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Will Siena football survive?


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This question is really directed to the Siena guys who sometimes post here. Siena football is 0-10 with a game this week at Florida Atlantic, a team looking for its first 1AA bid and which if the Sagarin system can be believed will be a 70 point favorite. With other northeastern Catholic schools dropping football, and with most Siena Board posters seeming to care only about basketball, does Siena's athletic dept have the resources to maintain its football program?

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As an area sportsfan, I think Siena & probably UAlbany should not waste resources on football programs as should concentrate on bringing basketball programs to higher level to play w/ other respected programs whose main focus is not football (UMass, Villanova, Providence, etc) & will tell you why I think this way as was hopeful UAlbany football program could have elevated to higher level some day. I recently was speaking to some big Syracuse fans re: status of their football program. They were saying that they can't even keep local talent from leaving area for bigger & better programs (quality of stadiums, weather, etc). Syracuse has a pretty good football tradition but future not looking too bright anytime soon. Lets build up UAlbany basketball program as would bring much excitement to area & could be possible. Also lets hope new president continues to go forward in improving athletic profile as would be a real shame if someone comes in w/ agenda not involving continued buildup of athletics.

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I have spoken directly to Ford, Simpson, and the AD. Football will be around forever at Albany. It WILL NEVER be 1A like Syracuse, but it will get to 1AA full scholarship. Probably by 2005.

 

McElroy who played 1A football at UCLA was brought here to upgrade football. He said, and I quote "We are currently interviewing 5 companies as we speak that will upgrade our athletic facilities, ESPECIALLY FOOTBALL." That does not sound like a person who is looking to drop football.

 

As far as tradition, Albany has great tradition in football. They have won several championships over the years. On another note, the teams you mentioned like Villanova and UMASS are football powers. In fact UMASS is going 1A.

 

Anyway, I would hate to see Siena fold their program, but I think its inevitable.

 

 

Go Danes and GO St. Francis!

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Ok first, there is NO talent in the middles of NYS for the caliber of football 'Cuse fans are talking about. Second, Paul Pasquolini has lost his recruiting skills. Third, the 'Cuse doesnt recruit from much of middle NY. There main competitor is BC and they both fight for the same middle of the road NYS talent, NJ and MA kids. Fourth, UMASS HAS AN EXTREMELY STRONG FOOTBALL PROGRAM. Bet your ass if they do well in the IAA playoffs this year they will go IA...budget crunch or not. Fifth, what do you think will happen with the 700k or so that UA spends on football? How exactly will that help hoops? WIll you use that for guarantee money? Sure you would...but who the heck would want to come in to UA to play? Use it for TV or marketing $$$. Hey....you dont need much $$$ to market...you need a good marketer. Plus you dont want games on TV that fans could be attending...that is until we cannot sell out anymore.

 

Now most important. Even my friends in FLA will not confuse us with ALBANY STATE, GA anymore. Most people in this country are football or hoop fans. If you have both, no matter how $ienaty your team is, your school has a sense of legitimacy. UA is 63-25 in the past 9 years. THAT MY FRIEND IS SUCCESS ON A LIMITED BUDGET. Considering SEVEN...yes 7 of those losses came to IAA fully funded (well Brown is the exception...but their grant money is a whole other story) IAA programs...you can say Albany is 63-18 in 9 years. That is not too shabby. You don't dump a program that high profile (though no one comes to games yet...I will give you that...but that happens even at UMASS) for the sake of a few bucks. We are a state school and that requires diversity. While I was against the dropping of sports when we went DI, we should not drop more for the sake of bolstering another (HOOP). Brown can build respectability without it...he has the resources; obviously he had enough money to hire a director of ops (that is usually done only at a big school...and it was also a way to bring on another asst. w/o putting Barnes in the Graduate Coach category that pays him nothing). He has enough money to get out to AAU tourneys and travel to IOWA and CA for recruits. He has a full allotment of scholarship money. He has Wagner coming to town. What would the purpose of dropping football do for Brown and the hoopsters?

 

Now Siena is a different story...they never care and will never care. If it weren't for quality alumni that program would be dead. The minute alumni give up the funding...the program is done.

 

BTW...USING UMASS and VILLANOVA does not help your cause. First UMASS is public and not Catholic. Second, both are top 10 NCAA I-AA fully funded 63 scholarship teams. Howie Long (Nova) and Marcel Shipp (UMASS) are just two names that have worn the unis at their schools. They are powerhouses at their level. Oh yeah...UMASS lost by 13 to Kansas State, NC State by about 20 (I think) and beat Ohio U last year, while Nova regularly hangs with Rutgers, Buffalo, and Temple...who they actually beat to a pulp this year. Now how can you say these two programs do not care about football?

