I didn't figure on this post becoming the proverbial p'ing contest between friends but it is interesting never the less...
I will respond to CATJACKET's attempt to contradict my claims...
- Yes the team did walk down Yellow Jacket Alley 5 of 6 games... HOWever the one they missed was Seniors day for crying out loud I followed Randy Rhino filming the walk that his son would never take Kelly watches his Senior Day walk down YJA on Video and there's no one cheering 'cause the team wasn't there to be cheered!!! AND they were never consistent in when they arrived... fans, band, and cheer team all biting nails and looking bored and at their watches trying to figure out what happened to the team this week...
- Yes the team followed the Ramblin' Reck onto the field... but several times if you were sitting in the east stands as I was you could see behind the scenes that it was totally disorganized and some of the team would be there and other members of the team weren't....... Reck would inch out to start and get called back several times... and the Clemson game rush onto the field was weak and disorganized...
- AND the letter from Braine about reseating oh yes whenever it concerns the flow of money from my pocket book to the AA's communication has been in excess... I've been more concerned with Gailey's weekly call in show... where he was IMO politely rude to most callers who would have any questions about football.... the total blackout of info following the UGA game and the blackhole of communication after the Silicon Valley debacle... Including the preemting of Wes' Monday morning recap on the 'Flagship' station immediately following 51-7!!!
- your finger pointing at all those other achievements in the Athletic Department is swell Catjacket...
BUT THEY DON'T PAY THE BILLS!!!!!!
let me be the first to explain this real slowly for you.... IF FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL FAIL THE OTHER SPORTS WILL FAIL ALSO... I will listen to you if you can prove this is not so but save your breathe.... Golf, Swimming, Diving, Volleyball, and even a Nat'l. Champion in Baseball do not earn enough to pay for themselves if the 2 big money earners fail how will any of the others survive...
- now for stadium expansion... this is a great idea... I've been in support of this and I think the Stadium looks great...
BUT...
I pay for seasons tickets... 6 MONTHS UP FRONT... then I see the AA cut ticket prices on game day to a mere $10 it kind've bugs me...
I tolerate reseating and change because I understand that we've installed all these fancy seats and this has caused some transition...
BUT I go to pick my new seats and lo and behold less than 25% of the new seats are going to have any butts in them come game day... It would be nice to sell those seats before we built them and forced a mass exodus of loyal fans who can't or won't afford $1,500 extra don't you think??? Now how will the AA fill those seats this FALL???? These seats are clearly in the view of the TV cameras are we going to paste cutouts in them or will the AA undercut us as prepaying fans and undersell those seats as they did seats last fall???
The fact that the AA has raised 75% of the funds speaks more about the loyalty of the fan base than any genius moneymaking schemes concocted by the AA... TECH fans have always showed their support monetarily... this has never been a problem nor will it be in the future as long as we feel we have reliable leadership...
As to your questions to the AA... were you 'in the know' about this change in policy regarding Head Coach participation in SA academics or did your AA phone rep answer this when you called??? Perhaps your AA phone rep can help this fall and let us know which game the team will chose to walk down YJA and which one they will choose to go directly by bus past the fans, band and cheerleaders... Does he know why if UPS is a major commercial sponsor why I recieve things in the mail from the AA in a Federal Express container??? Some of my TECH alumni friends who work for UPS were a little surprised at this...
Okay so I've reviewed and yes I do expect the SA's to accept the majority of blame for their academic lack of performance... BUT again SA"S are recruited to TECH with the promise of an exhorbitant amount of tutoring help and guidance... If TECH considers itself as a tough school academically and won't change it's scholastic orientation to liberal arts degrees then it has to assist these SA's in every aspect of off field life especially academics...
Finally... unless summer school goes very well for 10+ SA's we would have lost the equal of one recruiting class... There is no good way to spin this failure...
Excluding wins and losses that will eventually be posted what about the expense in dollars that it cost to recruit these athletes??? And now with us recruiting nationally what is the cost of recruiting say Al Pena and then losing him after 5 months??? Times 10... what's that cost??? I'll wager losing 10 Football players academically costs more than all the money that the female varsity sports earned in one year... Betcha it's real close ....
