AD Presentations

[Jimmy Lemke]

Link: Paul Plinske's Presentation (http://dirtystallisguy.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-12T10_19_38-08_00)

Note: You may want to turn your speakers up for Plinske's presentation.

[MU/Panther]

Sound was very poor. Couldn't hear the questions. Waiting on your thoughts in what was said.

[BrewCityItalian]

all 3 candidates

2 in video,1 in audio

http://www.aux.uwm.edu/studentaffairs/pages/athletics-director-open-forum.php

[BrewCityItalian]

all watching all 3

how i rank them

1. Schmidt 2. Plinske 3. Braun

we get Braun, we are screwed !

simple at that

I am fine with Schmidt or Plinske

I feel Schmidt has a bit more fundraising and business expertise in relation to dollars

Plinske has ideas, but can they be done without football is the question

[Jimmy Lemke]

My biggest concern regarding Plinske is how does his fundraising translate from the boonies to the city. There's a lot of competition here, virtually none there.

[Jimmy Lemke]

Link: "Raising Friends, Raising Funds" (http://web.mit.edu/fofdaper/docs/Article_DivisionIII_Fundraising.html) - Dr. Paul Plinske

[lutzow10]

" In other words, success in development comes most effectively from internal groups coordinating with one another in order to attain their goals and objectives." So the opposite of what are departments have been doing.

"A second obstacle is the close-mindedness or unwillingness of top officials to change the way things have traditionally been done." Hmmmm... So actually trying new things, going out and asking for money and not accepting the status quo are things that an athletic department should be doing. Who knew?

[lutzow10]

" In other words, for small colleges, it appears that having nationally ranked teams doesn’t necessarily translate into more dollars raised." Interesting, this gives makes me optimisitc anout us. Because if small schools that have enough trouble gettingpeople to games and hype about their athletics can still manage to conquer those hurdles and raise money than a large school should be easier, wouldn't you think? I mean i know a larger school means more money needed but i would think that it would still be proportional to a small school. Larger reach, larger audience, also goes along with that more money needed.

[MU/Panther]

all watching all 3

how i rank them

1. Schmidt 2. Plinske 3. Braun

we get Braun, we are screwed !

simple at that

I am fine with Schmidt or Plinske

I feel Schmidt has a bit more fundraising and business expertise in relation to dollars

Plinske has ideas, but can they be done without football is the question I didn't take the time to listen. What don't you like about Braun?

[illwauk]

all watching all 3

how i rank them

1. Schmidt 2. Plinske 3. Braun

we get Braun, we are screwed !

simple at that

I am fine with Schmidt or Plinske

I feel Schmidt has a bit more fundraising and business expertise in relation to dollars

Plinske has ideas, but can they be done without football is the question

That's just more of a reason to add football. As much as I'm sure it'll draw "pipe dream" groans from the usual suspects, the reality is that the scope and reach of Panther athletics in the Milwaukee community will always be limited as long as our only revenue program is the #3 option of its kind in the city (and possibly #4, if you include all the "Walmart Badgers" who live in SE Wisconsin)... especially when our choice of venues are a high school gym or playing across the street from options #1 and #2.

[MU/Panther]

With schedules going to change with BCS schools, there is more reasons not to have football.

[illwauk]

What's happening at the BCS level couldn't possibly have less to do with a hypothetical Panther football program one way or the other.

[Jimmy Lemke]

What's happening at the BCS level couldn't possibly have less to do with a hypothetical Panther football program one way or the other.

Totally false. They're cutting out guarantee games. Many programs at the I-AA FCS level pay significant portions of their football budget through the scheduling of these games. It's a hard hit to programs in the MVC like UNI and NDSU. UNI made something like $500,000 from their trips to Iowa and Wisconsin this past season. They won't be able to do that anymore.

[Jimmy Lemke]

It's why my stance on football has changed over the last few months. Between the screwing over of mid-major football programs and the imminent fall from grace for the sport overall (due to concussions) in the next 20-30 years, I think it's best that we focus our efforts on what we have - basketball, baseball and soccer.

