How the system works

[SINGLE MALT]

I was coaching at SFU when we transitioned to the GNAC and once the Canadian Universities heard about us moving, they went nuts and tried to not give us a schedule and then would not allow us to be in the playoffs by forcing us to forfeit wins over a clerical mistake!! They will never allow SFU back in their league!!

[tsull]

So true!! The easiest thing for any administrator to do is to say,"NO!!" It requires no thought, no further work, nothing! They just hope that the problem, such as they see it, will go away and they need not do any more work!! No Fundraising, no hiring coaches, no financial expenditures on equipment or travel for a large team of players. No trying to feed a large group of big men on the road!! No more responsibilities! What they neglect to see is the huge gains in the life of these young men and in the university population as a whole!! I have always believed that the football field is the largest classroom of any institute of learning, be it High School, College or University!! It is probably why at an age rapidly closing in on 70 years that I am still coaching, albeit now at the High School level. You cannot tell me that Football does not enrich the learning experience of the young men who play the game! Currently at the school that I am proud to be coaching at, Vancouver College, the 2019 AAA B.C. Champions, their school motto includes the idea that you will leave the school a Better Man and Football is a key component of achieving that goal. Every year our football graduating Seniors are on the Honour Roll or the President's List (requiring an academic average of 90%+). Football Does Make Better Men!!

Great stuff, Single Malt. Glad you're still in the game. Very impressive what your football program is doing. Major props.

Have a feeling SFU is going to go the Canadian football route, wouldn't blame them. Small college football in the states on the west coast is a mess ... especially in California, which in reality is one of my favorite states. It's just not my favorite football state.

[SINGLE MALT]

So true!! The easiest thing for any administrator to do is to say,"NO!!" It requires no thought, no further work, nothing! They just hope that the problem, such as they see it, will go away and they need not do any more work!! No Fundraising, no hiring coaches, no financial expenditures on equipment or travel for a large team of players. No trying to feed a large group of big men on the road!! No more responsibilities! What they neglect to see is the huge gains in the life of these young men and in the university population as a whole!! I have always believed that the football field is the largest classroom of any institute of learning, be it High School, College or University!! It is probably why at an age rapidly closing in on 70 years that I am still coaching, albeit now at the High School level. You cannot tell me that Football does not enrich the learning experience of the young men who play the game! Currently at the school that I am proud to be coaching at, Vancouver College, the 2019 AAA B.C. Champions, their school motto includes the idea that you will leave the school a Better Man and Football is a key component of achieving that goal. Every year our football graduating Seniors are on the Honour Roll or the President's List (requiring an academic average of 90%+). Football Does Make Better Men!!

[tsull]

APU's press release noted a bunch of groups, including a form of trustees, signing off on this. The decision was made months ago, maybe a year ago. They go into meetings -- private ones as APU isn't beholden to open meetings laws for public institutions. They can decide what they want. Cut an academic program with no public input? Done. Crank up tuition? Done. Eliminate football? Done.

Trustees -- some alums, some not -- take the company line. If they speak up against cutting football they are eliminated from the board. This is how things work. Yes, there's no courage in the room, just group think. A bolder vision would be to do what HSU initially did and then didn't follow through and that would be to go to your alums and donors and tell them what could happen if they don't raise X amount of money. Saying this takes courage, one could get pushback, and it's not going with the company line. Basically you have to man-up or woman-up. It takes guts.

The easy way out -- see WWU, UN-Omaha, APU, and Humboldt -- is to just chop it and don't fund raise. WWU had money ready to go, Humboldt had a lot of money ready to go. Keeping the programs would mean putting in the hard work, being courageous in board meetings, not taking the company line, and actually trying hard in life. These things take work. They don't have to work because there's no accountability by the media, alums, donors, anyone. They'll get a tiny bit of pushback, which they'll scoff at, and move on after a few weeks. It's a cowardly way to go through life, but it's the easy way. Why rock the boat when the 6-figure payroll checks are rolling in?

At the end of the day, APU administrators don't care. They don't care about you the fan, you the players, you the alums. They don't care. They care about themselves. They'll forever be more wealthy than me and others, but never took a real stand in life. When the going got tough, they were cowards ... same with Humboldt State, WWU, and others.