G-MAC All-Sports and Conference Business Thread

[BlueBlood]

The G-MAC is being progressive with mens bowling. They sponsor it, but the NCAA doesn’t sanction it (at least not yet).

[unc4life]

I know this probably wont move the needle but Ashland is adding Men's and Women's bowling starting next year. I'm not sure why more colleges haven't added Bowling yet. Bowling has becoming increasingly popular especially in Ohio were it is now and OHSAA sponsored sport with state championships. On a side not Ashland High school has a very good Bowling program that will be sharing the same facility. Great recruiting source.

[BlueBlood]

I think the above is one of the key reasons the G-MAC schools banded together. At a small private school, your Athletic Department isn't just about sports - It very well may be the number one enrollment driver at the school. I guarantee you the president of a small school is more concerned about how many seats an Athletic Department fills than if they won the conference in a sport.
It's not a coincidence that the G-MAC sponsors so many sports. Schools are adding bowling teams and lacrosse teams and men's volleyball teams. Several are now offering esports teams. Some have club rugby. A couple have equine teams. Each of those is an enrollment driver. D3s are doing the same thing. Even small D1s are doing it (there is a reason that the NEC sponsors more sports than the SEC does). Don't get me wrong - I still think every AD is trying to create winning teams and culture. It's just not the only thing they have to worry about. And playing other schools that are juggling the same things helps.

[BlueBlood]

Lake Erie at 649 is crazy. Do they have anyone at the school that doesn't go there to play a sport?

According to the DOE records, 438 of the 649 are student athletes. Of the remaining 200, many are in LEC's Equine Studies program - which has 3 different riding teams.

LEC is not alone in this by a long shot. There are a ton of small schools who are keeping the lights on due to student athlete enrollment.

I'm pretty in tune with this right now, as I've had a senior graduate 3 of the last 4 years. I started noticing that almost all my kids' friends were going to large, well-known schools. A few were going to community college first. The friends that went to small/obscure schools were going there to play a sport. Once you see the pattern, it's obvious.

The bottom line is that if HS kids' dreams of playing college sports ever fade, a lot of small schools are in big big trouble.

[unc4life]

Lake Erie at 649 is crazy. Do they have anyone at the school that doesn't go there to play a sport?

[kdubnation]

KWC's enrollment has been in the 650-950 range ever since I was a student there from 1997-2001 and probably for quite some time before.

[BlueBlood]

[Uindy18]

I periodically check the enrollment numbers reported to the Dept of Education. As you can imagine, schools try to publicize the biggest enrollment number that they can. Usually, it's a case of the school advertising a number that includes part time students (many of which may only take one class). The Dept of Education tracks full-time undergrad students at the school (which is really the backbone of most schools). The difference between a school's advertised undergrad number and what they report to the DOE can be pretty dramatic. For instance, now defunct Urbana advertised that it had 1500-1800 undergrads for years. Meanwhile, the DOE only showed around 400-500 full time undergrads. It turns out that Urbana had a program with the local high schools that allowed kids to get college credits for a class they took at their high school. Did Urbana have 1500 students? I guess. But realistically, 1100 of them were high school students taking a class in their HS and not really adding to the vibrancy of campus. When Urbana closed, they had less than 500 full time students and almost all of them were student athletes. I'm not picking on Urbana - literally every school (including yours and mine) tries to make their enrollment number appear as healthy as possible to the outside world. So, with that said, below are the most recent numbers from the DOE for G-MAC schools. Remember that an athletic department often accounts for 300-600 students.

Ashland 2205, Cedarville, 3521, KWC 815, Lake Erie 649, Malone 848, Northwood 1358, ODU 851, Findlay 2138, Tiffin 1607, TNU 1679, Ursuline 519 (women only), Walsh 1522. Future Member Thomas More has 1322.

There are some pretty low numbers in there. Remember that an athletic department often accounts for 300-600 students. KWC and LEC have been in that ballpark for a while and seem to have rested there. If anything, their numbers might even be slightly up from where they bottomed out a few years ago. Malone's and ODU's numbers have definitely plummeted.

