This is the kind of post that gets no reaction from anyone. I’d be better off writing three paragraphs about Doug Flynn. However, this is the kind of thing I like sharing because it makes my blood boil.
The Star-Ledger has a blistering front page report on Rutgers Football today. Below are some excerpts.
Consider:
In the past five years, as Rutgers hiked tuition, eliminated six other varsity sports and canceled classes to cut costs, the university more than doubled annual spending on football, from $7.5 million to $15.6 million. Rutgers now puts more into its football program than any school in the Big East Conference, including Pittsburgh and Syracuse, which have won national titles.
Sen. Shirley Turner, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, which drafts policy affecting New Jersey public colleges, said she worries that the school is putting too much emphasis on the sport.
“I know that we’re all great fans of the Scarlet Knights football team,” said Turner (D-Mercer). “But I’m concerned we may be losing sight of our real mission here at our state university, which is to provide a high-quality education at an affordable cost.”
The Mets Police observe that the priority seems to be to have a Division I football program. I guess that’s fun if you get to enjoy the perks like the coach’s salary or housing. Maybe it’s fun to sit in the skybox. As far as this area loving Rutgers football – let’s rank the teams until we get to them.
Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Rangers. No-brainers. Nets. Islanders & Devils probably. St. John’s basketball. Maybe Rutgers is the 11th most popular thing around here – and that’s in a year where they are undefeated into November, and only because they pay good money to have their games on the radio which helps create perception (lot’s of teams do that).
Of all the bills Rutgers incurred to fund its football program, the biggest has yet to land: the $102 million expansion plan for the school’s stadium in Piscataway.
Newly obtained documents show the school rushed into the project with no marketing study and no certainty where it would get the money to build the structure. Driving the decision, the documents show, was concern that the only way to keep Schiano was to give him a bigger place to play.
They were asked that month to intervene in an effort to convince Schiano to stay. In an interview, Codey recalled meeting with the coach at the Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield. He said the talk centered around whether the state would get behind Schiano’s vision for the stadium. Codey said ultimately both he and the governor committed state funding for the project.
“It was the right thing to do,” Codey said.
The Mets Police observe that the existing Rutgers stadium was fine. This expansion was based upon the madness that Rutgers was suddenly a national powerhouse, something that was quickly exposed on a Thursday night on ESPN a few years back.
There’s also a brand new PSL funded stadium being built not too far to the north. I’m told that’s a state of the art football stadium, and that the state is chipping in to build roads. It sits there empty on Saturday. Why couldn’t Rutgers just play there? It probably has something to do with the university wanting to make sure students can go to the games, clearly the students are the topmost priority in all this. You can tell that by the way they’ve cut other varsity sports and some classes.
A buyout clause guaranteeing the stadium expansion was subsequently incorporated in an addendum to Schiano’s contract, documents show, over the objections of the university’s chief financial officer.
It’s good that Rutgers is committed to Schiano. It’s not like he’d take an interview with another school if he had the chance…..oh say in 2007 and Michigan. NJ commits $102 million to him, but he’s on job interviews.
His criticism was never brought to the attention of the board of governors and on Feb. 19, 2007, Mulcahy signed the agreement and gave it to Schiano to sign. Until The Star-Ledger began asking questions about the side letter in July, no one knew that Schiano kept the document, but never actually signed it. Even after McCormick publicly confirmed the agreement, Mulcahy and Schiano were disputing it existed.