If we were to finish George Koonce and Ricky Babcock's work with MLB's RBI program, we could have a baseball stadium like the one UIC is about to build. That would vault us (along with them) to the top of the northern landscape of college baseball.

Soccer is now the second-most popular sport in the 12-24 age range behind football. It is my belief that the rise of US Soccer, coupled with the fall of football, will cause the popularity of the sport to skyrocket in the next 20-30 years, which will rise the level of talent and turn college soccer into a much more prominent part of the landscape.

Focusing on men's basketball and fostering the growth of those programs will help us survive in the future. If you want to continue to trumpet new sports, I'd focus on ice hockey and lacrosse.

[illwauk]

Totally false. They're cutting out guarantee games. Many programs at the I-AA FCS level pay significant portions of their football budget through the scheduling of these games. It's a hard hit to programs in the MVC like UNI and NDSU. UNI made something like $500,000 from their trips to Iowa and Wisconsin this past season. They won't be able to do that anymore.

I hadn't heard of this... what a load of crap! :mad:

Still... Hart Park Stadium in Wauwatosa is of comparable size and quality to the football facilities at Butler and Valpo. How feasible is a non-scholarship program?


It's why my stance on football has changed over the last few months. Between the screwing over of mid-major football programs and the imminent fall from grace for the sport overall (due to concussions) in the next 20-30 years, I think it's best that we focus our efforts on what we have - basketball, baseball and soccer.

If we were to finish George Koonce and Ricky Babcock's work with MLB's RBI program, we could have a baseball stadium like the one UIC is about to build. That would vault us (along with them) to the top of the northern landscape of college baseball.

Soccer is now the second-most popular sport in the 12-24 age range behind football. It is my belief that the rise of US Soccer, coupled with the fall of football, will cause the popularity of the sport to skyrocket in the next 20-30 years, which will rise the level of talent and turn college soccer into a much more prominent part of the landscape.

Focusing on men's basketball and fostering the growth of those programs will help us survive in the future. If you want to continue to trumpet new sports, I'd focus on ice hockey and lacrosse.

Good points all around, though I'm still skeptical about how successful a college baseball team can really be in Wisconsin, even with a shiny new facility. It might be a decent entertainment option if it were built on the eastside... especially since Milwaukee is deprived of the "Wrigleyville" experience that's now in most of the cities that built their MLB park downtown. But I read that the baseball facility isn't going to be all that fan-friendly... a huge mistake, if true IMHO.

If we're definitely going forward without football, then Engelmann is due for some serious upgrades, or possibly even a brand new facility like Creighton's that could host a NASL club in the spring (much as I love Engelmann). The main thing our university is lacking without football is an actual homecoming and all the alumni donations that usually come with it. Some serious commitments to soccer will probably have to be made because of that.

I want ice hockey probably even more than I want football at this point, though it's only feasible if we get the Cell. Of course, if we do, we'd almost have to add hockey to justify owning and operating such a facility. And wasn't the WCHA pretty much begging us to add it back when Costello was still AD?

I don't have anything against lacrosse, but I agree with what you've said before about MKE distinguishing its athletic program from MU's. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing wrestling at Milwaukee though. We're in the right part of the country for it, though the Iowa and Oklahoma schools' dominate that sport even more than the California and Texas schools do in baseball.

[Jimmy Lemke]

A non-scholarship football program is a waste of time. The good part is that you technically are making $700k off of the tuition that football players are spending. The bad part is no one cares. Ask Valpo how they enjoy their football games at Brown Field. These are schools that only play D-I football because the NCAA changed its rules and forced them to bring their programs up from D-III.

To get off the ground, you need millions of dollars to build a new stadium or renovate a place like South Stadium on the south side or make Shorewood HS Stadium good enough for D-I football, even if it is Pioneer League.

In my eyes, the best way to get new sports for people to care about while not committing resources (people, money and time) is to investigate the possibility of elevating select club sports to "Varsity Club" status.

