Men’s Soccer 2019

[vu72]

How many of the players on the soccer team are Hispanic?    If the University is seeking to attract a more diverse student body from within this country, it would be wise to take into consideration the popularity of soccer among significant portions of the population.   

It is hard to justify dropping soccer on the basis of cost.  It is far less expensive than American football. If you are trying to save money, drop football. 

This is such an old idea it isn't even worth a further discussion. But, It isn't happening.  First, soccer games have few in attendance and admission is free.  Valpo picks up between $100,000 and $200,000 for each body bag game at the beginning of the season.

[FieldGoodie05]

How many of the players on the soccer team are Hispanic?    If the University is seeking to attract a more diverse student body from within this country, it would be wise to take into consideration the popularity of soccer among significant portions of the population.   

It is hard to justify dropping soccer on the basis of cost.  It is far less expensive than American football.  If you are trying to save money, drop football.

Understand where you are coming from, it's frustrating.  But it's hard to imagine increasing the hispanic population at VU by 0.6% would do much for overall trending.  I think we would be short sighted in dropping the football program despite its relative lack of success.  Again, there are not really any scholarships in football and T&F yet they produce 200 student athletes who are at least covering the cost of their respective programs by paying a healthy portion of tuition and room/board.

Something that is not mentioned much on this forum is the % of donations into the school (sports or otherwise) that the alumni of the football program bring in.  Like it our not, I'd imagine a healthy portion of donations come from students who were either athletes or in greek life (something that ties them to VU and brings them back annually or more often).  Just going to a University and getting a degree doesn't necessarily give you the life time ties that heavily participating in a reoccurring things like football and greek life might.

[bbtds]

This will be my last post on the forum.

To my MSO brothers, including the coaches, the staff, and also the athletic trainers who so diligently met our medical needs with professionalism and care, wherever you may be, past or present, varsity or club, thank you for the memories.  We had some wins, some losses, and some draws.  Home games, road trips and neutrals.  We had games at Eastgate Field, at Brown Field, on intramural fields, and in the really olden and early days, in the outfield of the baseball diamond, if my younger memory is correct.  We proudly wore the brown and gold for our beloved school, win or lose.  We were, and still are, and forever will be, the Crusaders.

We had a hell of a varsity run—37 years' worth.  And somehow, the program has been reduced from being the active University representative of the world's most beautiful game to just a memory, like an asterisk in a record book, in an instant.  Again, this is such a shame, from a number of different avenues and for a number of different reasons.

May God bless all of my brothers.  And, may God bless all of you diehard Valpo sports fans on this site too.  This site is the heart and soul of VU athletics.  I was happy to be a part of it.

I guess I'll shut off the lights on this thread.

Later,

Joe

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://media3.giphy.com/media/3ohhwlIAKiZw5n8naE/giphy.gif&imgrefurl=https://giphy.com/explore/turning-off-lights&h=270&w=480&tbnid=E-0Omxq5_6H5bM&tbnh=168&tbnw=300&usg=K_vB1PqpqqJhEd6vK7GbhKQACuDuU=&docid=xuFIjuodgxLmYM

Well done, Joe, well done. Even Motel Six would agree with this sentiment.

[covufan]

https://twitter.com/rwweinstein/status/1199856667938172928?s=21


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[FieldGoodie05]

https://twitter.com/rwweinstein/status/1199856667938172928?s=21


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Message received, wrong recipient if it was only sent to the AD guys!?!?

[valpotx]

Good attempt and I get why they created the letter, but the administration may know something about the future of the sport in the MVC that the rest of us don't, since the conference has traditionally hosted several Associate members, just to keep the NCAA bid.

[vu72]

Wonderful story about Mike Avery.  Let's hope he decides to do something local so we don't lose Carin.

https://www.heraldargus.com/sports/we-work-better-together/article_b42115cd-e6c9-5199-a33c-45e6eda86c9e.html

[VUfan]

Mike Avery is  Valpos Loss,  if Education is about life and Sport teaches Life.Then Valpo's product, an Education  has lost much..

[VUGrad1314]

Good attempt and I get why they created the letter, but the administration may know something about the future of the sport in the MVC that the rest of us don't, since the conference has traditionally hosted several Associate members, just to keep the NCAA bid.

They could always pick up EIU as an associate member... OR the MVC could drop the sport and focus even more on basketball which might not be such a terrible idea...

[IndyValpo]

Mike Avery has been hired to coach the new NPSL team in Fort Wayne.

[valpotx]

Very cool and good for him!  Hopefully this keeps Coach Avery (Volleyball) around!

[NotBryceDrew]

University of Cincinnati dropping men's soccer.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cincinnati.com/amp/2988656001

[vu72]

University of Cincinnati dropping men's soccer.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cincinnati.com/amp/2988656001
[/quote

This makes sense as it did for Valpo.  I just looked at their roster, and like ours, they have many international players--which were needed if there was any hope of competing.  All that international recruiting has to be very expensive and in a non-revenue sport.  There is a reason why The Valley is down to only five teams.

[valpo95]

University of Cincinnati dropping men's soccer.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cincinnati.com/amp/2988656001

The telling quote for me is as follows:

The men's soccer program had $907,745 in total operating expenses in the fiscal year 2019 and $181,247 in total operating revenues while distributing 9.66 scholarships, The Enquirer confirmed through an open records request.

I don't know if operating expenses would include those 9.66 scholarships or not. (If they are included, that would be about $260K of "expenses" at the out of state tuition rate.)  However, what this does is show the net financial impact of soccer at a leading national university.

[VUGrad1314]

Seeing UC also drop soccer (and knowing from an interview with AAC Commissioner Aresco I believe) that the program was a concern for them even before the outbreak of COVID-19 and they cut it to focus on other sports much like Valpo did makes me feel a lot better about Valpo's decision to cut men's soccer as well. I wonder how they will use the money they saved.

[valpo95]

It is not directly about soccer, yet there were two announcements of other sports getting dropped at mid-major (MAC) schools.

Bowling Green is dropping Baseball:
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/29179944/bowling-green-ends-baseball-program-part-athletics-restructuring

Akron dropping men's cross country, men's golf, and women's tennis.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/29175195/akron-eliminate-3-sports-cost-cutting-move

[VUGrad1314]

The MAC has a lot of schools that are hurting. I think Buffalo just recently dropped baseball as well.

[VALPO LI]

The MAC has a lot of schools that are hurting. I think Buffalo just recently dropped baseball as well.

Yes the State University of NY at Buffalo, New York States "unofficial" flagship university cut baseball along with men's soccer, men's swimming and diving and women's rowing in 2017.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/04/04/university-buffalo-drops-4-sports-teams

[VUGrad1314]

Speaking of soccer (and the MAC to a lesser extent) SIU-Edwardsville just rejoined the MVC as an affiliate for men's soccer taking our spot. A bit perplexing to me that they would leave a conference with schools as good as Akron are at the sport but it's good that the MVC has now preserved its auto-bid for at least the next few years. I wonder if they will continue to look for regional affiliates to beef up the numbers a bit. I also hope Valpo's lost programs return again.