Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Final story - tracking the AD search
I spent a few weeks researching and conducting interviews. No anonymous sources, no hearsay.
Bob “Kayo” Marcum’s tenure as athletic director at Marshall University came to an end recently, opening the door for a new athletic director to lead Thundering Herd athletics in to the future. Hiring a replacement, however, is not an overnight process and takes weeks, even months.
In the case of hiring a new athletic director at Marshall, the process is expected to take six-to-eight weeks from start to finish. The university created a search committee made up of 10 people, including members of the university faculty, student body, Board of Governors and members of the Huntington community. In addition to the local search committee, Marshall also sought the services of Eastman & Beaudine, an executive search firm based in Dallas.
Eastman and Beaudine has an excellent record of placing athletic directors at schools such as Virginia Tech, the University of Louisville, Oklahoma University, Texas Christian University and at Marshall’s fellow Conference USA schools the University of Houston and Southern Methodist University, just to name a few.
Bill Bissett, chief of staff for Marshall president Stephen J. Kopp and Senior Vice President of Communications, said the first step in the process of finding a new athletic director was hiring a firm that had the means to do a great job.
“The first step is to hire a search firm that has a good national reputation, and we’ve done that,” Bissett said. “By hiring Bob Beaudine’s search firm, we got someone who has national contacts, national credibility and as is the case with most personnel actions, this is not something that’s done in front page news everyday.”
Bissett said keeping the names of the applicants confidential is a key part of the search because it allows the applicants to continue at their current jobs, whatever that may be, without fear of retribution for their employers because they were looking at another job.
“Whether that person currently serves as an A.D. or an assistant A.D., you want to keep that search confidential for it to be effective, but also to protect those potential applicants,” Bissett said. “You don’t want someone not to apply for the job because they might jeopardize their current position.”
A lot has been said, both in print and broadcast media, about the search for an athletic director. Bissett said that comes with any high profile hiring, but that special attention gets paid to sports.
“There is no section in the newspaper called academics, but we all know there is one called sports,” Bissett said.
The sports section has been ground zero for discussion on the Marshall athletic director position. Jack Bogaczyk, sports editor of the Charleston Daily Mail, has penned several columns on the subject. Bogaczyk said Marshall needs to hire someone with experience as an athletic director and can’t afford to let the new person take their time getting acclimated to how things work.
“Marshall needs to hire someone who has already been an A.D. at a school similar to Marshall,” Bogaczyk said. “A good example would be the hire (the University of) Houston just made. They got a guy, Mack Rhodes, who had been the A.D at Akron. He would have been a great candidate for the Marshall job.”
Football is big business for colleges, especially at the Division I level. It’s been no secret that Marshall’s football program has suffered in the latter half of this decade. Marcum was always quick to point out the fact that the program was put on probation and had the number of scholarships available reduced, making it difficult for Thundering Herd head coach Mark Snyder to be successful on the field in his first few seasons in Huntington. Bogaczyk said whomever is hired will need to be football savvy in order to do a good job.
“(Marshall) has to hire someone from a program that has had football,” Bogaczyk said. “Football is the animal that drives the cart at Marshall. They have to get someone that has experience dealing with football and knows what kind of money that takes.”
The most important trait the new A.D. will need, Bogaczyk said, is the ability to fundraise at a level that will help Marshall athletics keep up with its fellow C-USA universities.
“They need someone with the personality and ability to go out and raise money,” Bogaczyk said. “The Big Green (Scholarship Fund, MU’s athletic fundraising organization) has had so many people in charge or passing through and working there that there has been no stability.
Bogaczyk spelled out, in his opinion, what characteristics the new athletic director will need.
“Marshall doesn’t need another 64-year old athletic director,” Bogaczyk said. “They need, for lack of a better phrase, a young guy that is dynamic that will come in there with some ideas on how to make money because that is what Marshall needs more than anything. If you’ve got money you can spend more on recruiting, hiring coaches and facilities.”
Diversity has been a hot-button topic in collegiate athletic administration in recent years. There are more than enough qualified people for athletics jobs of different gender’s and racial backgrounds than just white males.
