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Nothing to back this up but on another forum I saw were WJU may be going to D3. It said they were really hurting financially and had the choice of making a decision of D3 or NAIA. The wrestling coach resigned and other moves are being made to decrease expenditures at the school. This could solve our problem of what to do with them about their lack of a football team. The MEC better get proactive about their future membership.
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I really don't want to go into a rant on this but almost all of those rumors are either false or misunderstood.Originally posted by Sportsnut View Post
Wheeling Jesuit is NOT going D3, and we'd sooner go D1 than NAIA. Athletic recruiting subsidizes a good bit of attendance at WJU. Last I checked, somewhere between a third and a half of our students are athletes and most of them would not be able to attend without athletic aid. If we went D3 those athletes would not stay. If went NAIA, we'd lose a lot of our ability to recruit. I know our administration can be idiots at times, but they aren't that dumb that they'd chase away a good portion of the student body.
Now, Doyle did resign as Head Wrestling coach. That is correct but the reason is wrong. He resigned to be the full time director of undergraduate admissions. It's not budget related.
Getting on to budgets and financial issues, they aren't a new story and they aren't really secret either. Jesuit has been trying to cut administrative costs for years. The last recession and poor decisions really did a number on our cash reserves. And a few years ago we finally hired a competent finance guy and removed the president that liked to waste money. Things are slowly starting to look up again. I'm not entirely sure but I think this past year was the first year we didn't have a major deficit. Admissions is finally fully staffed and from what I know, they brought in a large pool of applicants this year and are planning on having a much larger class this year. Additionally, the Diocese is really close with the administration again and promising to support the only Catholic university in the state.
We're finally getting back to being in a good place and we're going to screw it up by running away from D2. -
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Yeah, really close as in the Diocese put $14M into WJU.Comment
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WJU is not moving out of DII anytime in the future.
The University has been making some cost reductions across the board. With the help of the Diocese and Wheeling Hospital, WJU is righting a ship that was led off the rails.
Coach Doyle moved into the Director of Admissions to right the ship there and a new head coach search is underway.Comment
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The only 2 things correct in that whole thread you shared is WJU having financial troubles and the wrestling coach moving to another position, which is director of admissions. All the rest of the rumors and speculation in all those messages are completely not true.Originally posted by FlyHawk98 View Post
I learn new rumors and/or twists to other ones each day. No "high $$ coaches" have been replaced at all and the wrestling coach did not switch positions to stay employed at all.Comment
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Hey now, I was always told if it's on the internet it must be true. No one ever lies or makes stuff up.Originally posted by pennbraz View Post
But seriously, I really don't get some of these rumors about Jesuit, half of them don't make any sense. It's like critical thinking and fact checking died.
Like, if anyone cared to go Flyhawk's link and go through the original poster's post history, you'd see that a few years ago he claimed that his sources told him that Jesuit was starting football. That's just one thing that him and other posters have gotten painfully wrong. That dude is like the stereotypical example we give to high schoolers to teach about "bad sources of info." And on top of that, you should also notice that a few of the things that got brought up over there probably came from some of our older posts here! We were talking about Doyle quitting to become Head of Admissions two weeks a go but now it's because he didn't want to lose his job. Oh come on. And now ya'll are treating it like everything they said is fact but in reality it's a never ending loop of crap.
All we need now to continue the cycle of misinformation is for some beat writer at the intelligencer or wtov to read this forum and then write their own article on this rumor too.Comment
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Unfortunately 'sources' in the media today are far too often message boards such as these ones. That said, there's a real fine line the small-town paper has to walk while covering a local team like Wheeling Jesuit or IUP or any other small town program. The paper needs the school far more than the school needs the local paper. I don't know how much longer many of these small newspapers will survive. The industry is dying pretty quickly. That will spell doom for the already little coverage D2 sports receive. My guess is within 5-10 years these small circulation newspapers will mostly all be gone. 'Coverage' of D2 teams will be seeing a score in the aggregate and boards such as this one.Comment
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Can confirm that WJU is hurting financially. They offered early retirement to all employees and 10% of the entire workforce took it.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quick...heeling-jesuitComment
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At least state the facts correctly...early retirement was NOT offered to ALL employees, but ones that close to being of age to retire, which is a fairly common practice in handling a bit of restructuring of a company or university.Originally posted by Fightingscot82 View PostComment
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When you offer early retirement to 25% of your work force, that is a little more than a bit or restructuring!Comment
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Just saying.....between Wheeling Jesuit and Urbana the MEC better start being pro-active or the conference may die on the vine.Comment
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The "merger" of Urbana with Franklin from a financial standpoint is a good thing for Urbana. Franklin is on solid financial ground and compared to Urbana is very large. Yes, Urbana will "pull down" Franklins financial situation slightly but the positive effect on Urbana's stability will be more dramatic.Comment
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Hopefully whatever Franklin has in store for Urbana is the shot in the arm it needs. UU was a pretty traditional undergraduate college until just a few years ago. Now, they have less than 500 full time undergrads. They claim to have 360 student athletes, so that only leaves about 120-130 others on campus. I hope Franklin can grow that number, but I don't think that is really what they are known for. They seem to be more of an adult night-school type of outfit. Keeping the fingers crossed.
I'm way less worried about Wheeling Jesuit. They seem to have a plan and are working through it.Comment
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Just as other SR1 colleges that are struggling are moving into online adult education as their strategy to close their ballooning budget deficits and declining enrolments, I see Franklins move with Urbana as an attempt to bolster their undergrad program and establish a bigger "brick and mortar" presence. Difference is Franklin is moving from a firm financial base while some of the other schools are working from a financial base that is a bit less firm.
I personally am less concerned now about Urbana than WJU. That said, I'm really not concerned with WJU's "financial condition." They seem to find money to do quite a few things that a truly struggling college probably would not be able to do!Comment
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