Exclusive interview with University President regarding sports cuts
Photo Illustration by Matthew Hazlett/ The Towerlight
After several days of media blackout, University President Maravene Loeschke agreed to an exclusive interview Wednesday afternoon with The Towerlight regarding her decision to discontinue the men’s soccer and baseball programs.
Her Chief of Staff Jennifer Gajewski, the Deputy Chief of Staff Marina Cooper, Interim Senior Director of University Marketing and Communications Josianne Pennington, Interim Vice President for Administration and Finance Mark Behm, University counsel Michael Anselmi and Student Government Association President Brandy Hall were also present. No representative from the athletics department was available to attend the meeting.
Editor’s Note: Because of the last-minute nature of the interview, The Towerlight could not fully investigate claims from
administrators or follow up with appropriate sources. Continue reading The Towerlight for ongoing coverage.
Click here for the full audio interview between members of The Towerlight staff and administration regarding recent athletic cuts.
Respecting the players
Loeschke arrived at the field house at Johnny Unitas Stadium Friday, March 8 at 10 a.m. with a Towson University police detail in tow.
She gave a five-minute speech to members of the baseball team informing them that after nearly six months of deliberation, their program, and men’s soccer, would be cut. She then promptly left the field house without taking questions, athletes said.
Reports vary as to how many police were present at the announcement. Athletes have claimed upward of 15 escorted Loeschke, while administration maintained only four were present. Members of the baseball team said the move was just another in a long series of discourtesies from administration. Outside critics of the decision have focused on the administrations’ treatment of the players.
“I’m sorry they took it as an insult, it was certainly not intended to be that way,” Loeschke said. “It was just procedural security when a president is going somewhere to make a controversial announcement. It’s not just athletes, it’s anyone else who might wish to do harm.”
The meeting was the administration’s effort to ensure athletes would hear the announcement from the president face to face. Loeschke said she was concerned the information had leaked, and she wanted to meet with the athletes before other sources could inform players of the news.
Players received text messages from an unknown number they assumed was from a University representative, demanding they attend the meeting, even if they were in class.
“I wanted to stand before them and tell them myself, and I did that,” Loeshcke said. “We didn’t want to do it on game day, but we tried to do it close to the time before they would hear it from someone else.”
Loeschke had said she would make a final decision in mid-November, after the task force she commissioned to examine Director of Athletics Mike Waddell’s recommendations confirmed the cuts were the best option to save money for the athletics department.
Athletes have said the long delay has interfered with plans to possibly transfer to another institution.
“We’re playing for each other,” junior leftfielder Dominic Fratantuono said in an interview Saturday. “You’re playing for the guy next to you. Towson, the administration, Mike Waddell, the president, they don’t have our backs. They don’t respect us. They don’t want us.”
Loeschke said she postponed her decision because she wanted to closely review every option the task force presented to her, consulting with outside legal counsel and financial analysts along the way.
“It was a rock and hard place,” she said. “Either make the decision quickly though you’re not feeling too confident, and let them know what’s happening, or have it be dragged out to make absolutely certain. I chose to make absolutely certain.”
And while Loeschke said she did meet with representatives and players of both teams, she did not meet with Olszewski and Gottlieb, who felt alienated. Loechke claimed that because of Towson’s “human resources processes,” she could not meet with the coaches, both of whom have been in their positions since the ‘80s. Gajewski said that she did not alert Loeschke that the coaches even wanted to meet.
“I’m not involved in the hiring or firings of coaches—we followed the process of the University,” Loeschke said. Waddell took aside the coaches to deliver their termination notices while Loeschke gave her speech to the players.
Olszewski noticed the name on his form was spelled incorrectly.
“I’m disappointed in the way it played out,” Gottlieb said in a previous Towerlight article. “No one kept me abreast as to what was going on. I wish the communication level was better. I wish I knew the details.”
History of the cuts
For several years, long before Loeschke’s tenure, the University underwent a period of rapid growth and enrollment under former President Robert Caret. The athletics department began to account for this expansion, Loeschke said, by investing funds for strategic expansion of the sports teams and marketing.
