Questions and Comments We've Received

May 21, 2003

As a freshman I was a bit surprised to see the lack of school spirit Tulane Students have for our athletics. I believe that removing our division I standing would only further this problem. I also think that many of the student athletes that Tulane attracts would go elsewhere to pursue intercollegiate athletics. This would have take away the little diversity and unity that Tulane has. I believe that we should remain in Division I and work harder to boost the student support of athletics. Thank You

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I will be a senior at Tulane next year. I think chnanging the athletic program is a rediculous idea. Almost all division one programs lose money. But that is not the point. The point is that the athletic department provides fun, interesting and wholesome activities for the students. Furthermore, I would not have come to Tulane if it was not a division one school, and I can garuntee I am not the only person who feels this way. Without a division one athletic program Tulane will be taken off the map. There will be a less quality and quantity of applicants. This will result in a dropping in national academic ranking, which I think is the opposite of the goal set forth by this change. Please do not do this.

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I think Tulane would be a good fit to be the first Ivy League school of the south. If you are going to move down, try the Ivy League. There is some pretty good company there that would not hurt Tulane to be associated with.

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Dear Rick et al:

Before the committee elected to postpone its decision on Division I, who considered the adverse impact of this campaign on the quality of athletic recruits for years to come? How can Tulane football, baseball, tennis, etc. currently recruit top tier talent from the best high school student athletes in the region (forget country for now) with this threat of termination looming over the entire program?

This issue has been handled poorly by the University. It has meted out information. I has allowed the "consideration" to go too long, and now to be postponed. Some speculate the delay is a fundraising device.

Before lone, we will have embarked on a self-fulfilled prophecy. For example, given the actions of the ad hoc committee, why would Rick Jones stay at Tulane for the long haul? Is loyalty a one way street at Tulane? Jones recently declined an offer at a top tier program. Who believes that offer will be his last?

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I'm a fan of football and women's basketball.

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A faculty member wrote and said we lose many kids to schools such as Emory, a school continuously cited as an example in favor of dropping divisions. However, I'd have to say Emory probably loses just as many or more kids to Tulane. I think Tulane's "complete package" is more appealing to many kids. I have met many students this year who chose Tulane over Emory (to the dismay of some of their parents), even though they are ranked, I believe 18, well above our ranking of 43. Most people are willing to sacrifice a slightly better academic reputation for a better overall experience inside and outside the classroom. The same writer also mentioned all the foreign imports on the tennis team. I think this is a good thing; America's too much of an island without enough interaction w/the rest of the world, so it couldn't hurt to have classmates from Europe etc... Also, congrats to the 6 baseball players who recieved recognition today and good luck in the tournament tomorrow.

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I am a current Tulane student and I think it would be okay for us to be a division 3 school. I did not choose to go to Tulane based on its athletic program, but on its academic programs. Most of my friends have never attended an athletic event and we do not plan on attending any in the future. Those who have attended, go to see friends from our competing schools and not to watch our team. Our own athletic alumni is not giving anything back to the program to speak of (or else this situation would not be an issue), yet they did not feel the slightest bit guilty taking advantage of the money and treatment that Tulane gave them. The rest of us are paying a large tuition and therefore contribute to the school. I read another email where someone wanted students to buy mandatory season tickets. Asking students to pay even more to go to Tulane will not encourage more students to come to school, and those of us already here are working hard to pay for what we can. I attend a full-time class schedule, work on-campus, and do community service on the weekends. An athelete does community service, at the same school I once did community service in, to avoid a term paper, and he gets an award. Somehow, I think asking me to pay more money to help him out is a slap in the face. If moving down to Division 3 will benefit all of Tulane the best, then I am sorry for the athletes but I think that is what should be done.

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After reading some of the responses to Tulane's most recent decision to evaluate its continuing status as an NCAA Division I spots participant, I decided that it was time to provide my comments to the discussion. I see merit in both sides of the argument. Like many other respondents, I have followed Tulane sports since my childhood as my mother is a Newcomb graduate. Some of my earliest memories are of Sunday morning sports stories about horrific defeats suffered by Green Wave teams at the hands of Ole Miss and LSU. Nonetheless, we persisted in our loyalty. I was fortunate enough to have been in Tulane Stadium in December of 1973 the night we broke the long dry spell against LSU and while it was not even in my top ten memories of my career at A&S or the Law School, It did feel good. With that as a preface, I understand the desire of so many to keep the athletic programs in Division I.

On the other hand, those who scoff at persons who would like to scale down sports programs must realize that many critics of Division I sports offer some valid concerns about continuing to compete in major college sports I think most of these come down to limited resources and integrity. As to reaources, more in a moment. As to integrity, every year we hear about some program or another buying athletes, or some athletes not even going to class. As a native Mississippian, I am always apprised of the dirty rumors going about Ole Miss or Mississippi State because fans of each love to tell stories about the other. Sadly, a few may be true. Each of us who remembers the Tulane point shaving scandal of the 1980's possibly became the butt of many jokes around the office. (One guy I knew used to refer to my school as the Tulane Crime Wave. This from a guy who went to Mississippi State). The jokes weren't funny, they hurt, and I was not pleased that my school was caught up in such an awful mess. My other alma mater, Northwestern University had to air some dirty laundry a few years ago about its football team so it is not simply a problem of southern sports. People who are critics of big time college sports have some important things to say and generally I think they care about the University as an educational institution. Sometimes rabid sports fans forget why it was that we went to college at a place like Tulane in the first place. It was not for conference-winning, top-ten, national championship sports teams.