Dr. Shari Williams-Clarke is the vice president for Multicultural Affairs at Marshall and also is a member of the ten-person athletic director search committee.
Williams-Clarke said keeping an eye on diversity as the search goes on is very important to the hiring process.
“You want to be a microcosm of what society looks like,” Williams-Clarke said. “If you don’t at least have a majority of society’s people in the process then you are not going to get a true representation of what society is like.”
Williams-Clarke said the members of the search committee were asked to submit questions they would have for the potential athletic director candidates.
“I submitted questions in regard to the hiring of athletic administrators and coaches of diverse backgrounds,” Williams-Clarke said. “I wanted to know how involved these individuals are with issues on diversity and if they can demonstrate a commitment to diversity. It’s easy to talk about how committed they are to diversity, but we want to see what they have actually done.”
On July 1, almost exactly 24 hours after Marcum’s retirement, David Steele was named as the interim athletic director at Marshall until a full-time replacement could be found. Steele previously served in the athletic department as associate director of athletics for business and administration. Most universities have felt the pinch of the poor economy, and Bissett said that part of what made Steele an attractive candidate for the short-term position was the fact that he knew the athletic department’s finances so well.
“It’s good that he as knowledge of the books and finances,” Bissett said. “From pro teams to colleges, this is a difficult time for everybody if you’re living off sponsorships, and I don’ think our athletic department is any different. With Steele, it goes beyond just his knowledge of the finances. It’s his leadership ability and the level of respect he engenders in that athletic department.”
Steele said in a phone interview that his time in office would be business as usual in regard to getting the athletic department ready for the upcoming school year.
“It’s our job to handle all the things we can, because whoever comes in and takes over is going to have plenty things to do,” Steele said. “We can’t get too caught up on the future, we just have to focus on the task at hand.”
When asked if he was a candidate for the full-time athletic director position, Steele said he was not and that he viewed his time as the interim athletic director as a caretaker’s role.
“They wanted someone who was not going to be a candidate for the full-time job to fill this role,” Steele said. “I’m just trying to do the best I can for the period I am going to be in this roll.”
Still, the question remains as to when exactly a full-time athletic director will be named. Bissett said the goal of the university was to have a person in place by the start of the upcoming football season.
Bob “Kayo” Marcum’s tenure as athletic director at Marshall University came to an end recently, opening the door for a new athletic director to lead Thundering Herd athletics in to the future. Hiring a replacement, however, is not an overnight process and takes weeks, even months.
In the case of hiring a new athletic director at Marshall, the process is expected to take six-to-eight weeks from start to finish. The university created a search committee made up of 10 people, including members of the university faculty, student body, Board of Governors and members of the Huntington community. In addition to the local search committee, Marshall also sought the services of Eastman & Beaudine, an executive search firm based in Dallas.
Eastman and Beaudine has an excellent record of placing athletic directors at schools such as Virginia Tech, the University of Louisville, Oklahoma University, Texas Christian University and at Marshall’s fellow Conference USA schools the University of Houston and Southern Methodist University, just to name a few.
Bill Bissett, chief of staff for Marshall president Stephen J. Kopp and Senior Vice President of Communications, said the first step in the process of finding a new athletic director was hiring a firm that had the means to do a great job.
“The first step is to hire a search firm that has a good national reputation, and we’ve done that,” Bissett said. “By hiring Bob Beaudine’s search firm, we got someone who has national contacts, national credibility and as is the case with most personnel actions, this is not something that’s done in front page news everyday.”
Bissett said keeping the names of the applicants confidential is a key part of the search because it allows the applicants to continue at their current jobs, whatever that may be, without fear of retribution for their employers because they were looking at another job.
“Whether that person currently serves as an A.D. or an assistant A.D., you want to keep that search confidential for it to be effective, but also to protect those potential applicants,” Bissett said. “You don’t want someone not to apply for the job because they might jeopardize their current position.”
A lot has been said, both in print and broadcast media, about the search for an athletic director. Bissett said that comes with any high profile hiring, but that special attention gets paid to sports.
“There is no section in the newspaper called academics, but we all know there is one called sports,” Bissett said.