Then the growth stopped, and enrollment was down.
“The brakes were put on,” Loeschke said. “You weren’t having that additional revenue come in.”
Discussions that there may be foreseeable fiscal troubles, and a potential problem complying with Title IX, federal legislation that guarantees opportunities for female athletes, began during the time of Mike Hermann, the former Director of Athletics.
“They were preliminary,” Hermann said. “They never reached the level of the president.”
Waddell took the helm in 2010 and made men’s basketball an institutional priority, which Loeschke said would create the most revenue for the athletics department.
From the fiscal year 2011-2012, Waddell added nearly $290,000 annually to the athletics budget with the creation of seven new positions in the department, three of which were basketball-related, according to a report from the athletics department.
Waddell also began investigating options to correct Title IX compliance and other methods of generating revenue. He appointed the Black and Gold task force to explore these issues.
Two weeks after her appointment, Loeschke said she was brought up to speed and learned about the problem, but the official recommendation to cut the programs was not made until October 2012.
Accusations that Waddell mismanaged the budget, resulting in the cuts, have been brought up in meetings with the task force and on social media platforms.
Loeschke denied this allegation.
“Mike Waddell has my confidence,” Loeschke said. “He’s the Athletic Director, he can make any decisions he thinks are in the best interest as long as I’m informed.”
Aside from the looming financial worries, the University could not maintain its current method of complying with Title IX, according to Loeschke.
Universities can comply with Title IX in three ways: administration can match female athletes equal to the percentage of women on campus, add women’s sports, or conduct a survey to see if female athletes are satisfied with opportunities available.
Typically, the University would add a woman’s sports every five years, but a 2010 legal case prohibited them from complying with Title IX this way if they had cut a woman’s sport in the past. The University cut women’s track in the ‘90s.
“We chose the safe harbor method, which was substantial proportionality,” Anselmi said.
While no formal Title IX complaint has been filed against the University, Anselmi said officials wanted to quiet some anonymous rumblings they were hearing.
“There have been over the years complaints about the treatment [of female athletes],” he said. “Treatment, not in terms of accommodating interests. Facilities being different, facilities not being adequate for women. Our Title IX report indicates there is a significant problem with facilities for women, particularly the softball field.”
The Towerlight did not view this report.
Towson has renovated facilities throughout the fiscal year 2011-2012, including soccer field repair, gymnastics room updates and overhauling locker rooms.
“The athletic programs for men are not equal to those for women,” Loeschke said, “And they should be in the range required by the federal law. I feel that we have a responsibility to serve our female athletes to what they are entitled to.”
Loeschke stressed that she would never solve the fiscal troubles of the athletic department by inflating athletic fees, though the task force did present her that option to save the two programs. Towson charges the second highest athletic fee in the University system.
“I was not willing to solve this problem on the backs of the student fees,” she said.
Fostering a sense of transparency
Students, parents and athletic supporters who wished to provide input to the task force and Loeschke have said the process has been impaired by a lack of transparency.
Administration said they upheld a strong channel of communication by publishing weekly online updates from the task force updates, as well as holding public forums between the task force and proponents of the teams.
The task force accepted proposals at these meetings and electronically. Loeschke has maintained the task force reviewed every possible option, and eventually they found 13 major options emerged.
“It is inaccurate to assume they weren’t dealing with the feedback,” Loeschke said. “There was not an option that was put forward that was not looked at.”
One member of the baseball team, Zach Fisher, said he was disappointed with the task force’s response when he submitted an alternative proposition that proposed downsizing roster sizes.
“They didn’t really look at it because I only had a 15-minute meeting with them to give them everything I had,” Fisher said in a previous Towerlight article. “They didn’t really give much feedback and I didn’t hear much after the meeting I had with them.”
Hall said that the task force did not reply to those who submitted these proposals because they wanted to avoid influence from outside parties, and Loeschke said she encouraged the task force to remain confidential in its proceedings and to not share specific facts and figures.
But some have alleged discrepancies are present in these reports.
