Rutgers Football: A Case Study in Winning and Losing

As a current sophomore... that's pretty OTM. I still can't believe they cut men's crew. Did you know anyone on Crew? They're seriously really fucking hardcore (they put up a billboard at the train station on Somerset in protest).

the RU screw never dies, it just evolves!

Remember 'up stream red team'
Jeff bodenmann
Posted: 9/29/06
While I am excited over the recent success of Rutgers University football, I am disgusted by the recent philosophy of the current athletic director and the direction of my Alma Mater.

Blaming the recent budget cut, Athletic Director Robert E. Mulcahy III finally gained approval for his plan to eliminate six "lesser" sports programs in order to focus on football and basketball. It's a plan he submitted twice before and was denied by the Board of Governors.

Eliminating sports like fencing and swimming saves a trivial amount of money, while the budget for the football program was increased more than $1 million. The idea these cuts were unavoidable for budget reasons is an insult to the student athletes effected and the University overall.

It would be criminal to let Rutgers sports follow the path of the universities of Miami or Colorado, where a few paid professionals entertain the students and alumni. Successful big-time sports is not at odds with academic excellence or a broad athletic offering for the student body. Mulcahy need only look to Penn State, Notre Dame and Stanford for examples of schools managing its priorities well.

RU athletics must serve and focus on the student athlete. The six programs slated for elimination have the highest GPA's of all Rutgers teams, yet are viewed by Mulcahy as low priority and expendable. Clearly the concept of student athlete holds no sway with him. Apparently neither does tradition. Among the teams slated for elimination is Men's Crew. Someone should remind Mulcahy that the RU cheer says "up steam red team" - which now no one will know what that quaint outdated notion means.

Jeff Bodenmann is a Rutgers College alumnus.

Cooper is closed as well? Didn't Brower Commons burn down or something? At this rate, Tillett Hall on Livingston will be the only place to hoard (uh, eat) bagels.

tillett = KILL-IT TILLETT or TOILET. brower commons = BOWEL COMMONS (i got a nice case of food poisoning there 2d week freshman year).

Brower always has really long lines and is always noisy; Tillett's food is just as mediocre but the setting's a lot nicer, and there's rarely crowds. Plus Tillett is the only one with styrofoam cups anymore.

So who here did WRSU?

I agree that Cooper was considered the best of the dining halls.

Busch dining hall was renovated in 2000, and Nielsen I think was renovated within the past 2 or 3 years. IB is like my favorite part of the Targum, too.

RRRRRRRRRRRR

UUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

good luck with the cardinals.

WHAT??
WHAT?!?!?!

RU, MOTHAFUCKA!!!!

OMG A-ron you shoulda seen College Ave last night. It was like one massive fuckin riot. WE'RE 9 AND FUCKIN 0!!!

They were amused, to say the least.

My wife then said "But, you NEVER watch Rutgers football."

"I didn't have any football to watch prior to now. RU RAH RAH!!!"

I would have LOVED to have been on campus last night. Were the bars absolutely crazy or what?

Good to hear that RU still knows how to party. Enjoy it - many of us never had the chance to enjoy a good sports season at RU. And I mean that in the happiest, friendliest, least condescending manner I possibly can.

R! U! R! U!

It's tough to remember addresses for basement shows - there was definitely at least one house on Hamilton, at least one on Louis, and at least one on Somerset - but it never seemed to be the same location for too long due to cops. I actually got to see some pretty decent touring bands in basements such as Q and not U and Edie Sedgwick -- in fact that might have even been the same show. I don't think any of the Rutgers bands playing basements at the time made it big, but I think Thursday might have been contemporaries of mine (I didn't know them.) Oh yeah, we also had a few never-quite-went-anywheres like Val Emmich, Little T. and One Track Mike, and Ben Jelen (really nice guy, btw!), but they weren't really the basement show types (except maybe Little T.)