The sports section has been ground zero for discussion on the Marshall athletic director position. Jack Bogaczyk, sports editor of the Charleston Daily Mail, has penned several columns on the subject. Bogaczyk said Marshall needs to hire someone with experience as an athletic director and can’t afford to let the new person take their time getting acclimated to how things work.
“Marshall needs to hire someone who has already been an A.D. at a school similar to Marshall,” Bogaczyk said. “A good example would be the hire (the University of) Houston just made. They got a guy, Mack Rhodes, who had been the A.D at Akron. He would have been a great candidate for the Marshall job.”
Football is big business for colleges, especially at the Division I level. It’s been no secret that Marshall’s football program has suffered in the latter half of this decade. Marcum was always quick to point out the fact that the program was put on probation and had the number of scholarships available reduced, making it difficult for Thundering Herd head coach Mark Snyder to be successful on the field in his first few seasons in Huntington. Bogaczyk said whomever is hired will need to be football savvy in order to do a good job.
“(Marshall) has to hire someone from a program that has had football,” Bogaczyk said. “Football is the animal that drives the cart at Marshall. They have to get someone that has experience dealing with football and knows what kind of money that takes.”
The most important trait the new A.D. will need, Bogaczyk said, is the ability to fundraise at a level that will help Marshall athletics keep up with its fellow C-USA universities.
“They need someone with the personality and ability to go out and raise money,” Bogaczyk said. “The Big Green (Scholarship Fund, MU’s athletic fundraising organization) has had so many people in charge or passing through and working there that there has been no stability.
Bogaczyk spelled out, in his opinion, what characteristics the new athletic director will need.
“Marshall doesn’t need another 64-year old athletic director,” Bogaczyk said. “They need, for lack of a better phrase, a young guy that is dynamic that will come in there with some ideas on how to make money because that is what Marshall needs more than anything. If you’ve got money you can spend more on recruiting, hiring coaches and facilities.”
Diversity has been a hot-button topic in collegiate athletic administration in recent years. There are more than enough qualified people for athletics jobs of different gender’s and racial backgrounds than just white males.
Dr. Shari Williams-Clarke is the vice president for Multicultural Affairs at Marshall and also is a member of the ten-person athletic director search committee.
Williams-Clarke said keeping an eye on diversity as the search goes on is very important to the hiring process.
“You want to be a microcosm of what society looks like,” Williams-Clarke said. “If you don’t at least have a majority of society’s people in the process then you are not going to get a true representation of what society is like.”
Williams-Clarke said the members of the search committee were asked to submit questions they would have for the potential athletic director candidates.
“I submitted questions in regard to the hiring of athletic administrators and coaches of diverse backgrounds,” Williams-Clarke said. “I wanted to know how involved these individuals are with issues on diversity and if they can demonstrate a commitment to diversity. It’s easy to talk about how committed they are to diversity, but we want to see what they have actually done.”
On July 1, almost exactly 24 hours after Marcum’s retirement, David Steele was named as the interim athletic director at Marshall until a full-time replacement could be found. Steele previously served in the athletic department as associate director of athletics for business and administration. Most universities have felt the pinch of the poor economy, and Bissett said that part of what made Steele an attractive candidate for the short-term position was the fact that he knew the athletic department’s finances so well.
“It’s good that he as knowledge of the books and finances,” Bissett said. “From pro teams to colleges, this is a difficult time for everybody if you’re living off sponsorships, and I don’ think our athletic department is any different. With Steele, it goes beyond just his knowledge of the finances. It’s his leadership ability and the level of respect he engenders in that athletic department.”
Steele said in a phone interview that his time in office would be business as usual in regard to getting the athletic department ready for the upcoming school year.
“It’s our job to handle all the things we can, because whoever comes in and takes over is going to have plenty things to do,” Steele said. “We can’t get too caught up on the future, we just have to focus on the task at hand.”
When asked if he was a candidate for the full-time athletic director position, Steele said he was not and that he viewed his time as the interim athletic director as a caretaker’s role.
