What did we get in return for eliminating baseball?

[Bobber]

Considering our budget, it was a good move. Vandevelde is the fall guy for it, but JP is pretty smart and he has not brought it back for a reason.

I'm sure if a donor was willing to give 100 million to bring it back, ISU would step up to the plate, but funny I have't seen any donations like that lately.

 

[benjay]

oh I almost forgot: baseball sucks. Keep the money in the football program.

 

[leg4cy]

Plus the Big XII has a pretty good baseball division so it's not like we could easily come in and be successful.

False. The Iowa Juco programs are some of the BEST in the NATION! There is no reason why ISU cannot field a competitive team talent-wise. It's all about the facilities and a committment to making it a successful team. The feeder programs are there. Iowa Central, Iowa Western, Indian Hills, etc. To not have baseball at ISU is an embarrassment plain and simple.

 

[coachdags]

I thought you needed the Money to pay for the big contact for Larry E.......?

 

[kingcy]

It was said at one time it cost like $1 million a year for baseball (I think that is right). To bring it back a new staduim needs to be built, around the football field would be best and they would need someplace to practice. There was nothing better in college than going to the baseball games or sitting on my front porch, having a beer, and listening to the ting of the bats.

 

[CYdTracked]

Baseball was too expensive to keep is what I think was the reasoning. Pollard has been asked several times and he said we need about $1.5 mil a year again if we wanted to bring it back so it's not high on the list at the moment with all the improvements. He did say that if someone came forward with the financial commitment to fund it he'd bring it back immediately.

I hated to lose baseball but the bottom line was no one really cared about it until it was taken away.

 

[jbhtexas]

What we got was the embarrassment of being one of only a handful of schools in the major conferences that don't play one of the most popular sports in the USA. Sugar-coat it all you want, it's a big 'ol black eye on the prestige of the ISU athletic department.

 

[CYdTracked]

Well if I win the powerball tonight I'll put up some of the money for this. I have to split it 8 ways though if we do win so I can't commit the whole bill else I can't retire yet but hey it's a start! :wink:

 

[CYdTracked]

Sorry guys, didn't win the PB tonight. Best ticket was 2 numbers.

 

[besserheimerphat]

Oregon State has captured the NCAA baseball championship for the last two years.

I think that arguement had to do with the climate allowing for more practice or games in the early spring and/or late fall. The weather in western Oregon is much milder in Feb/March/April and Sept/Oct/Nov than it is in Iowa.

 

[cybsball20]

When baseball was cut it was costing around $250,000 a year. Vandy said it would take a surpluss of 2mill to fund it for four years because he would have to divide it among some other sports as well... We asked why we weren't givin time to raise the money and he didn't answer. An hour after the meeting we had pledges to keep baseball going for 20 years, he wouldn't take a meeting. Now that baseball is gone it will cost ALOT more to bring it back. THere is no way you can bring it back to Cap Timm and expect to be competitive.

The weather excuse is about the lamest there is. Since Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas decided to make a commitment to baseball they have been consistantly finishing in the top half of the conference while traditional southern teams have struggled. Just looking at the latest rankings you have teams like Wichita St, Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky, Oregon St, and Louisville all in the top 25. Other northern schools like Old Dominion, Rutgers, Seton Hall, Boston College, Notre Dame, Minnesota have all shown you can compete despite the cold weather. In fact, the weather used to be a huge advantage. When you have Texas A&M coming to Ames the first weekend in March, you think they want to be there? We certainly didn't mind. Recruiting also isn't a problem if you commit to it. Iowa has a huge advantage in it's JUCO recruiting base. Those who know baseball know that JUCO baseball works alot differently than other sports. ALOT of elite players would rather go JUCO to keep their opetions open as they can be drafted every year. The class Iowa State had coming in for 2002 was projected 3rd in the Big XII behind only Nebraska and Texas.

All that being said, it would need a huge commitment, probably an intitial commitment of at least $8 mil. We would need a new stadium to at least be competitive with the top half of the big 12.

Here are some pics of K-State's field, which would be a good model to follow as far as facilities...

Some Other Big XII Parks
Baylor

Texas

Texas A&M

Oklahoma

 

[cy1225]

Pollard said he was bringing it back when he took the job....

Baseball was too expensive to keep is what I think was the reasoning. Pollard has been asked several times and he said we need about $1.5 mil a year again if we wanted to bring it back so it's not high on the list at the moment with all the improvements. He did say that if someone came forward with the financial commitment to fund it he'd bring it back immediately.

I hated to lose baseball but the bottom line was no one really cared about it until it was taken away.

Pollard said when he was hired he was going to bring baseball back. He also said he was going to enclose the south end zone. Both were greeted with great fan fare. Thus far 3 years into his tenure neither has happened.

Of course when he made this satement one month into his new job the football team was coming off a bowl win and headed to their 5th bowl game in 6 years. The men's basketball team had just come off a 2nd round appearance in the NCAA Tournamamnt.

Where are both programs now?

 

[jdoggivjc]

Re: Pollard said he was bringing it back when he took the job....

Pollard said when he was hired he was going to bring baseball back. He also said he was going to enclose the south end zone. Both were greeted with great fan fare. Thus far 3 years into his tenure neither has happened.

Of course when he made this satement one month into his new job the football team was coming off a bowl win and headed to their 5th bowl game in 6 years. The men's basketball team had just come off a 2nd round appearance in the NCAA Tournamamnt.