So now that I have established myself as a muddled moderate on this subject, I think a few matters need to be considered by all of us as our school moves toward what may be an historic decision on athletics. Here are a few of these:

Do not expect deficits to go away if we move to Division III. When was the last time you heard of a Division III football game bringing in as many as 15,000 fans? This does not happen. I live in a town with two Division III programs and one plays a few blocks from my house. People do not pay money to go to these games unless they have a relative playing and must attend as a family obligation. Regardless, If your school is going to field a team, and no paying fans show up for the game, the University is going to have to pay the bill from its general fund. The result is a deficit. So all of the folks who think that dropping down to Division III is going to cure our financial deficits are most likely mistaken. While it is possible that our deficits will be smaller, I think it reasonable to assume that these programs will not make money, and that we will have deficits in Division III.. One person mentioned that it would be nice to be in a conference with Washington University and the University of Chicago. I would like Tulane to be in a league with U of C and Washington U in more ways than one, but somehow I see this neither as a way to eliminate a sports deficit, nor as a way to become more like them as universities.

Do not expect the sports program to become an instant mecca for scholar athletes if we move to Division III: For those who believe that sports become pristine below Division I, I think you are mistaken . For a long time I have heard of, and actually know of cases where football players in Division III schools received "academic scholarships" Their grades and test scores made them no more worthy of "academic scholarships" than the average members of their class. They received these scholarships for being jocks. That does not sound like integrity to me. Often this does not go unnoticed at these schools. I have several friends who used to complain about guys who played football for teams that no one cared about, who were average students, but had half-scholarships while better students had to work part-time to make ends meet. Expect this to happen on Willow Street when Tulane is playing Rhodes College rather than Texas. Some of you will say this is what is happening now only the athletes are on full scholarship. Under the current program we at least call these scholarships what they are, "athletic scholarships" and occasionally we get a truly gifted player who is worth watching. Patrick Ramsey comes to mind immediately. I do not think we will see players like him if we go to Division III, but we will have to foot the bill for having whoever it is we get.

A major problem for Tulane Athletics is Conference USA: If we choose to stay in Division I some careful study of our current conference is in order. CUSA is undoubtedly a good basketball conference, but for other sports, it is sadly second-rate. I also think some of their academic programs are dubious (With the exception of Tulane and Army, none of the schools are competitive universities) If we are going to continue to play big-time sports, we are going to have to find a way to play teams that fans will care about and come out to see. I do not know about all of you, but I just do not care about East Carolina and Southern Mississippi. I cannot help but miss the days when we played good schools like Standard, Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech, and good football schools with tradition like LSU and Ole Miss. CUSA teams fit in neither category. Even the WAC would be a better conference for Tulane than CUSA. At least there we could play Rice, La. Tech, and SMU. As I recall, 37,000 came to see us play football against La. Tech in 1998. That was about 7,000 more than came to see USM. In 1996 when we fell apart against Rice, we had about 38,000 in the Dome. When did ECU or Louisville bring in that many?

We might need to consider the possibility of dropping football entirely: It is not uncommon to have a sports program without football. Several places do this. Generally football programs cost the most to operate. At a few schools, football makes money for the entire athletic department, but it appears to be our greatest athletic black hole. While i have pulled for the Greenies since childhood, I would rather see us keep our top notch baseball and tennis teams and do without football if the choice came to that.

In reading the responses of my fellow Tulanians, I feel proud to share this forum with so many people who had thoughtful comments on the state of sports at Tulane In only one case did I fell that a comment was entirely misguided. One person offered the suggestion that eliminating sports would somehow reduce diversity on our campus and that that was a sound reason for retaining Division I membership. I would inform this person that athletes were not the first persons make Tulane a racially integrated, diverse university. That task fell to some very talented students. I had the good fortune to have known some of the minority students at Tulane in the '70's" who were not athletes but were making the school proud by going on to law school, grad school, and medical school. You do not have to have sports to have diversity. You do need talented students from all backgrounds who believe that education is the ultimate goal of a collegiate life well lived I think Tulane can find these students if we are in Division I, Division III or no division at all.

I only hope that our Board of Administrators will carefully consider all options for athletics and not just the radical solution of dropping to Division III or the inertial course of staying with the current program. I think both are flawed.

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As a prospective parent of a Tulane applicant, we would not be considering Tulane if it were not for the sports offered by a D-1 school. Emory is on our list for a D-III school, but Tulane is on top for now!!!!!!!!!!Please don't change from D-I.

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