Mike Gill, a Towson donor, asserted in the Baltimore Sun that the numbers the task force provided changed over the course of the task force’s investigation.
In November, the task force identified an error in the roster count that duplicated the amount of athletes in indoor and outdoor track. Loeschke acknowledged this mistake and said it did not impact the outcome.
There should only be minor discrepancies between the report published by the task force and the final report published Friday, Loeschke said.
Athletics budgets supplied to the Towerlight show inconsistencies.
A budget from Cooper shows the athletics department earned about $16 million in revenue, while an online annual report the department earned $20 million, around a $4 million difference.
Behm explained the differences in the budgets saying that the annual report is prepared for the NCAA, which counts scholarships differently while the University uses other figures. The task force worked with these “internal calculations.”
“I think you have to take a step back and ask who is the audience,” he said. “If I were to put something together that everyone would understand, that’s fine, but that’s not the purpose.”
For the future
Loeschke said she will not reverse her decision, nor she said are there plans to reinstate either team.
Placing a program in a different league was the solution at Mansfield University, where Loeschke was formerly president. She elected to cut football, a relatively large program that she said did not have proper financial or competitive backing. The team was replaced two years later with a smaller program that now plays in a different league.
Towson, a Division I school, may play one sport in Division III, however, its place in the Colonial Athletic Association prevents that.
Loeschke said she does not know whether her decision to cut football at Mansfield influences the campus or outside perception of her, but she said that she did not come to Towson to slash athletics. She said response from alumni, long-standing supporters and donors have been coming in with mixed reaction.
“I’d say they’re fairly even,” she said.
Loeschke said prominent donor and Atlanta Braves owner John Schuerholz, for which the baseball park is named, is already discussing where to move his name on campus. She said she does not know what will become of the park.
Loeschke especially stressed that the decision to cut the sports was not foregoing.
“If that was the case, I would have made the decision right there in October,” she said.
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She says she held off her decision until she could closely review every option the task force presented to her. Exactly what options did they present and why did she reject them? If she closely reviewed them, she should have documentation readily available detailing her investigation. Why did she encourage the task force to remain confidential in its proceedings? Why doesn’t the campus have the right to know the details of the proceedings that are going on behind their backs and affecting campus life? Don’t they matter to her? And when did she contact Mr. Schuerholz to discuss moving his name to another building on campus? It sounds like she’s keeping that confidential from even him because I read where he said he hasn’t heard from the school.
I see one thing in this article; lies. What about the statement from a parent who works for the department of education that there are no title ix issues? This woman could care less about our school. She is here to try and resurrect her image after being kicked out of her last school. Get rid of her before she causes more damage.
No confidence vote!
She sounds so full of it, tiptoeing around every direct question. I pay too much money to go to a school only to have a president who doesn’t care about the needs and interests of her students. Towson has become so much about business and money, it’s disgusting. What happened to our community?
As an alumnus I cannot do anything but the students need to look to the bylaws and do what is required to hold a no-confidence vote.
That’s the kind of interview you get when you hire an outside PR firm for $30,000 plus. Please spare us the rhetoric. They are canned answers. Reactions are fairly even…please do not insult us. Mr.Schuerholz has not been spoken to and in his own words, “The next conversation I have with them about what they plan to do with the stadium or the money I’ve given will be the first.” From the Baltimore Sun.
I searched that quote, Jo King. It didn’t come up.
From the sound of it Loeschke does hold a meeting without having at least 5-10 other’s around her. Nice touch for her to have legal councel present so that her inaccuracies won’t be used in any legal proceedings. Hey students no matter what your student fees will be increasing! A vote of no confidence needs to be made with this current administration.
Uh Oh, here is the article as originally published in its entirety by Chris Korman:
Towson president decides to cut baseball, men’s soccer
Prominent alums and parents had spent six months fighting the decision
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Students at Towson University on Friday express their disappointment with the school’s decision to cut its baseball and men’s soccer teams. (Jon Sham/BSMG)
By Chris Korman and Childs Walker
9:11 p.m. EST, March 8, 2013
Towson University president Maravene Loeschke was escorted by several police officers into a meeting with the school’s baseball and men’s soccer teams Friday morning to tell players she had decided to cut their sports.