I played a few of those too, and we even went back for one last year with the recently defunct Sunshine Will. Did you ever get to see them? They were really quite good!

and never underestimate the omnipresent incompetence of the R.U. Screw. seriously, R.U. has to have one of the most inept and downright malevolent bureaucratic regimes this side of the brezhnev-era USSR. folks that are so engrossed in their own petty turf wars and personal fiefdoms that the whole university system ends up suffering. it'why bushco's incompetence hasn't really shocked me that much -- dealing with R.U. administrative slugs was like a training camp for that kinda shit!

i think that machine is a little after my time. and i also think that the basement-show scene-thing is after my time, too -- and if it wasn't, it may have been going on when i was actually kinda serious about academics and ergo i was oblivious to it all.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNjIm
ZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcwMTUzNzQmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXky

Graphic showing Rutgers football spending v. athletic and academic cuts:

http://www.northjersey.com/static/graphics/rutgers110506/costs.html

RU tuition doubles over ten years:

http://www.northjersey.com/static/graphics/rutgers110506/tuition.html

Rutgers's bowl game appearance did not even pay for itself:

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxMDYm
ZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcwMTUzMjMmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2

It's not like I think football is solely to blame for all this, but I think it says something about the screwed up priorities of the school and the state legislature that football is the one thing that must never take cuts.

To be totally honest, I didn't make it out to many basement shows - I was in a (now defunct) fraternity, and, more importantly, was dating a girl for two years who went to Cornell. I also changed my major halfway through, so I actually didn't go out very much my senior year.

Do you have any emailable files of current stuff being played there? I would love to hear some.

Well yeah, I guess anything that lifts the RU malaise can't be ALL bad, but I think you get an exaggerated sense of how important it is to most people when there are screaming fans running down College Ave.

http://www.northjersey.com/static/graphics/rutgers110506/110506rutgerspoll.jpg

As far as Rutgers bands, I like these guys (but they just broke up):

www.myspace.com/sunshinewill

This band went to Rutgers but claims they're "from Brooklyn":

www.myspace.com/exmodels

This band is also really good, and they mostly went to Rutgers but live in Philly now:

www.myspace.com/likemovinginsects

This is depressing:

The Record
Rutgers to add 12,000 seats,luxury boxes to stadium
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

By PATRICIA ALEX
STAFF WRITER

Rutgers University is drawing plans for a $116 million expansion of its football stadium, adding luxury boxes and more than 12,000 seats, according to information obtained by The Record.

The university, still reeling from a budget crisis last year that forced cuts in staff and courses, has already committed almost $1 million for design work.

Plans call for an initial grant of $30 million from the state. Though it involves public money, the athletic department has kept the details of the expansion under wraps.

The improvements would be complete in time for the 2009 season, documents say, and are meant to capitalize on the team's turnaround over the past two seasons, engineered by coach Greg Schiano. The Scarlet Knights compiled an impressive 11-2 record last season.

The 2007 season begins at home against Buffalo on Aug. 30, and tickets for home games will be harder to come by than in the past. Nearly 6,000 people are on a season ticket waiting list, said Robert Mulcahy III, head of the athletic department. The department is taking the unusual step of offering single-game tickets first to those on the waiting list for season tickets.
"Based on the response to tickets, we realize there is a need and we have to find a way to address that," said Mulcahy. He said expansion proposals are still in their infancy and must be brought before the board of governors and other university groups before they are discussed publicly.

But documents acquired by The Record show plans well under way and, according to a source, a construction manager and other personnel have already been identified.

The university signed a contract in April agreeing to pay HOK Sports up to $970,000 for design work for the expansion. The Record received a copy of the contract under the state's Open Public Records Act. Rutgers denied requests for details and cost estimates, and Mulcahy declined to discuss specifics, saying it was too early in the process.

But an estimate prepared by Mulcahy's department and obtained by The Record shows a total project cost of $116 million. The public university would sell bonds to raise $86 million and obtain a $30 million state grant under the plan.