“They wanted someone who was not going to be a candidate for the full-time job to fill this role,” Steele said. “I’m just trying to do the best I can for the period I am going to be in this roll.”
Still, the question remains as to when exactly a full-time athletic director will be named. Bissett said the goal of the university was to have a person in place by the start of the upcoming football season.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Case studies No. 9 and No. 10
The first case study deals with a reporter chasing a story about a scheme being run through a classified ad. The ad used negative advertising to trick people into spending money on any of a number of services (correspondence courses, land sales, etc.). The reporter goes to a meeting for the group from the ad and learns that it is in fact a scheme and how it works.
The reporter then finds an elderly couple that had been on the bad end of one of the land deals. The reporter uses some questionable tactics to ensure the cooperation of the couple, brining a photographer and basically giving them a sales pitch to get them to go along. The story results in many more people coming forward with their own tales of being burned.
The second case study is about a reporter chasing a story about a clinic with some unusual methods of practicing medicine. The reporter suspects it could be a case of fraud and wants to check things out.
The reporter goes through the motions, tracks down the doctors and does her homework on the place. The doctors point the reporter to a list of patients that will vouch for the authenticity of their methods. She contacts some of the people on the list and gets glowing endorsements about the clinic. The reporter knows however that the machine used to diagnose the patients at the clinic is a soil tester.
The reporter and a colleague had been chasing the story around the clock to make sure they beat another media outlet. When both stories came out, the opposition ran a fluff piece full of the smoke the people at the clinic had been blowing up rear ends (metaphorically speaking, that was not one of the clinic’s techniques). The reporter and her colleague had a strong story that held up much better.
The reporter then finds an elderly couple that had been on the bad end of one of the land deals. The reporter uses some questionable tactics to ensure the cooperation of the couple, brining a photographer and basically giving them a sales pitch to get them to go along. The story results in many more people coming forward with their own tales of being burned.
The second case study is about a reporter chasing a story about a clinic with some unusual methods of practicing medicine. The reporter suspects it could be a case of fraud and wants to check things out.
The reporter goes through the motions, tracks down the doctors and does her homework on the place. The doctors point the reporter to a list of patients that will vouch for the authenticity of their methods. She contacts some of the people on the list and gets glowing endorsements about the clinic. The reporter knows however that the machine used to diagnose the patients at the clinic is a soil tester.
The reporter and a colleague had been chasing the story around the clock to make sure they beat another media outlet. When both stories came out, the opposition ran a fluff piece full of the smoke the people at the clinic had been blowing up rear ends (metaphorically speaking, that was not one of the clinic’s techniques). The reporter and her colleague had a strong story that held up much better.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
political story
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) is known mostly for his Hall of Fame career in Major League Baseball. Bunning spent 17 seasons as a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies, even throwing a perfect game in 1964. The man who, when he retired from baseball in 1971, had the second highest strikeout total in Major League history, however, has struck out in regard to the non-profit organization that bears his name.
Bunning, who doubles as an employee of the Jim Bunning Foundation, drew a $20,000 salary from the foundation in 2008 according to documents filed as part of a United States Senate financial disclosure report. The salary paid to Bunning is the only source of outside income listed for the senator in the documents.
To contrast, the foundation gives an average of $13,600 a year to charities according to a story in the Lexington Herald-Leader. So essentially, Jim Bunning gets more money from the Jim Bunning Foundation than the charities the foundation contributes to.
The foundation makes its money through autograph sessions attended by Bunning. According to the disclosure documents, Bunning appeared at two signings, one in New York City and the other at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Those two appearances, plus money from the HOF licensing program, earned $16,091.79 for the foundation in 2008. Due to legislative ethics restrictions, Bunning cannot accept money for his autograph, however it can be donated to a charity, Bunning’s charity in this case.
So it would appear Bunning has found a loophole in the ethics rule. He can’t make money directly off his autograph sessions, but he can give the money to his charity organization that pays him a salary from the money it gets – you guessed it – from Bunning’s autograph sessions. One potential conflict of interest in all of this is that the IRS has not questioned the foundation’s actions while Bunning, coincidentally, oversees the IRS as a member of the Senate Finance Committee.