Where are both programs now?

Wow - sour grapes have we?

Have you checked cyclones.com lately? The plans for enclosing the south endzone are not only there, but last I heard have been approved by the regents (or at the very least phase one has been approved).

Our football team is on track to at the very least be more consistent than it's ever been, quite possibly BE better than it's ever been. So we had a 3-9 season last year. Those things happen when you install a brand new system that not a single player has ever played before.

As for the basketball team, it was gutted after Morgan's firing. There has been marked improvements near the end of years one and two for G-Mac.

It's amazing to me how so many people are willing to settle for the mediocrity of the Bruce Vandevelde era - as if we can't do any better. Personally, there were some good years during that era, but it was clear the athletic program as a whole was in a nosedive. In most cases you have to get worse before you can get better, and most of the time the best fixes are not ones that occur overnight. I'd rather have the next 2-3 years be "slow growth" years where we gradually improve instead of having immediate success and then having to deal with the same repercussions of "quick success" that we had to endure during the BVDV era. I'd much rather reload every year than have to rebuild every 3-4 years, but we're not going to get to the "reload" phase unless our programs are built the right way now. If that means I have to sacrifice our next 2-3 seasons in order to ensure great seasons for the next 6-10 years, so be it.

 

[mclatch]

The reason we lost baseball was purely political. If you remember the timing the Iowa State Legislature had just cut the budgets for the Universities. (And when I say “cut” I mean they gave the University an increase in budget but gave them a lower percentage increase than the Democrat controlled Legislature had been giving them. That’s what “cut” means in government lingo).

The administration at the time (I think Seagrave was the interim President) had a pity party and decided they’d make a public stink. I know they asked the Dean of the Library for help. She came to the staff and asked for ideas of ways to trim our budget and specifically asked for ideas that we would be able to make public so that Legislature would be under pressure if they tried to “cut” again the following year.

One of the first things they did was cut baseball which was a win/win for the University as they were able to get the public ticked off while pointing the figure at Des Moines. At the same time they made progress with Title IX that they could point to if there was ever to be any legal involvement.

As someone pointed out, public funding was there to keep the team for at least another 4 years. Ev Cochrane was one of the biggest supporters - pledging close to a million dollars if I remember right. But they would hear nothing of it because of this political stunt.

And systematically that spring and summer, the University weekly fed the press with stories of how the budget cuts where hurting the Institution. One week it was that the Library could not support all the public workstation. Another week it was that Durham would no longer be open 24 hours a day. Etc…

 

[CycloneWanderer]

I was able to listen and talk to Pollard at a dinner last year and one of the first questions asked was about bringing back baseball. He said he would love to bring back baseball but with the current renovations planned it would probably be a few years until he would be able to start that process. On another note, he was an extremely impressive speaker.

 

[CYdTracked]

The football project is underway, they have the plans set to bowl the endzone in. That doesn't happen overnight...

As for baseball, Pollard has NEVER given a deadline to bring it back. The closest things are the thing I mentioned above and another time frame of hopefully within 10 years but he's never said it will be back by year X. I really see this as an opportunity if people really want baseball back as bad as everyone claims they do you'd think we have enough wealthy donors or businesses that combined could fork over the $1.5 mil a year it takes to have baseball. Since that hasn't been done that just justifys that the demand for it is not as great as everyone seems to think it is. No one even went to the games or cared much about it until they said it was going away.

 

[cybsball20]

According to Vandy the only Title 9 issue was that they couldn't cut a women's team, we were already complient. You have to have 6 (I think) men's sports to be considered D1 so they couldn't cut track because that counts as 3 (indoor, outdoor, cc). They couldn't cut golf because there were some big boosters that were personally vested in it. They couldn't cut Wrestling because, well, it's Iowa...

 

[ISUboi12]

Cybsball20, out of curiousity how hard is it to make roster on a D1 baseball team? I had a friend who wasn't the greatest wrestler but he walked on at ISU and he was a body that could be used for practice. I just wondered if baseball used walk-ons in the same fashion (I'm certain I wouldn't get any playing time, but I am not bad). I will be going to grad school at a D1 university which is about the same level competitively that I expect ISU was when it had its program.

 

[cybsball20]

I really see this as an opportunity if people really want baseball back as bad as everyone claims they do you'd think we have enough wealthy donors or businesses that combined could fork over the $1.5 mil a year it takes to have baseball. Since that hasn't been done that just justifys that the demand for it is not as great as everyone seems to think it is. No one even went to the games or cared much about it until they said it was going away.

The money is already there to be donated to run Baseball for at lest 20 years. Pollard won't accept it untill the other projects are completed though, unless they also want to donate to those projects...

 

[sodakjoe]

Title IX my friends..... Title IX. Time to hate the NCAA again. You have to have equal amounts of scholarships given to men and women. Therefore.... no more baseball. Unless we didn't offer scholarships, which is why it is a club team now.

NCAA Gender Equity and Title IX

This isn't exactly correct. Title IX stipulates that you must give out scholarships in consistent proportion to student enrollment. This means that if your student body is 60% female, 60% of your scholarships must be allotted to female athletes. Because Football takes so many scholarships, usually schools will end up having more sports for females, but the number of scholarships is usually correct.

The REAL reason we don't have a baseball program is because it was a money sucker. Attendance was low, and when it came time to cut things for the budget, the baseball program made the most sense. The costs of keeping the program were too high.