Espn Article - CUSA vs WAC

[cowboypony]

EastStang, you're right that we'd need about $10M to do baseball and softball and somehow figure out how to get it on campus. No small task. It's just hard for me to believe, however, that with the extraordinary number of baseball and softball players among the youth (as compared to say, tennis) that such a program wouldn't have the chance to be moderately successful.

While I think we would all concur that having baseball at SMU is a long shot, I don't want the university to ever totally dismiss anything that would boost our identity or give us better exposure. Think how nice a new stadium would look on the east side of the campus. And, yes, there is no doubt that watching Rice has re-energized my desire to play baseball. Never say never.

[Nacho]

I never saw more than about 20 people watch an SMU baseball game. We had a very nice turnout for our playoff soccer game at Ford.

In a perfect world SMU would have baseball. I've enjoyed watching some of the college world series, especially the pounding Rice laid on UT. Hopefully they will do it again tonight.

We opted for soccer over baseball. I don't think Lamar wants to see the soccer team disappear. You might call him up and ask him to drop soccer for baseball but I doubt if it will get very far. The only way I see baseball coming back is if a major conference demands it for admittance.

[This message has been edited by Nacho (edited 06-18-2003).]

[Diehard Pony]

While I would like to have baseball again at SMU (who wouldn't), I don't miss it that badly. Baseball at the college level is a minor sport. It is well attended at only a handful of schools (Texas being among them)across the country. Outside of this current Rice / Texas thing currently going on have you ever heard anybody say they just have to get to a sports bar to see Miami and Arizona State play baseball? People usually (excluding Rice / Texas) don't talk about it, or attend games. When we had baseball we might have had 100 -150 people attend when Texas was in. For all other opponents it was 50 or less.

If we could afford it, I would like to have it back. If it means taking away from football or basketball either directly or by having another women's sport, I would just assume leave it as is.

[cowboypony]

Can't really say I disagree with most of what has been said. I still wish we had baseball.

I'm not sure, however, why everyone keeps saying its either soccer or baseball. I sure never implied that. On a final note, I think today is much different than 25 years ago. I happen to be friends with 2 people who played baseball at SMU and their opinion is that it was an after thought from the administration and that the program was never given a chance to succeed - things we've heard way too often.

I'll sign off on this one by saying that we should always strive to make things better at SMU. I, for one, think baseball could be an asset to us. Having said that, I completely agree that it's not a priority nor should it in ANY WAY take away from our pressing goal of being nationally ranked in FB and BB.

[Charleston Pony]

I was at SMU when we played baseball. We were never very competitive, but it wasn't nearly as big as it has become in recent years. At the top programs, it is actually a revenue producing sport now that TV has gotten into the act.

I'm proud of our soccer program and hope we can sustain the excellence that program has demonstrated. I would never suggest trading our soccer programs for another "non-revenue" sport. In fact, talk about improving facilities should include upgrading Wescott. We are one of the top soccer programs in the country. It would be nice if we could say the same for Wescott.

The problem with baseball is that we would also need softball (Title IX) and we just don't have the money or the facilities. It would take far more than $10 million, because we'd be looking at buying neighboring properties to establish a site on which to build 2 parks. I think we would need to build 1st class facilities in order to compete and of course it would add to our operating costs and the annual budget that is already in crisis management. When I make my 1st billion, I will certainly address these issues.

That doesn't keep me from missing baseball and feeling left out this time of year. Thankfully, we have conference realignment scenarios to talk about.

[DiamondM]

By the way, I believe that baseball was an after-thought to the administration well-before Title IX was a reality. The real reason why baseball was never given a chance to succeed was because at the time the principal focus, financially and otherwise, was always football. Baseball teams are expensive and it took money away from football. Although Title IX makes it more difficult to re-instate baseball today, it was not the main reason why it was eliminated back then.

[Charleston Pony]

baseball was always a "problem" for SMU. When I was there in the early 70's, there were few scholarships awarded and several football players also played baseball...some I knew openly admitted doing so just to avoid spring football practice.

Baseball at SMU was killed long before Title IX and the reason way back then was financial. My point was that it doesn't have a prayer of being reinstated today because Title IX would require also starting softball and we have the facilities for neither, not to mention what it would add to the operating budget.

[EastStang]

It was an afterthought. Also, baseball was used as a way of rewarding an old football hero from the 1930's, Bob Finley. Coach Finley was a decent guy, but his baseball coaching ability was antiquated. And you're right, he preferred to have football players, (read power hitters), and as we all know, power hitters tend to strike out or hit home runs, and are usually not gifted defensively. The result, embarrassing losses to SWC teams. I remember one year when I was there we were winless in SWC play. Some of the baseball scholarships back then were used to get football players who happened to play baseball. No Bo Jacksons in that group either.