That, however, is not the only potential conflict of interest for the foundation. Bunning’s wife, Mary is one of the three foundation board members. The other two, also have close ties to the senator.
Bob Sumerel is a close friend and campaign contributor of Bunning’s, according to the Herald-Leader story. Richard Robinson is a former congressional aid of Bunning’s and is now a Washington lobbyist whose clients, also according to the Herald-Leader story, have received budget earmarks from Bunning.
There have been no inquiries into the foundation potential ethics violations by the IRS or the Senate Ethics committee to date.
Bunning, who doubles as an employee of the Jim Bunning Foundation, drew a $20,000 salary from the foundation in 2008 according to documents filed as part of a United States Senate financial disclosure report. The salary paid to Bunning is the only source of outside income listed for the senator in the documents.
To contrast, the foundation gives an average of $13,600 a year to charities according to a story in the Lexington Herald-Leader. So essentially, Jim Bunning gets more money from the Jim Bunning Foundation than the charities the foundation contributes to.
The foundation makes its money through autograph sessions attended by Bunning. According to the disclosure documents, Bunning appeared at two signings, one in New York City and the other at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Those two appearances, plus money from the HOF licensing program, earned $16,091.79 for the foundation in 2008. Due to legislative ethics restrictions, Bunning cannot accept money for his autograph, however it can be donated to a charity, Bunning’s charity in this case.
So it would appear Bunning has found a loophole in the ethics rule. He can’t make money directly off his autograph sessions, but he can give the money to his charity organization that pays him a salary from the money it gets – you guessed it – from Bunning’s autograph sessions. One potential conflict of interest in all of this is that the IRS has not questioned the foundation’s actions while Bunning, coincidentally, oversees the IRS as a member of the Senate Finance Committee.
That, however, is not the only potential conflict of interest for the foundation. Bunning’s wife, Mary is one of the three foundation board members. The other two, also have close ties to the senator.
Bob Sumerel is a close friend and campaign contributor of Bunning’s, according to the Herald-Leader story. Richard Robinson is a former congressional aid of Bunning’s and is now a Washington lobbyist whose clients, also according to the Herald-Leader story, have received budget earmarks from Bunning.
There have been no inquiries into the foundation potential ethics violations by the IRS or the Senate Ethics committee to date.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
prop 2
To: Burnis Morris
From: Tom Bragg
RE: Story Outline: Follow up on Sen. Jim Bunning story from Lexington Herald-Leader
Subject: Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ken.) has been taking a salary from his non-profit, the Jim Bunning Foundation. The Lexington Herald-Leader ran a story in December 2008 about this, highlighting that not only was the non-profit’s largest payout going to Bunning, but the three-person board in charge of the foundation was made up of Bunning’s wife, an old friend and a former aide of his.
Need: Since the story ran late last year, there have been new financial filings made by the senator. It would be good to see if the story created any pressure on Bunning or the foundation to stop what they were doing. Citizens should also be informed about the ethical questions the foundation causes, and the possibility of the need for widespread reform.
Methods: The foundation, according to a source in the H-L story, “blurs a number of Senate ethics and Internal Revenue Service rules regarding outside income for members of Congress, legitimate uses for tax-exempt charities and whether Bunning — as a paid employee — improperly dominates the foundation's board.” Analyzing just where the foundation is according to these rules would be interesting for readers.
Sources: I will investigate the Senate and IRS rules for any possible violations by Bunning or the foundation. I will also hopefully interview
From: Tom Bragg
RE: Story Outline: Follow up on Sen. Jim Bunning story from Lexington Herald-Leader
Subject: Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ken.) has been taking a salary from his non-profit, the Jim Bunning Foundation. The Lexington Herald-Leader ran a story in December 2008 about this, highlighting that not only was the non-profit’s largest payout going to Bunning, but the three-person board in charge of the foundation was made up of Bunning’s wife, an old friend and a former aide of his.
Need: Since the story ran late last year, there have been new financial filings made by the senator. It would be good to see if the story created any pressure on Bunning or the foundation to stop what they were doing. Citizens should also be informed about the ethical questions the foundation causes, and the possibility of the need for widespread reform.