Varsity Club status is a designation that would not change how any of the club sports or varsity sports run things. All it does is lend the Varsity Athletics program's brand to the club sports, allowing them to market themselves as the university's {sport} team. A couple obvious examples are the lacrosse team at Michigan and the ice hockey team at Penn State. Both of those programs "graduated" to NCAA D-I status by being wildly popular on their respective campuses. Michigan LAX was beating D-I teams in exhibitions and Penn State hockey was drawing 4,000 a game. Another notable one is Kentucky ice hockey - their 99 schedule poster with Ashley Judd was my desktop background for months (seriously, google that - I'd love to google her).

If we were to elevate a few select club sports - say, football, ice hockey and lacrosse - to Varsity Club status, we would essentially create each of those programs while not committing any resources to them except the brand and some space on UWMPanthers.com. The SID could hire a student intern to basically be the SID for these sports, so they get coverage on the website and legitimacy as a program.

At the end of the day, we were never going to make money for football, but making them a Varsity Club sport would allow the university to say that we have college football here and leave it at that. Even having the Pounce facebook page or the @MKEPanthers twitter account send out some messages via social media telling fans of games would be a big deal.

If the university wanted to take it a step further, they could donate a small amount of money or time to help each Varsity Club secure a permanent home. Ice hockey should absolutely be playing at the Wilson Park Ice Center, football should always be at Shorewood Stadium and lacrosse should get lines painted on Engelmann and play their games there. Allow the teams to hang schedules around campus and all of a sudden (holy crap) you have a real "program."

For football I don't think it would go beyond that, but if all of a sudden you have 2,000 people going to ice hockey games or you have lacrosse games at Engelmann getting packed, you might find that the university has ample reason to believe an NCAA Division I program would work. Ask Michigan or Penn State.

[illwauk]

Lacrosse is the only sport where that route seems feasible. Shorewood charges too much for the football team to continuously use it, and being held at a high school pretty much kills any chance of a tailgating culture building around the team, which pretty much has to happen for fans to turn out in large numbers. It's a shame that Milwaukee doesn't at least have an old WPA-era football stadium they could use.

Ice hockey is at an even bigger disadvantage, because the only facilities they can use are clear across town in suburban areas that don't have anything for young adults to do after the game. Any club hockey team you see drawing 2,000 fans does so because they have a facility on-campus (like Penn State) or at least in an adjacent neighborhood. The only ice facility that's even close to the eastside is the Kern Center at MSOE... any idea if the possibility of playing games there has ever been inquired into?

[MU/Panther]

Back to the FBS might not be playing FCS, all fans are happy. Most are bad games. Since, college football added the 12 game less than 10 years ago we bad match-ups.

What did the FCS schools do before to make their money? These games never happened 15 years ago.

[Jimmy Lemke]

Back to the FBS might not be playing FCS, all fans are happy. Most are bad games. Since, college football added the 12 game less than 10 years ago we bad match-ups.

What did the FCS schools do before to make their money? These games never happened 15 years ago.

They didn't make money. That's the point.

And tell NDSU that their victory over Minnesota wasn't a good game. Or South Dakota. Tell Youngstown State that beating Pitt wasn't a big deal. UNI nearly depantsed Wisconsin at Camp Randall this year. Appalachian State's victory over Michigan is the most memorable game of that entire season.

[MU/Panther]

Plus, James Madison won at VA Tech.

For the folks buy season-tickets I think the folks at Florida State should get something better than Sav. State & Murray State. Alabama playing Georgia State, Western Carolina. Auburn playing Alabama A&M. Sav. State at Okla. State. Tenn Tech at Oregon. Eastern Kentucky at Purdue, Jackson at Miss. State, Florida A&M at Ohio State, South Carolina State at Arizona, Northern Arizona at Arizona State, I could keep going.

Why not do something that has never been done, play one exhibition game in college football at the end of August with these type of match-ups.