The EWU/CWU/WWU story is confusing. EWU and CWU are about the same size:12,000 students, but WWU is much larger at 16,000+ And is much moe highly regarded academically. But it is DII as is CWU. I know from a niece who went to WSU medical school in Spokane that this is not a nice place to live. Crime is way high and Cheney is just as bad. A lot of drug trafficking and just bad stuff going on the streets. Students are advised to always have a $20 bill to pay a mugger if confronted in the parking structure at night. EWU is struggling with decreasing enrollment for these reasons. I doubt they will cut football, but things are not good at EWU that is for sure.

Funding is one issue. I think they missed the boat in this report regarding some other issues surrounding athletics. For example, what is the graduation rate of their student athletes? Do athletic scholarships offer opportunity for kids that otherwise might not be able to attend college? If their graduation rate is terrible and the program is costing them an arm and a leg, that would fit into the professor’s playbook.

Agreed. EWU only 3% African American, canceling athletics may cut that considerably. What percentage of their budget is scholarships for student-athletes? No mention of overall campus budget. Attendance suffers when the economy is rolling.

The president uses the ‘front porch’ analogy referring to the fact that athletic events might be the first (and only) exposure young kids gets to the college. Of course, if applications and student numbers are dwindling, they need to spruce up the porch to give it more curb appeal.

Not unusual that the education faculty and the athletic department have differences. We have experienced it for a LONG time at Davis.

Having athletes that are good in the classroom helps silence those differences.

Yep, but there were protests about moving to D-I, and before that merging the NCAC into the CCAA because the CCAA played basketball on school nights, and....

Heck, having athletes that can find the classroom sets UCD apart from some places....

I'm not a fan of Best's style and I think even when he wins his tactics are in conflict with most self-respecting institutions. And the report is fair to point out that the Big Sky is no SEC when it comes to cash value. But I would venture that athletics are not the cause of the university's woes. Probably other things at play like location, majors offered, and cost to value proposition. Seems like faculty looking for something to cut as they don't want to admit that their life's work in comparative literature isn't really an in demand topic. As far as only 5% of the student body going to games, that's about the percentage of people colorblind to red. Nobody else can look at that field for 3 hours.

I can't stand that red field. It's worse than the blue field at Boise State...

It's far worse than Boise. Not only is the red horrible to look at for any extended period of time, it's also a cheap knock off. I dislike when teams try to take another school's schtick. For example, I think it was University of Miami who first had a "turnover chain" and then a bunch of other school jumped on that trend. Come up with something unique.

...a very long time. I think the last one I went to, just to listen in, at least 2 or 3 faculty members said their piece about how they thought athletics was a waste of time.

Athletics builds character, and people learn how to lead men. These are things you cannot learn from books. It is like when Our QB, Jon Grant, led the Aggies to victory over Stanford. Leadership qualities were obvious to coaches and players alike.

@lucche I totally agree with you, however, we view athletics through a UCD lens. Here, although we still want to compete at the highest level, athletics is part of the process of educating the entire person, and there are lessons students just can't learn in any other part of campus life. But we are a bit unique - academically minded students, high graduation rates, strong student-athlete outcomes. It's more difficult to make the same argument at schools with lower graduation rates, where athletes are treated like mercenaries. Even worse at a program like EWU where low TV and ticket revenue make the economic argument quite difficult. While I disagree with EWU's faculty that athletics should be cut or reduced, many of their points are valid.

Ok, so don't see a baseball game at Gonzaga, or I'll be robbed or murdered on the way there ? Got it. My dreams of seeing every WCC school in person have been shattered *sarcasm*. Ok, Unpleasant Osrtrich Poop already took care of that.

OK to go. Just carry that $20! Actually with inflation make that a $100 bill. You will be fine.

Thanks.

I lived up there for a couple years; Spokane reminds me of downtown Sacramento a little bit. Not a ton of foot traffic like you'd find in downtown SF, but there are some nice spots and some sketch spots like most cities.

Their logo looks like a botched attempt at WSU's design.

I live a couple of hours south of Spokane, and while I wouldn't want to live in downtown Spokane I don't think it's all that bad. I chose not to attend law school at Gonzaga and went to the University of Idaho in Moscow instead, but I also prefer small towns. Cheney is not the same as Spokane. It's a nice little town. My son played his hockey games there a couple of years ago so I was up there most weekends those winters. Biggest danger was that I might die of boredom between games, or hit a deer on the commute.

or getting a speeding ticket in Colfax for going 26 mph.

Yep, Colfax is a notorious speed trap town. To the south Jordan Valley, OR, is a great place to get a ticket on the way to or from Boise, and in the evening you can do a double and also hit a deer at dusk. They're all over the place.

The thread that wouldn't die . . .

It's really confusing to see a Colfax reference on this forum and it not referring to the Norcal foothills Colfax....

(sorry for making the thread go on even longer)

Well, the report was issued by their faculty senate. My impressions of faculty Senates are socialist-type academics isolated from the real world. I never attended any at NC State. Now I am not a fan of Best and I do t think academics is stressed nearly as much as at UCD. So, I would say they are just going to have to figure out their priorities and balance on their own.

Other than Gonzaga basketball, from Seattle to Missoula, football reigns.