Methods: The foundation, according to a source in the H-L story, “blurs a number of Senate ethics and Internal Revenue Service rules regarding outside income for members of Congress, legitimate uses for tax-exempt charities and whether Bunning — as a paid employee — improperly dominates the foundation's board.” Analyzing just where the foundation is according to these rules would be interesting for readers.
Sources: I will investigate the Senate and IRS rules for any possible violations by Bunning or the foundation. I will also hopefully interview
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Are gas prices affecting college sports?
Conference USA is in a unique position. It’s footprint spans from Huntington, W.Va., in the north to Orlando in the south from Greenville, N.C., in the east to El Paso, Texas in the west.
With that much area under C-USA’s belt, the member schools are faced with the dilemma of paying for its teams to travel, literally, all over the country. Gas prices have been a hindrance to most, if not all, colleges travel expenses, but the sheer distance the teams have to travel sets C-USA apart.
The Dallas Morning News recently ran a story on C-USA’s financial concerns, highlighting some of the steps the Irvin, Texas based conference has taken or plans to take in order to curtail some of the expenses. According to the article, some C-USA schools have done things such as freeze hiring in athletic departments. Another move made by C-USA was to cut the number of players that travel to away football games from 70 to 66.
C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky told the DMN that the cuts C-USA would have to make would be some of the most significant in college sports to date.
The Ultimate Sports Insider blog details some of the steps C-USA is taking to cut costs. These steps include combining the men and women’s basketball tournaments in the same city (Tulsa, Okla., in 2010), having divisional play in basketball and reducing the number of teams that qualify for the conference’s post-season tournaments (men and women’s soccer, baseball, softball and volleyball). One drastic measure mentioned in the blog is the possibility of eliminating the volleyball tournament.
Michael Cross is the owner of the Ultimate Sports Insider blog and is the Executive Associate Director of Athletics at Princeton University. Cross said the current economy has many universities, including those in the Ivy League, having budgetary concerns in athletics.
Cross said he thinks the gas prices have some impact, but are not the main cause of the problems.
Conference-wide budget cuts aside; the question of what Marshall is doing still remains.
David Steele is Marshall’s Associate Director of Athletics for Administration and Business. Steele said scheduling plays a big role in Marshall’s athletic budget concerns.
That philosophy is reflected in Marshall’s football schedule for the 2009 season. Marshall will play at West Virginia and Virginia Tech. Both trips will be made by bus, reducing the number of games the team has to travel to by airplane. Marshall has also recently played a series of games against the University of Cincinnati and has a deal in place to being playing Ohio University from nearby Athens, Ohio (approximately 80 miles from Huntington according to Google Maps) in 2010.
According to a June 1 article in the Orlando Sentinel, another C-USA school, the University of Central Florida, is looking at the possibility of playing more games against in-state competition. UCF is in a unique position to be able to do that with the sheer number of NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams that call the state of Florida home (7). Other C-USA schools like Marshall (two FBS schools in West Virginia) or Southern Miss (three FBS schools in Mississippi) do not have that option.
Steele said he does not think C-USA is at a competitive disadvantage compared to the larger conferences, the Southeastern Conference and the Big XII specifically, even though the universities in those conferences have much larger athletic budgets and make more money from television revenue and the Bowl Championship Series than schools in C-USA and the Mountain West Conference.
Numerous attempts to find out Marshall’s athletic budget too see exactly what the university was/is spending on athletic travel failed.
The issue of moving entire teams across the country and paying for it, not just gas prices specifically, is what has colleges concerned.
With that much area under C-USA’s belt, the member schools are faced with the dilemma of paying for its teams to travel, literally, all over the country. Gas prices have been a hindrance to most, if not all, colleges travel expenses, but the sheer distance the teams have to travel sets C-USA apart.
The Dallas Morning News recently ran a story on C-USA’s financial concerns, highlighting some of the steps the Irvin, Texas based conference has taken or plans to take in order to curtail some of the expenses. According to the article, some C-USA schools have done things such as freeze hiring in athletic departments. Another move made by C-USA was to cut the number of players that travel to away football games from 70 to 66.
