Uwm = new conference

[mwu]

bigdwsu said:

mwu said:

if i had my way next season we'd enter the D3 ranks of football then in like 5-10 years make a move for D1-AA. being D3 would be beneficial for us since athletic scholorships are not offered at that level, thus giving us time to develop the neccessary womens sports to fullfil title 9 requirements.

That is an impossible scenerio. You can't be D3 in 1 sport and D1 in all other sports. The NCAA will only allow your university to be D1 or D3 in all sports. The closest solution to your scenerio is having a scholarship or non scholarship 1AA football team and still be D1 in all other sports.

this is not true. north dakota for example has only D1 hockey the rest of its sports are D2.

milwsport is right.

[JimmyLemke]

The problems posed here are the same problems that we have been arguing about as long as any of us can remember. To have a perennially successful team, we need to move to a bigger conference. Better conferences all have football attached to them. With the big conference shakeup, the Conference USA has purged itself of all non-football schools, and there are no longer any high majors that lack football. So, to be in the kind of conference UWM needs to become a better athletic school, we need football.

But, you say, we can have other sports. No. We cannot pull ourselves to that level without a ton of money. A ton of money can only be made 2 ways. 1) Massive donations by alumni 2) Football makes more money than anything else.

The only way we can have a football team that competes at D-I level is by having a respectable stadium. The problem has already been brought up here. There is no space. What, build one in the Park East Corridor, a few miles from campus? Ain't gonna happen. The only sports thing that COULD be built there is a 20,000 seat soccer stadium for an MLS team, and that is pushing it. In Riverwest? Nope.

There is no room to expand. We lost our opportunity back when all the land in the area was being developed. If the school had obtained the kind of land that Wisconsin's campus boasts, coupled with a growing alumni base, we could even be on their level. But the tiny campus thing can't work for a public school that wants a badass basketball team.

No money. Simple as that.

[milwsport]

Actually, the FB team used to play at County Stadium and also at Shorewood HS and Whitefish Bay HS and then at the old Marquette Stadium, which has since been torn down.

Attendance was poor, the team played D-2, they were somewhat competitive, (we once beat the defending D-2 champion in our season opener), but the cost was prohibitive. We had doubled revenues each of the last three seasons but we were still a long way from breaking even. We'd have had to double them in each of the next three years to even approach that.

A stadium would be the least of our problems. You need more coaches, more scholarships, more equipment, a bigger recruiting budget etc. etc. etc. While I think the UWM estimate of 21 million is too much, I can see where we'd need to invest 10 to 15 million just to cover the first few years.

And then we'd have to hope that a D-2 team will draw enough fans to make it possible to break even. D1 FB makes money because there are big schools willing to pay big guarantees to their poor D1 cousins in order to rack up a home win. But D1 would be even more expensive and Miller Park probably can't hold a football field.

I was all for keeping FB when it was dropped. There were six tie votes on the Athletic Board, but with Title 9, the U didn't have the money to do FB and add the women's sports we needed to be in compliance with federal law.

I just don't see how its possible to bring it back now without a massive Alumni donation

[dutchpthr]

ok, i love that UWM has had such great sucess these last few years and i alos feel that with the staff that we have and the players coming in that there will be no reason for that much of a drop off, but all this "We should be in a better conference " stuff is really getting old, we are not moving any time soon and to be really blunt we don't deserve to move based on only close to a 5 year period of sucess. Now there will be those that say this and that, but since people like to try and say it on this board im going to be real direct WE ARE NOT IN ANY POSITION TO LEAVE THE HL AT THIS POINT AND TIME, GET OVER IT!

since ever mid-major now strives to be Gonzaga (who by the way has not changed conferences and still has to try and fight to pull-out some conference games ) why don't we talk about ways to build up the HL rahter than just these nonsense ideas that we have stayed long enough and done enough to be worthy of a conference leap.

I think the better idea here would be to try and see if it would be at all possible to add and then re-arange the confernece we are in to make it more of a, and Freak would love this idea, MVC style or even to some degree MAC, with quality teams that will help build each other up and bring in better and better competion.

again let me say that there is no reason that we should feel we deserve to be in a position to leave the HL. yes we have had current sucess, but Butler has already doen what we did before and it still looks like they are here, so get off the "WE need a new conference" kick IT IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

[Hack]

Big D is right on with this point. Hockey is the one sport that you can be Division I at and be Division II or III in other sports. A large part of this is due to that there is NO Division II for hockey.

"In addition, a member of Division II may be classified in Division I in a sport in which there is a Division I and a Division III championship, but no Division II championship. (Revised: 1/11/94 effective 8/1/94)"