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Why is there so much misinformation attributed to high-level sources on this board?

 

First off, clearly Ruler doesn't have his ducks in a row or understand the process.

 

"Probably by 2005" we will be I-AA Scholarship?

 

Even if the decision was made 1 minute after I post this message, who is to say that the IAA Scholarship level is available to UAlbany?

 

You can't just jump levels, there are approval processes within the NCAA. Also, if you went by 2005, there would be no league to play in. No league would take UAlbany with its current stadium situation, which is not going to be cleared up anytime soon.

 

Stony Brook's stadium ended up costing them $8 to $10 million more than originally planned, according to the reports I read in the papers down there when it first opened. Also, there were quotes from their AD at the time talking about the fact that when he got there, the plan for the stadium had already been in place and was about a 10-year process.

 

Literally, even if they approved stadium financing today, the earliest you would be looking at opening a new stadium would be in 2008, and that would be in a "whip-it-up" four-and-a-half year plan.

 

Concentrate on the now people, concentrate on the now. Speculation will get you nowhere, especially when its grounded in misinformation like many of the posts on this board.

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I guess McElroy lied to my face! Besides he also made the same remarks on Inside The Huddle on local TV this past sat. If you want we can get the video or call into Roger Wylands show. Get YOUR facts straight fool! He is meeting with contractors now! Yeah, thats because he does not have any interest in moving higher. My ducks are just fine, but thanks for your input which is so off point and based soley on jealousy! Just like every other negative football post you have made!

 

Albany's contract with the NEC expires after the 2005 season. Have you ever heard of a 1AA team being independant???? Hofstra was ,Florida International and Florida Atlantic ARE currently! Oh yeah, BTW it didn't even take FIU and FAU a full year to be full scholly, they came out of the gate that way. Just like Coastal Carolina did this year. Albany will follow Hofstra model on the move higher. Why do you think we have scheduled Hofstra, Fordham, and Brown for the next several years? To get the ###### kicked out of us. Use your head fool!

 

 

Get your ducks straight 23K(Klown). Don't worry it will take a least 2 years before football surpasses hoops at the scholarship level. Don't be a football hater! We are going full scholarship in the next 2-3 years. BTW the stadium issue you are referring to only applies to D1A. Just so you know!

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Stop the rhetoric!! Football is important to Albany and Basketball is important to Albany! The University can support both if we stop playing one against the other. We have very good teams in many sports and we no longer have some of the great sports(wrestling, mens golf and tennis, swimming) at the University. Sermon ended--let us support all of the existing teams and try to bring back some of those sacrificed for D-I.

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McElroy ...also made the same remarks on Inside The Huddle on local TV this past sat. If you want we can get the video or call into Roger Wylands show. Get YOUR facts straight fool! He is meeting with contractors now!

 

Albany's contract with the NEC expires after the 2005 season.

 

Actually, the contract with the NEC runs thru 2006.

NEC story

If we have more than 30 scholarships during the last year we'd probably be able to play their schedule but ineligible for the championship, or maybe we redshirt 15 scholarship players.

 

I understood McElroy to say that he's interviewing companies that would define our facilities needs and present options and possible compromises (how many artificial turf fields among football, soccer & lacrosse, field hockey, and practice fields, etc). I heard this should be done by next April. After that would come funding and getting construction bids.

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Dane2K3 and Ruler listen to the "oldtimer" as per his name he has wisdom don't pit football and basketball against each other - they will both be successful in time.

 

If you guys are true Danes you would support all our sports and not slip wedges of dissention between our Marquee teams.

 

I don't sense alot of reason and maturity in your posts.

 

Now the two of you can turn on me and vent - that's fine!!!!!!

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Reading this board I wonder if some of you actually claim to have graduated from Albany. One of you wants to disband football in order to build the basketball team up. In case you didn't know, I think there are 6 DI programs that operate in the black and they all have successful football programs. Now granted Albany isn't packing the house everyweekend, it would be quite foolish to dump a program that has been successful and probably doesn't spend as much money as a failing full scholarship program. Secondly, when is the last time the RACC has been filled to capacity, and by capacity I mean most of the attendees paid. Big Purple Growl doesn't count since half the students there could careless about basketball.

 

Then there's Patch who says we need to support all our teams. Funny, I haven't read a post from you in over a year that talked about the success all our other teams had aside from hoops, football, lacrosse. I think you are the one who says the athletics website sucks, yet had you visited it for a purpose other than staring deeply into Jamar Wilson's eyes maybe you would have noticed how well cross country, volleyball softball, and track have done in the past year and a half. So when you drop the hypocritical attitude then rip on other posters and not ones like Dane2K3 who not once mentioned that he hated the football team.