C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky told the DMN that the cuts C-USA would have to make would be some of the most significant in college sports to date.
“Our universities are challenged; they have to work harder to stay competitive,” Banowsky told the DMN. “If you really compare how well some of them do, it’s remarkable.”
The Ultimate Sports Insider blog details some of the steps C-USA is taking to cut costs. These steps include combining the men and women’s basketball tournaments in the same city (Tulsa, Okla., in 2010), having divisional play in basketball and reducing the number of teams that qualify for the conference’s post-season tournaments (men and women’s soccer, baseball, softball and volleyball). One drastic measure mentioned in the blog is the possibility of eliminating the volleyball tournament.
Michael Cross is the owner of the Ultimate Sports Insider blog and is the Executive Associate Director of Athletics at Princeton University. Cross said the current economy has many universities, including those in the Ivy League, having budgetary concerns in athletics.
“There are different things at play. Declining ticket sales, declining donor participation, declining sponsorship revenue – all those things are down largely because of the economy.” Cross said. “As a result people are trying to figure out how they can fund the things they had previously funded. The Ivy League is not immune to that.”
Cross said he thinks the gas prices have some impact, but are not the main cause of the problems.
“Fuel prices are higher, so that is going to increase the cost somewhat,” Cross said. “I think the reduction of travel squads is more a reflection of fewer airplane seats, fewer meals and fewer hotel rooms as opposed to fuel costs.”
Conference-wide budget cuts aside; the question of what Marshall is doing still remains.
David Steele is Marshall’s Associate Director of Athletics for Administration and Business. Steele said scheduling plays a big role in Marshall’s athletic budget concerns.
“Non-conference scheduling is something we are definitely looking at,” Steele said. “It’s our philosophy to schedule as many non-conference games with regional competition when that’s feasible.”
That philosophy is reflected in Marshall’s football schedule for the 2009 season. Marshall will play at West Virginia and Virginia Tech. Both trips will be made by bus, reducing the number of games the team has to travel to by airplane. Marshall has also recently played a series of games against the University of Cincinnati and has a deal in place to being playing Ohio University from nearby Athens, Ohio (approximately 80 miles from Huntington according to Google Maps) in 2010.
“In cases where we might have flown in the past we’re looking at it to see if it’s possible to bus,” Steele said. “This is something that everybody is doing nationally, and we are no different.”
According to a June 1 article in the Orlando Sentinel, another C-USA school, the University of Central Florida, is looking at the possibility of playing more games against in-state competition. UCF is in a unique position to be able to do that with the sheer number of NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams that call the state of Florida home (7). Other C-USA schools like Marshall (two FBS schools in West Virginia) or Southern Miss (three FBS schools in Mississippi) do not have that option.
Steele said he does not think C-USA is at a competitive disadvantage compared to the larger conferences, the Southeastern Conference and the Big XII specifically, even though the universities in those conferences have much larger athletic budgets and make more money from television revenue and the Bowl Championship Series than schools in C-USA and the Mountain West Conference.
“Regardless of the size (of the conference), we are all facing challenges,” Steele said. “We all want to fund the programs at a level that will keep us competitive. The larger schools from the BCS conferences might have more room to make adjustments, but every conference is unique in its own right. We are all facing challenges and looking at different ways to operate.”
Numerous attempts to find out Marshall’s athletic budget too see exactly what the university was/is spending on athletic travel failed.
The issue of moving entire teams across the country and paying for it, not just gas prices specifically, is what has colleges concerned.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Public Affairs classwork
Case Study No. 1-
There are several issues in this study. Should a reporter sacrifice a good working relationship with sources in order to get a story? Is it fair to run a story about a candidate that could swing the election? Should a reporter rely on anonymous sources rather than waiting for legal documentation in order to get the story in a timely fashion?
Cast Study No. 2-
The issues: A newspaper ran a story using a public document as a source and did not reveal the document as a source. Is that ethical? I think if the document is public record, then anybody, reporter or not, has access to it and it's fine to withhold the source. Also, the issue of when to confront a person at the heart of the matter is brought up. Do you go straight to them, even if you don't have ALL of the information you might need or do you wait and make sure you get it all straight. If you go straight to the person, it's possible the reporter would not have all the information or have something wrong. On the other hand if the reporter waits, they could miss out on the story.