Her speech to members of the teams — some could not make it because they’d been given less than an hour notice and were in class — lasted only a few minutes, players said. As they left, they noticed that the cars carrying Loeschke and other officials were surrounded by about 10 additional officers.
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“That was the final insult in what has been one of the most unprofessional, least classy experiences of my life,” said Matt Butler, whose son Brendan plays on the baseball team and is a former Orioles draft pick.
Loeschke’s decision to ultimately uphold a recommendation put forth by athletic director Mike Waddell last fall leaves more than 55 athletes without a place to play, many of whom opted not to transfer while the sports were in limbo. The baseball team will finish out the season, but the soccer program was disbanded immediately. Baseball players wore black tape over the word Towson on their jerseys Friday afternoon when they opened Colonial Athletic Association play with a loss to Delaware.
Loeschke’s decision has also alienated her from a group of the university’s most prominent and involved alumni. That group, led by MacKenzie Ventures, Inc. president and CEO Gary Gill, included Atlanta Braves president John Schuerholz, who played both sports at Towson. They repeatedly sought meetings with Loeschke and other Towson officials, and as late as Thursday night believed they could persuade members of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents to advise the first-year president to change her mind (the regents have no direct power over athletics decisions).
Loeschke ultimately decided that cutting the sports would best allow the athletic department to achieve fiscal stability and Title IX compliance. The move will eventually save the department about $900,000 a year.
“I don’t think Maravene ever had any real interest in finding a solution,” said Mike Gill, Gary’s brother. “If she really wanted to maintain those teams, she would have been able to do it without any onerous adjustments to other programs.”
Members of the Towson community have rallied to save the sports since early October, and railed against what they viewed as a rigged process to ram through a plan devised by Waddell to divert money to marquee sports football and men’s basketball. A task force Loeschke assigned to study Waddell’s recommendation included a deputy athletic director and others with ties, direct or indirect, to the department. Task force chair David Nevins eventually led a faction of the group that voted against the cuts. He later joined the Gills’ effort to enact change behind the scenes.
The process used by Towson to reach a decision has been marred by a lack of transparency and the dissemination of unreliable data, those who fought for the sports said.
When the Gills demonstrated that there was no Title IX problem and that the budget could be balanced without cuts, “Towson moved the goal posts on us late in the game,” Mike Gill said, by introducing new data and questions. Parents of baseball players combed through Title IX data and budget numbers released through public record requests, only to be told they were not working with the right figures, Butler said.
Though Towson released a 22-page report explaining its decision Friday, it did so minutes before Loeschke held a telephone conference with reporters. She and other Towson officials were not available for further comment or to explain budget and roster-size projections that differed from information previously disseminated by the school. In an executive summary sent out by Waddell in October, figures purporting to show Title IX inequality — the percentage of opportunities for women to play sports at a school must be nearly the same as the percentage of women in the student body — did not accurately account for Towson’s indoor and outdoor track teams. The school acknowledged the mistake but did not offer a new count.
Loeschke had originally planned to make her decision in November so that baseball and soccer players could transfer before next semester, but instead announced her intention to conduct a further study of the issue days after members of the regents held a meeting on the topic. She said she hoped to come to a final decision soon after the end of winter break in late January, but continued exploring every option for saving the sports.
Several members of the soccer team did leave the program prior to the spring, but the baseball roster stayed intact and players on the team have now used a year of eligibility. Many of them said Friday they planned to transfer after the season, whether or not they could play baseball at their new school.
“They just don’t have any respect for us,” senior Sean Bertrand said.
Schuerholz has been one of the athletic department’s top donors, and the stadium is named for him because he gave $250,000 toward renovations.
Loeschke said Friday that Towson representatives were in talks with Schuerholz about moving his name to another campus building. Schuerholz said he had not heard from Towson.
“The next conversation I have with them about what they plan to do with the stadium or the money I’ve given will be the first,” he said.
