the people of Wyoming have something to cheer for.
 
elfletcho said:
What drives me crazy is that half of the people bitching about 8 million dollars in matching fund are the same idiots that are championing the idea that UW can be a "Tier 1" research school. They say UW can't compete, drop down to FCS, athletics means nothing, blah blah blah. I hate to break it to you guys but it would be easier and cheaper for UW to compete with the SEC than for us to ever compete for NSF dollars with the likes of any Tier 1 research school. These morons are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on the high bay building with oil at 20 bucks a barrel. They are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on a new engineering building which NOT ONE department will be relocating to. No, the new engineering building will be for all these new hotshot "Tier 1" hires. They love building a new 80 million dollar building for the "Science Initiative" so that a couple cry baby departments can move closer to Old Main and away from the east side of campus. We have near the same enrollment as we had in 1990, but we have added 50% of the square footage to this campus since then. But no let's get all worked up about 8 frickin million dollars that will be matched dollar for dollar by CJC. Let's investigate which legislators have given money to CJC. Heaven forbid the people of Wyoming have something to cheer for.
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+1
 
elfletcho said:
What drives me crazy is that half of the people bitching about 8 million dollars in matching fund are the same idiots that are championing the idea that UW can be a "Tier 1" research school. They say UW can't compete, drop down to FCS, athletics means nothing, blah blah blah. I hate to break it to you guys but it would be easier and cheaper for UW to compete with the SEC than for us to ever compete for NSF dollars with the likes of any Tier 1 research school. These morons are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on the high bay building with oil at 20 bucks a barrel. They are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on a new engineering building which NOT ONE department will be relocating to. No, the new engineering building will be for all these new hotshot "Tier 1" hires. They love building a new 80 million dollar building for the "Science Initiative" so that a couple cry baby departments can move closer to Old Main and away from the east side of campus. We have near the same enrollment as we had in 1990, but we have added 50% of the square footage to this campus since then. But no let's get all worked up about 8 frickin million dollars that will be matched dollar for dollar by CJC. Let's investigate which legislators have given money to CJC. Heaven forbid the people of Wyoming have something to cheer for.
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*insert fire emojis* Good post.
 
elfletcho said:
What drives me crazy is that half of the people bitching about 8 million dollars in matching fund are the same idiots that are championing the idea that UW can be a "Tier 1" research school. They say UW can't compete, drop down to FCS, athletics means nothing, blah blah blah. I hate to break it to you guys but it would be easier and cheaper for UW to compete with the SEC than for us to ever compete for NSF dollars with the likes of any Tier 1 research school. These morons are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on the high bay building with oil at 20 bucks a barrel. They are ok with blowing 100 million bucks on a new engineering building which NOT ONE department will be relocating to. No, the new engineering building will be for all these new hotshot "Tier 1" hires. They love building a new 80 million dollar building for the "Science Initiative" so that a couple cry baby departments can move closer to Old Main and away from the east side of campus. We have near the same enrollment as we had in 1990, but we have added 50% of the square footage to this campus since then. But no let's get all worked up about 8 frickin million dollars that will be matched dollar for dollar by CJC. Let's investigate which legislators have given money to CJC. Heaven forbid the people of Wyoming have something to cheer for.
Click to expand...

And so the nail meets the hammer, and sparks fly.

Also, why is the state freaking out so much now? I thought them being so bloody careful with the budget and having a "rainy day account" was so they could actually have money when times like these came around?

Maybe it'd also be a good time to start looking at finding new revenue streams as well. Oil may or may not rebound in the near future, but coal is likely on the way out - especially now that coal plants are increasingly being replaced by Natural Gas ones.
 
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that someone mentioned that this proposed budget STILL has them putting millions of dollars into the rainy day fund.
 
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