The DOE numbers are always a little delayed - so it's likely that these numbers are from the height of COVID. But even without COVID, it's still dangerous times out there for small schools.

Ya, enrollment numbers can be tricky, especially in the world of online students. Urbana is probably a good example with a few hundred on campus, and the rest of the 1500 were probably online students from Franklin University (they were the final owners of the school and have a heavy online presence)

[BlueBlood]

I periodically check the enrollment numbers reported to the Dept of Education. As you can imagine, schools try to publicize the biggest enrollment number that they can. Usually, it's a case of the school advertising a number that includes part time students (many of which may only take one class). The Dept of Education tracks full-time undergrad students at the school (which is really the backbone of most schools). The difference between a school's advertised undergrad number and what they report to the DOE can be pretty dramatic. For instance, now defunct Urbana advertised that it had 1500-1800 undergrads for years. Meanwhile, the DOE only showed around 400-500 full time undergrads. It turns out that Urbana had a program with the local high schools that allowed kids to get college credits for a class they took at their high school. Did Urbana have 1500 students? I guess. But realistically, 1100 of them were high school students taking a class in their HS and not really adding to the vibrancy of campus. When Urbana closed, they had less than 500 full time students and almost all of them were student athletes. I'm not picking on Urbana - literally every school (including yours and mine) tries to make their enrollment number appear as healthy as possible to the outside world. So, with that said, below are the most recent numbers from the DOE for G-MAC schools. Remember that an athletic department often accounts for 300-600 students.

Ashland 2205, Cedarville, 3521, KWC 815, Lake Erie 649, Malone 848, Northwood 1358, ODU 851, Findlay 2138, Tiffin 1607, TNU 1679, Ursuline 519 (women only), Walsh 1522. Future Member Thomas More has 1322.

There are some pretty low numbers in there. Remember that an athletic department often accounts for 300-600 students. KWC and LEC have been in that ballpark for a while and seem to have rested there. If anything, their numbers might even be slightly up from where they bottomed out a few years ago. Malone's and ODU's numbers have definitely plummeted.

The DOE numbers are always a little delayed - so it's likely that these numbers are from the height of COVID. But even without COVID, it's still dangerous times out there for small schools.

[BlueBlood]

Just saw that Wilberforce University (right down the road from Cedarville) will be taking Thomas More's place in the NAIA Mid-South Conference. This surprised me a bit, as Wilberforce has less than 500 students and is not necessarily a "complete" athletic department. The Mid-South is traditionally a pretty solid NAIA conference - and Wilberforce does not seem to fit the MSC mold (1800-3500 student church-affiliated schools that have football). Upon further digging, it appears that the MSC is also losing two other schools (in addition to Thomas More). I've always viewed the MSC as one of the stronger and stable groupings of NAIA schools. With the recent developments, it seems like there might be some cracks developing in the MSC. Just something to keep an eye on, as there are a few MSC schools that are very G-MAC-like.

[BlueBlood]

[kdubnation]

I like the add from a KWC perspective. Any quality school we can add that's physically between us and most of the other members is a win on this end.

[BlueBlood]

My final comments on the Thomas More addition (at least for now).

Based on posts, I probably like this addition more than most posters on here.

I like getting the G-MAC into the Cincy metro. I think there is big potential there for both TMU and the G-MAC. The G-MAC is now in the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincy metros (plus Nashville). I like that they help close the gap (a little) to TNU and KWC. Their NCAA III violations do not concern me at all. I read up on what they did. It was nothing egregious at all - they actually got in trouble for being caring/humane. I also like that they sponsor every single G-MAC sport - they have a lot of the lesser sports that the G-MAC needs numbers for: wrestling, M/W tennis, M/W golf, M/W bowling, M/W lacrosse, etc. Anyway - I'm good with TMU.

[BlueBlood]

[BlueBlood]

Nice coverage from the Cincinnati Enquirer.