Schuerholz declined to discuss whether he’d continue supporting his alma mater.
“I’m really most upset for the kids,” he said. “This is what brought them to Towson, and they were supposed to learn from the school how to do the right thing.”
Asked if the decision will damage his connection to Towson, Mike Gill said, “That’s one where I have to take a deep breath. But my disappointment is significant. … it’s a trend that creates more questions than it answers about where the university is headed.”
Baseball coach Mike Gottlieb was prevented from attending the meeting when his players learned the team would be cut. He had been called to a separate room, where a Towson official handed him his termination papers, effective June 7. Gottlieb played for the Tigers in 1978-79 and has been with the program ever since.
“This isn’t about Title IX,” he said. “This is about money. A budget has been created in athletics that could not be sustained, and the priorities of the department changed. Anyone who tells you anything differently is lying.”
Loeschke said the athletic department’s budget deficiency was the result of slowed enrollment growth, not mis-management by Waddell. Student fees account for $14 million of the Towson’s $18 million athletics budget. Gill and others had suggested raising the fees slightly, but Loeschke refused and said the issues of financial stability, Title IX compliance and “competitiveness” — meaning the ability to fully fund the remaining sports — were so inter-connected that only the cutting of sports could solve all three problems.
“We dealt with them holistically,” she said.
Loeschke repeatedly said she made the decision with great sadness. She was asked to describe how the players responded to the news.
“They were incredibly respectful,” she said. “Clearly very sad, as was I. But I could not have asked for more respect from them as I was telling them this news.”
That’s great that Loeshke and Waddell are in this together. Did she question the statistics provided by Waddell? Did she care at all to do so? She is derelict in her duties as president to not look into it. What does Waddell have on her that she doesn’t question the facts behind something so important?
She wasn’t aware that the coaches wanted to meet with her? That is inexcusable by the people surrounding (more like protecting) her. Don’t hide behind HR processes and claim plausible deniability. Weak.
As for the police presence – really? How many threats are there to the Towson president? Perhaps if she treated people with a bit more dignity then it would not be necessary. Cowardly.
I DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. Shameful.
This article has to be the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever read. It amazes me that this freakin woman still is using Title IX as an excuse. If you truly believe Title IX is the reason these teams got cut you are extremely misinformed. “There is a significant problem with the womens facilities, especially the softball field.” At least the softball field has batting cages, which Waddell may have been able to provide to the baseball team if he wasn’t busy taking the basketball team out for steak dinners because they managed to win more than 1 game this season. Hope someone realizes how shady these two ass clowns are and kicks both of them to the curb.
What repairs at the soccer field, putting in stands because the others were condemned by OSHA?
It’s comedic she brought her entourage to an interview where she told lies and danced around the questions. She is weak, incompetent, and a spineless puppet to not only the AD, but several other individuals as well. I hope no other schools ever make the mistake of hiring her.
“It’s not just athletes, it’s anyone else who might wish to do harm.”
The baseball and soccer players were the classiest people involved in this matter. She was never under any threat. Not a single word out of her mouth has been consistent (aside from “title IX this and that”) or true to this point. There is no way she should be allowed to keep her job. This school will be doing all this construction to become a D3 if even NCAA affiliated by the time shes done.
So now the president has a bigger security detail then President Obama. Liar. She should be ashamed of herself.
Who believes the president. The survey says nobody
I think there’s something going on here. Their is no concrete proof of a Title IX violation, the numbers that the Task Force produced keep on changing, the numbers of the budget aren’t lining up, and one side seems to be saying nothing, nor do their reasons have any water. There’s something deeper that the President and the AD aren’t saying. It could be that they just don’t have the money, but then why spend more money on basketball, or why not say that it is that they can’t afford it and not put the blame on Title IX? And why didn’t any of the other options become public, where is the data on those options? If they supposedly worked then they did they do the wrong thing and cut baseball and soccer? Why is it that we keep on getting reports of people who felt ignored through the whole process? It seems as if they made their decision long ago (before mid-November) and they just went through this without really thinking of anything else but that option, which is selfish and wrong if you ask me.