 

And lastly, you can't snap your fingers and play full scholarship I-AA. #1 there has to be funding, #2 you have to have a stadium. I believe Hofstra closed their stadium so that they could meet the proper NCAA guidelines. And unless you guys are planning on playing SimAlbany, a new football stadium won't be on campus until at least 2006 or 2007. Wait until it is officially approved before you spot off about when Albany should jump to full scholarship or change conferences or dump a sport. Three years in division I and you already have gone to the NCAA tournament once. I don't know many schools that can make that claim.

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Then there's Patch who says we need to support all our teams. Funny, I haven't read a post from you in over a year that talked about the success all our other teams had aside from hoops, football, lacrosse. - Dane Man

 

Dane Man - don't be a moronic poster. If you have followed my posts #1 I am a basketball fan, #2 I support the very good football program and #3 I have posted that I have attended Women's Hoops, Field Hockey, Soccer, Cross Country, Lacrosse and Baseball besides Men's Hoops so before you post your rhetoric atleast make it correct.

 

I post about my true interests. I don't feel compelled to post about every event I attend or what I had for dinner, that doesn't mean I don't consume food.

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And while you bring up some interesting pts. Danefan, you too should think before you speak. One..there is no stadium requirement for football. HOFSTRA DID NOT CLOSE THERE STADIUM EVER. Four of my closest friends played for Hofstra and they never closed it down. The orignal seating capacity was 5000, smaller than UA's 10k. Second, as for the funding, as long as you meet the minimum funding requirements u can become full IAA without conference affiliation. Go do your research. UNC, FAU, ELON, COASTAL, FIU, HOFSTRA, etc. etc. all went about the process the same!

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1.) All you strict readers of my post have it all wrong. Nowhere in the post does it say there is a RULE on having a stadium at the I-AA level. What it says is that no school would go I-AA scholarship without one.

 

In fact, to quote myself:

"No league would take UAlbany with its current stadium situation, which is not going to be cleared up anytime soon."

 

So let's read the posts before we hit reply. The post says, and you can't even claim that it doesn't, that no league would take us with that stadium. And this is the god's honest truth. It's horrible.

 

In fact, I think even if UAlbany decided to petition the NYSPHSAA for entry with that stadium they might get laughed out of the room. (For those abbreviation-challenged posters, that would be the New York State Public High School Athletic Association).

 

2.) Secondly, I'm not going to get into a virtual pissing match with anyone who claims to have information on this site. But I can tell you for a fact that no contactors are being talked to about a stadium plan for football.

 

Go ahead, hit reply, start writing about what you were told by McElroy's mother's sister's maid's daughter. Aside from the people that I have talked to that confirmed for me that this is indeed not the case ...

 

The pure and simple fact is that UAlbany is a state school, and any facility plans have to be filed with the state, as well as the local municipality. Not to mention bids must be solicited for a certain period of time, specifications put out to the bidders, as well as environmental and traffic impact studies conducted for the construction of a stadium (football or otherwise).

 

Call up the UAlbany Facilities department on campus and request the football stadium feasibility study for 2003-04. Then call me back when they laugh at you. It simply doesn't exist. So all this talk about contractors - put it to bed. You're getting the public persona run around kids.

 

3.) "I understood McElroy to say that he's interviewing companies that would define our facilities needs and present options and possible compromises (how many artificial turf fields among football, soccer & lacrosse, field hockey, and practice fields, etc). I heard this should be done by next April. After that would come funding and getting construction bids."

 

That is an intelligent post. However, you need to specify the "after that". If you mean literally next April (2004), that's not going to happen. There is no way a facility plan will be in place by then.

 

If you mean April, 2005 (a year and a few months from now), we can talk. So then we have some sort of plan of what we want. But where do you see this mythical funding coming from? You realize that no one donates money, right? Literally the donations at UAlbany are smaller than virtually all other schools our size. Our endowment is tiny. Faculty are being cut; all of the Campaign money is going to Sematech ($8 million put aside for Athletics, and that is still years away from completion). $8 million! Out of $500 million! What a joke.

 

4.) Who ever said I didn't like the football team? I love the football team. Never missed a game.

 

But we have to be realistic. I know you all get your jollies on dreaming about going big time at UAlbany.

 

But we have to think about where we are now and how to make that the best product possible. And it's not by having a scrimmage with all these new men's basketball players and having about 50 people (to be generous) show up. Good god, if the 40 people on this board (ok, let's say 10 are from Siena so 30 people) each brought a friend to the games, we'd double tonight's attendance.

 

Show UAlbany some love now - stop saving it for years to come when these mythical plans may or may not be in place. I hope they are, but I know they won't be in the next 2-3 years. And until then, bring 3 friends to the game. Get more people signed up on this board. Get more people interested.

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