As of 8:10am this morning one of the finer programs in the country is lost due to "budgetary" problems.
No one saw it coming and they just recently signed some top level recruits that gave them one of the top 3 recruiting classes in the country.
The ASU decision is up there with the bone-headed decisions at places like Bowling Green and UCLA (the NCAA champion in women’s water polo). But the laws of gravity and economics don’t apply to swimming and football in the same way.
Back in the early 1970s, when Ohio State was doing some work on its football stadium, it invited the public to cart away squares of the turf – and the offer was over-subscribed by a lot. Flash forward to 2008: one of the most prosperous corners in Port Columbus is the airport store that sells red-and-white Ohio State clothing. You see, around a state that sends legislators to Columbus to vote on the budgets, the spirit of Buckeye football defies all the tools of financial analysis.
In the same way, dry cleaners in Arkansas will package your shirts in plastic bags with a family of red Razorbacks … there’s a guy who never did time in Chapel Hill's lecture halls but who nonetheless drives a Cadillac that's Carolina Blue … and the prize in the Red River Rivalry is more existential than words can describe, just as “the axe” is not the real prize when Cal plays Stanford. Swimming doesn’t inspire the depth of feelings that arise from football, to wit:
People who want to argue that we suck or that we are not worthy of what we have won or lost are just jealous of what the Buckeyes have accomplished year in and year out. Plain and simple.
No doubt about it: “Year in and year out,” Ohio State has been great - and its fans, even, "worthy" - notwithstanding those inconvenient losses in the first Thanksgiving Day games to a school that at the time had about 100 men (1890: Kenyon 18, OSU 0 … 1891: Kenyon 26, OSU 0 … 1892: OSU 26, Kenyon 10 … 1893: Kenyon 10, OSU 8): buckeyefansonly.com/gameresultsbyyear.html
In any case, The Buckeyes had their chance to make their first impression in their first season, when they came home with a 1-3 record. The Buckeyes lost their second game of football to the College of Wooster by a score of 64 to 0. Ouch.
If, as Fortress says,
Perhaps DIII schools will take over the collegiate swimming world, at least temporarily.
... then the reason is that, at small colleges, sports are just sports ... for the kids and not the fans ... I'm reminded of what someone else said: "it's only master's ..."
The ASU decision is up there with the bone-headed decisions at places like Bowling Green and UCLA (the NCAA champion in women’s water polo). But the laws of gravity and economics don’t apply to swimming and football in the same way.
Back in the early 1970s, when Ohio State was doing some work on its football stadium, it invited the public to cart away squares of the turf – and the offer was over-subscribed by a lot. Flash forward to 2008: one of the most prosperous corners in Port Columbus is the airport store that sells red-and-white Ohio State clothing. You see, around a state that sends legislators to Columbus to vote on the budgets, the spirit of Buckeye football defies all the tools of financial analysis.
In the same way, dry cleaners in Arkansas will package your shirts in plastic bags with a family of red Razorbacks … there’s a guy who never did time in Chapel Hill's lecture halls but who nonetheless drives a Cadillac that's Carolina Blue … and the prize in the Red River Rivalry is more existential than words can describe, just as “the axe” is not the real prize when Cal plays Stanford. Swimming doesn’t inspire the depth of feelings that arise from football, to wit:
People who want to argue that we suck or that we are not worthy of what we have won or lost are just jealous of what the Buckeyes have accomplished year in and year out. Plain and simple.
No doubt about it: “Year in and year out,” Ohio State has been great - and its fans, even, "worthy" - notwithstanding those inconvenient losses in the first Thanksgiving Day games to a school that at the time had about 100 men (1890: Kenyon 18, OSU 0 … 1891: Kenyon 26, OSU 0 … 1892: OSU 26, Kenyon 10 … 1893: Kenyon 10, OSU 8): buckeyefansonly.com/gameresultsbyyear.html
In any case, The Buckeyes had their chance to make their first impression in their first season, when they came home with a 1-3 record. The Buckeyes lost their second game of football to the College of Wooster by a score of 64 to 0. Ouch.
If, as Fortress says,
Perhaps DIII schools will take over the collegiate swimming world, at least temporarily.
... then the reason is that, at small colleges, sports are just sports ... for the kids and not the fans ... I'm reminded of what someone else said: "it's only master's ..."