And why did she make a decision in Mid-November but didn’t inform us until now? That seems really fishy. You make a decision, and you announce it almost immediately. Some of these guys are screwed because it’s too late for them to transfer and be able to play next season. She had to know this and yet she made a decision way back then and didn’t inform us until just now. Also why have security detail when informing the players when they have a history of being the most classiest players on campus? Was she afraid of them attacking her? Or was she afraid of something else?
There’s something going on here, something that the Administration doesn’t want anyone else to know. The numbers don’t add up and the way that she’s behaving doesn’t seem right. I don’t think it’s that she wants to ruin the school, but there’s something else that I think is going on. I think a thorough investigation of the Administration needs to be done.
Towerlight congratulations on getting an interview with the President. At least she gave you the respect of a sitdown meeting. Unfortunately the people this decision mattered most to(players and coaches of both baseball and soccer) were never given the respect of a sit down meeting. After holding both teams hostage with this decision for over 6 months and just give them a 1 minute, police secured statement is despicable. Never mind that you gave 2 coaches with over 65 years of service to Towson their walking papers without allowing them to meet with you is cowardly and calls for further investigation.
Towerlight please keep investigating. I think you will find much more than Maravene and her Public Relations team has provided to you. The numbers don’t add up. There is no Title IX issue. Overspending by the Athletic director is the cause and 2 academically excellent teams were sacrificed due to an incompetent administration
The president has complete faith in Waddell? Then why is there a special liaison in Todd Turner to review athletics?
This is all such bull. There are no Title IX concerns, and this “business decision” argument is b.s. because these teams and all of the D1 teams operated under a surplus with Waddell. Furthermore, even if there were budget issues, you could have cut a few scholarships from baseball, soccer, and a few others to make that gap.
This is a terrible strategic decision. Now the stadium, placed in a sought-after location on campus is dormant, the soccer field that was just renovated will only serve one team and the locker room upgrades were wasted.
Word is that Waddell is applying to Under Armour. Hopefully the president can join him and his cronies when they are kicked out by the Maryland state system.
Where is the CAA in this whole mess?
Why isn’t the CAA coming to the baseball and soccer team’s rescue like the Big 10 did for Maryland?
Why does Towson play in a conference that could care less of two of the conference’s teams?
I just heard that Mike Waddell is also behind all of the bad Ravens trades this week and that he is trying to trade Ray Rice and all future first round draft picks for cash to give the basketball and football coaches big raises.
Quoted as saying 4 police officers were present. Our boys are Towson educated. If you noticed the average gpa for the baseball team was 3.1. I think these boys know how to count. 15 to 20 was more accurate. Shame on you for trying to make liars out of them. I only see one liar here. The best PR is free. Be honest. You wasted more school money on bad PR.This is not how a president should act.
How can the President say she could not meet with the Baseball Coach due to “human resource processes” when the meetings were requested just after the first announcement in October? This is March, the last I checked. Why would there even be a Human Resource issue at that time unless they had already planned to discontinue the programs and therefore, there would not be a need for that process to be implemented. Then, how insulting is it for an assistant to say that she did not even tell the President about the requests?
Everyone knows it was not a Title IX issue. “Anonymous rumblings”, that’s enough to be included as a part of the case. Softball field issues? Then why was nothing done about it when there was money in the budget allocated for facilities and if legal counsel knew about it, then one would assume the President did, as well? Then again, maybe not, just like the meeting requests.
Great that she could meet with the Towerlight with an entourage for protection, now meet with the rest of the media since this is a public institution.
I would like to confess that along with the 153,087 Towson Police Officers and 269 Maryland State Troopers who were at the announcement last Friday that my unit of a dozen deadly devil dogs were crawling through the HVAC ducts at the Towson Center as this announcement was going down.
A former Marine would have more honor then making a statement like that. While I know this was sarcasm, the fact that this President or even her PR firm would have thought that a visible presence of armed protection was necessary, when every statement she made during this whole ordeal praised the character and respectful behavior of the student-athletes shows someone who is out of touch with the student body she is supposed to represent.
