Rice Asking For Help!

[50's PONY]

www.r-assoc.com

[Charleston Pony]

I fully expect SMU will be doing the same thing at the end of the current 4 year "commitment". I don't contribute much to the Mustang Club (as my screen name suggests) and I did not increase my contribution this year (losing a job will make a person frugal), but if the cost of competing continues to escalate, it's going to come down to whether the students & alumni care to finance big time athletics. Right now, something like 5% of our students and alumni contribute to the Mustang Club. That ain't gonna get it done.

I still see the super conferences on the horizon and the rest of us playing at a lower level (whether you call it I-AA, Division 2 or whatever. I only hope I will see SMU, TCU, Baylor, Houston, UNT, Rice, Houston, UTEP and perhaps some schools from adjacent states playing in a reconstituted SWC at some point in my lifetime. I fully expect UT and A$M to play at the most costly level...and probably Texas Tech because of the politics that will be involved.