Investigative article-
In Wednesday's Charleston Gazette, there is a story about a bill that would reduce the number of votes needed for Charleston and Kanawha County would need to form a metro government. According to the story, the bill (expected to be signed by Gov. Machin on Wednesday) "lowers the threshold for passing metro measures from the 55 percent in effect elsewhere in the state."
Originally, the constitutionality of the bill was questioned, but lawyers for the state Senate's Government Organization Committee "scrutinized" the bill to avoid issues with it being unconstitutional.
A similar issue occurred in Fairmont, W.Va., two years ago and never made it to a vote because the city and local governments could not get on the same page.
The reporter, Jim Balow, never gives the readers the adjust amount of voters the metro government would need to be put in place. This leads me to believe that while his story is on the bill that would reduce that number, he hasn't actually read the thing.
There are no graphics or photos with this story.
The public should be interested in this story. A metro government would play a part in almost every Kanawha County residents lives.
Obviously since the story was published today (Wednesday), there is not a follow up...yet. People are going to want to know what the new number of voters needed will be. With Manchin signing the bill this morning, I think it is safe to expect a follow up in Thursday's Gazette.
The headlines are not overwritten and do not use harsh words. "Metro bill likely to survive legal test, panel told" is to the point.
Balow spoke to members of the Charleston City Council, lawyers from the Senate group and to people involved in Fairmont's attempt to move to a metro government. This is a project idea, not a breaking story or information from a tipster. The metro idea has been circulating Charleston and Kanawha County for most of 2009, so this isn't something being spring on the people.
There are several issues in this study. Should a reporter sacrifice a good working relationship with sources in order to get a story? Is it fair to run a story about a candidate that could swing the election? Should a reporter rely on anonymous sources rather than waiting for legal documentation in order to get the story in a timely fashion?
Cast Study No. 2-
The issues: A newspaper ran a story using a public document as a source and did not reveal the document as a source. Is that ethical? I think if the document is public record, then anybody, reporter or not, has access to it and it's fine to withhold the source. Also, the issue of when to confront a person at the heart of the matter is brought up. Do you go straight to them, even if you don't have ALL of the information you might need or do you wait and make sure you get it all straight. If you go straight to the person, it's possible the reporter would not have all the information or have something wrong. On the other hand if the reporter waits, they could miss out on the story.
Investigative article-
In Wednesday's Charleston Gazette, there is a story about a bill that would reduce the number of votes needed for Charleston and Kanawha County would need to form a metro government. According to the story, the bill (expected to be signed by Gov. Machin on Wednesday) "lowers the threshold for passing metro measures from the 55 percent in effect elsewhere in the state."
Originally, the constitutionality of the bill was questioned, but lawyers for the state Senate's Government Organization Committee "scrutinized" the bill to avoid issues with it being unconstitutional.
A similar issue occurred in Fairmont, W.Va., two years ago and never made it to a vote because the city and local governments could not get on the same page.
The reporter, Jim Balow, never gives the readers the adjust amount of voters the metro government would need to be put in place. This leads me to believe that while his story is on the bill that would reduce that number, he hasn't actually read the thing.
There are no graphics or photos with this story.
The public should be interested in this story. A metro government would play a part in almost every Kanawha County residents lives.
Obviously since the story was published today (Wednesday), there is not a follow up...yet. People are going to want to know what the new number of voters needed will be. With Manchin signing the bill this morning, I think it is safe to expect a follow up in Thursday's Gazette.
The headlines are not overwritten and do not use harsh words. "Metro bill likely to survive legal test, panel told" is to the point.
Balow spoke to members of the Charleston City Council, lawyers from the Senate group and to people involved in Fairmont's attempt to move to a metro government. This is a project idea, not a breaking story or information from a tipster. The metro idea has been circulating Charleston and Kanawha County for most of 2009, so this isn't something being spring on the people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)