Do we need a housecleaning in the athletics dept?

[KeithK]

Meanwhile over at Yale, the NY Times points out that Yale hasn't won an Ivy League basketball title outright since 1962, something that even Cornell has done. Maybe housecleaning should have been in order in New Haven? Yale Banishes Demons. Next Are Tigers and Lions.

I don't judge the success of an athletic department by the performance of a single sport, like our AD does with wrestling.

He doesn't judge based on just one sport.  Each weight class is like an entirely different sport!

[RichH]

the NY Times points out that Yale hasn't won an Ivy League basketball title outright since 1962

A quarter of the league has gone longer without winning an outright title.

[Ken711]

http://cornellsun.com/2016/02/23/guest-room-is-big-red-football-sustainable-on-the-east-hill/

[dbilmes]

http://cornellsun.com/2016/02/23/guest-room-is-big-red-football-sustainable-on-the-east-hill/

Interesting Guest Column in The Cornell Sun. These were my thoughts after reading it:
I would find it hard to believe that Cornell would be kicked out of the Ivy League if it dropped its football program. While football may have been the driving force behind the formation of the Ivy League, few, if any, people associate football with the Ivy League in 2016. The Ivy League has come to represent a group of elite schools, which all rank among the best in the country. If you look at the official Ivy League Rules it says nothing about schools being required to have a varsity football program.
Cornell is not the only Ivy League school with attendance problems. Even Yale, with a much stronger football tradition, draws relatively small crowds for any games that don't involve Harvard. For example, I watched the Yale-Columbia game this past year that had an announced crowd of approximately 7,000 in the cavernous Yale Bowl. And even this year's Yale-Harvard game wasn't close to being a sellout.
Most Cornell students don't care about the football program, and dropping the sport may influence alumni donations, but it would have little to no impact on the caliber of students applying to Cornell each year.

[CAS]

I don't share all the pessimism we can't compete in football.  We had winning programs throughout the '90s. We were on the right track under Coach Austin. With the right coach and institutional support, why can't we compete?  Perhaps we should drop basketball too, given the current state of that program.

[underskill]

I don't share all the pessimism we can't compete in football.  We had winning programs throughout the '90s. We were on the right track under Coach Austin. With the right coach and institutional support, why can't we compete?  Perhaps we should drop basketball too, given the current state of that program.

Basketball costs a lot less to run as a program and doesn't require a retrofit on a stadium.

[Ken711]

I don't share all the pessimism we can't compete in football.  We had winning programs throughout the '90s. We were on the right track under Coach Austin. With the right coach and institutional support, why can't we compete?  Perhaps we should drop basketball too, given the current state of that program.

We can compete and should compete, but it takes action from the trustees to the President to the AD to honestly face the current state of the football program and develop a plan of action to fix it.

[Trotsky]

It would cost a ton, but if we devoted comparable resources to HYP we would probably dominate the Ivies in football.  It is the best sport for us to use our admissions advantages.

[KeithK]

It would cost a ton, but if we devoted comparable resources to HYP we would probably dominate the Ivies in football.  It is the best sport for us to use our admissions advantages.

What advantage does it bring to the University to dominate Ivy football? It's not like we'd ever get any national exposure for it. (Heck, we can't even play in the 1AA playoffs, or whatever it's called now, which hardly anyone cares about.)  It's not going to do anything to encourage more or better applicants.  I can't imagine the trustees wanting to invest heavily in the sport.  (Or even a little bit of investment.)

[Ken711]

It would cost a ton, but if we devoted comparable resources to HYP we would probably dominate the Ivies in football.  It is the best sport for us to use our admissions advantages.

Cost a ton?  How so?  Upgrades to athletic facilities would benefit all sports.

[upprdeck]

is wrestling self funded like other sports?

[CAS]

The physical condition of Schoellkopf can't be good for the lacrosse program, which also plays there

[Trotsky]

It would cost a ton, but if we devoted comparable resources to HYP we would probably dominate the Ivies in football.  It is the best sport for us to use our admissions advantages.

Cost a ton?  How so?  Upgrades to athletic facilities would benefit all sports.

I was referring to refurbing Schoelkopf.  From what I understand the cross-sport facilities (weights and conditioning, etc) are state of the art.

It would be interesting to try to estimate whether Ivy football is cost effective even if you're running a winning program, by trying to piece together the data from say Penn's run.  On the one hand, there are still the Monty Burns types who the school fellates for donations, and football is appealing to those elderly alums who actually distantly remember when Ivy football was not a national joke.  On the other hand, we might be able to parlay "the only Ivy serious enough about academics to not carry a football team" into some sort of snobbish cache in the same way the conference as a whole does by its "ban" on athletic scholarships.

[Towerroad]

It would cost a ton, but if we devoted comparable resources to HYP we would probably dominate the Ivies in football.  It is the best sport for us to use our admissions advantages.

Cost a ton?  How so?  Upgrades to athletic facilities would benefit all sports.

I was referring to refurbing Schoelkopf.  From what I understand the cross-sport facilities (weights and conditioning, etc) are state of the art.

It would be interesting to try to estimate whether Ivy football is cost effective even if you're running a winning program, by trying to piece together the data from say Penn's run.  On the one hand, there are still the Monty Burns types who the school fellates for donations, and football is appealing to those elderly alums who actually distantly remember when Ivy football was not a national joke.  On the other hand, we might be able to parlay "the only Ivy serious enough about academics to not carry a football team" into some sort of snobbish cache in the same way the conference as a whole does by its "ban" on athletic scholarships.

Last year football had a total attendance of about 40,000. At $10/ticket that is $400,000. It is hard to argue that the gate is a meaningful contributor to the economic picture.

[billhoward]

It would cost a ton, but if we devoted comparable resources to HYP we would probably dominate the Ivies in football.  It is the best sport for us to use our admissions advantages.

What advantage does it bring to the University to dominate Ivy football? It's not like we'd ever get any national exposure for it. (Heck, we can't even play in the 1AA playoffs, or whatever it's called now, which hardly anyone cares about.)  It's not going to do anything to encourage more or better applicants.  I can't imagine the trustees wanting to invest heavily in the sport.  (Or even a little bit of investment.)

Costs about the same to have the first place team in football and the seventh place team.