I would like to mention that I have directly felt the support of President Loeschke in every student organization that I have been part of at Towson University. She has taken the time to stop by and support a simple bake sale, to stand beside the band, and to take part in a general student organization meeting. I am not a member of an athletic organization, so I certainly cannot speak on behalf of this situation; however, I’m disappointed by the lack of support for our university president in this moment of perceived weakness.
Unfortunately, this is not a case of perceived weakness, it is an obvious lack of leadership. You are judged by your actions. In her two stints as President, she has dropped sports. There is no other President in the country who has made the decision to discontinue male sports at 100% of the schools they have led. That is not a coincidence. She had solutions from prominent alumni, donors, businessmen, etc. She chose this course when there was a solution: live within your means. Constantly using Title IX is demeaning to all females. People who have been involved in the implementation of Title IX do not want to see Men’s sports dropped to satisfy some prong. OCR will work with an institution, if there is a problem. There has never been anything filed against the school. Wake up. There is a difference between managers and leaders. Leaders are front and center at the time of adversity. Many can be managers, desperate few are leaders.
A moment of perceived weakness? It’s been months of consistent disrespect towards people who were expecting her to look into their proposals for saving their programs and trusting her to be forthcoming with them about how the investigations into their proposals were going. But she turned her back on them. And you expect support for that? She has time to stop by bake sales but doesn’t have time to answer questions from students, coaches, parents, and alumni whose programs she’s cutting. And you think that doesn’t warrant criticism?
It’s not the CAAs job to do anything for Towson, or any other school for that matter. Dropping sports has become the norm in the CAA with Delaware, Hofstra, Northeastern, Drexel, and James Madison all cutting sports in the last 7 years. Richmond and Mt St Mary’s have also dropped sports in the last 6 months just as Maryland did last Spring.
Did I win in November?
Funny how the President & her significant other showed up to the alumni baseball game.(which was approximately 10 days after recommendation announced in Oct.) The baseball players showered her with gifts (hats, tee shirts, popcorn, etc)and she even spoke to parents. When approached by parents and asked what we could do to save the program, her significant other said with hesitation “You got 2 million dollars”. They both stayed for over an hour or so and the President even walked up on the hill to say goodbye to the boys. This was a public appearance for her and not one police officer was in sight. Showing up with police officers was TOTAL DISRESPECT to our student athletes. You stand corrected, there were at least 12 officers in the building with you. One of the baseball players tried to ride the elevator with you and three police officers. He was not allowed to enter into the same elevator with you and your security detail. Towerlight, interview the Chief of Police and ask him how many officers were detailed.
We thought she offered every cliche excuse in the book except that it was a military training exercise and a computer malfunction. If she can somehow work that into her next interview that would be great. About that 50/50 split among the alumni, I guess we can assume that Grandma Maravene’s doctorate isn’t in math.
P.S.- I was coaching the the alumni game and one of the players told me there was a bleach blonde drama queen wandering through the stands but I thought it was Mike Waddell. I can’t tell the two of them apart. I’m also surprised she has a significant other, you would think he would at least tell her to pick a hair color that occurs in nature. The hookers on Pulaski highway thought that color was a little over the top.
*please someone ask her to do a recount on police…three were 4 by her side, she forgot to mention the others in the building and numerous out front of the building…..
*please someone ask her why everyone was working off of a different set of roster number including the task force and what the board of regence saw was totally different.
*please someone ask her why she thinks going into a deficit of $1.3M is a good ROI and stands 100% behind her AD
*Please someone ask her what poll she took to assume 50% of Alums are ok with her decision…..
*Please can someone ask her why she got a no confidence vote at her last college driven by poor communication.
*Please someone ask her why she needs an attorney present at every interview now
*Please someone ask her why she retained an outside attorney that specializes in Title IX, why didn’t she consult with Office of Civil Rights
*Please someone ask her why she hired an outside PR firm to support her the last 3 months
*Please someone ask her why her husband said to a parent “do you have $2M to fix the problem” in a very unprofessional manner
for goodness sakes….I SURE HOPE THE TRUTH COMES OUT
She needs to go-end of story.