Governor Corzine has been advised of the expansion plans, said his spokesman, Brendan Gilfillan. "We're reviewing them," he said. "No decisions have been made."

University President Richard McCormick has deferred comment on the stadium to Mulcahy.

In the plan under discussion, stadium suites, loge boxes and club seating would come first, followed by the addition of 12,000 permanent seats that would enclose the one now-open end zone. Rutgers last year set up temporary seating there.

Design of a new practice facility is also part of the HOK contract. Schiano said he wasn't at liberty to say what the new facility might include, but that it was the subject of discussions.

The stadium expansion, he said, is the immediate need. "I think everyone realizes it all makes sense," Schiano said. "We're going to grow at a rate that allows us to keep growing consistently."

Since he came on board in 2000, Schiano has pushed for new facilities as part of Rutgers' bid to become a Division I powerhouse. At his behest, the school recently spent $12.5 million to build a new training facility for the team at the Hale Center. And Schiano, who will make more than a million dollars this year, has made it clear he wants more.

"There's a lot of things facility-wise that we have long-term plans for. Five-, 10-, 15-year plans," he said. "Right now our main focus is the stadium."

Some urge caution, noting that a winning team is a relatively recent phenomenon in the long history of Rutgers football and that the state's finances are tight.

State funding to higher education has lagged while tuition has continued to climb. It now costs $20,000 to live and study at Rutgers' flagship campus in New Brunswick/Piscataway.

This year, Mulcahy axed six Olympic sports -- including men's tennis, crew and swimming -- in what he said was an effort to streamline his department. The annual budgets of those teams was less than $1 million. Meanwhile, football spending has increased despite the fact that the program has needed as much as $3 million in university support to cover its deficits.

"It just seems to a lot of us at Rutgers University that we're sacrificing other sports for football," said Edward Fu, a senior. "It concerns me."

Momentum appears to be building for the expansion -- whetted in part by large billboards on the New Jersey Turnpike urging fans to sign up for the season ticket waiting list. Proponents of stadium expansion argue that the investment will allow the team to generate more profits. Rutgers estimates the new seating and parking could generate nearly $6.7 million in revenue by the 2010 season and increase thereafter.

Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway now seats fewer than 42,000. Other Top 25 teams play in much bigger venues. According to NCAA statistics, 45 Division I teams play in stadiums with capacities of at least 60,000.

Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, D-Middlesex, had been critical of the decision to cut the Olympic sports. Nonetheless he said he thought public spending on the stadium would be a good investment in the future. He noted that large donors often are drawn by a successful football program.

"We all know the positive effect Rutgers football has had on our state, our image and the university in particular," he said.

Staff Writer Aditi Kinkhabwala contributed to this article. E-mail: a✧✧✧@northjer✧✧✧.c✧✧

"positive effect Rutgers Football has had on... the university in particular" = more dumb yahoos take the bus tour cuz they got Scarlett Fever yo.

Damnit. Damnit.

Once again, Rutgers ends up being run by complete idiots.

Seriously. Why should University of Michigan, University of Texas, and University of Virginia have better reps than Rutgers? Rutgers is the closest large public university to New York city, its one of, if not the most diverse schools in the country, and its one of the oldest in the country (1763!!).

Its b/c we make stupid, stupid decisions like this. 30 million? Do you know how many top-notch kids we could have lured there with that money as scholarships? Or how many top-notch profs we could have lured there with that money as salaries for them?

But NO. Luxury boxes. Fuck that.

seriously - you want to raise the profile of the school, you spend that money making sure Rutgers scoops up any top students that don't make the ivies, recruit them like THEY were football players, and put some resources into grooming a few for Rhodes scholarships.

But of course that's not going to make the cover of the Daily News and light up the Empire State Building red, and that's what really counts, right?!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/sports/ncaafootball/18rutgers.html?ref=education

It's fucking painful, really. But funny.