This whole story is boring. The only people who care about baseball and soccer are the friends and families of the boys who play and the old people who used to play at Towson. No one goes to the games and if you asked anyone who is not a one of these groups if they cared they would say no. If they did care there would be as many people going to baseball and soccer as there are going to football. Football is over 8000 people a game and baseball is only a few hundred if that. I walked by what was there first game a few weeks ago and I did not even realize it was a game rather than a practice. Boring. No one cares. I am off to FL for Spring Break, and I am going to watch some real baseball down there.
Yeah, go down to FL, boring boy, and stick your head in the sand while your president is withholding the truth from your campus and your AD is squandering your student fees.
If the story is so boring, then why are you reading it and sending in a response. With a student body of 22,000 and you think an attendance of 8,000 is something that indicates a real interest level. Take out family and friends, take out the visiting team’s fans and then you see
the interest level. Count the number of Towson students against the total student population and you get a clearer picture. Can’t really compare it directly with Baseball, just in terms of student interest.
Now that a little bit of the dust has settled, I wanted to chime in here. First of all, I want it to be known that I do not like this decision, but I understand it. I support AD Mike Waddell 100%. He has turned the TU Athletic Department into winners. I also support the President. She did what needed to be done.
The name calling and the Hooker referene is just classless. I understnad the youare upset, but this is overboard.
Cutting sports is tough and emotional for all involved, especially those athletes in Baseball and Mens Soccer.
Lets take a look at what brought this situation to a head.
20 years of losing. Mens Basketball has not had a winning record in over a decade until this year. Football had a few good years (1992-94) then a few years of winning in the Patriot league, and until the last two years, only 1 winning record in the A10/CAA. This is due to the teams not being funded fully. Football has been at a disadvantage until just recently. During the years in the Patriot league, we were hindered due to lack of resources. Lehigh, Colgate, Holy Cross, were able to spend way more money than TU on recruiting, coaches salaries, travel, etc. We were playing with half a deck. Gordy Combs did one hell of a job winning as much as he did with only half the resources of others we were competing against. But as you see, resources are the key. Other schools had them, and we did not.
Due to this non winning, no one was giving to the programs. The Tiger Club membership has been abismal until the last few years. That is on all of you that have not donated to the Tiger Club or to a sport. We really need your support. Buy season tickets, join the Tiger Club, be proud of TU.
So now that I have said this, lets look at the details.
1) The TU Athletic budget is not competitive with our pier schools, UDel and JMU. We are lagging far behind them. Based on FY2011 funding, Towson Athletics was 10th out of the 12 CAA institutions in overall per student investment, and last among football playing members.
For TU to be competitive, we need to:
– Invest in scholarships across all sports (dont have sports that are only partialy funded)
– Provide competitive salaries for critical coaches and staff
– Increase recruiting budgets to bring the best prospective student-athletes to TU
– Enhance sports performance support (sports medicine, strength & conditioning)
– Invest in facilities
– Enhance the travel per diem to provide healthy meals for all athletes and enhancing meal plans for athletes on campus to a minimum of 3 meals per day
2) Title 9 compliance.
Towson did not have any complaints aginst the university, but this would not be the case in the future becaue we cannot add more womens sports.
A university can achieve Title IX compliance in one of three ways: a) Prong 1 is a method of satisfying compliance standards by achieving proportionality between the percentage of women enrolled at the institution and the percentage of women participating in the University’s Intercollegiate Athletic Program; b) Prong 2 satisfies compliance standards by demonstrating a history of continuing the practice of adding women’s sports to increase the player participation levels; and, c) Prong 3 achieves compliance by demonstrating that the institution is meeting the interests and abilities of women (usually through survey methods).
TU has relied upon “Prong 2″ adding women sports team every five years until substantial proportionality is achieved. This approach has become to expensive to continue. (see our $18M budget)
For TU to meet the population %, TU Athletics needs to be 61% femal to 39% male. This is the Student body population. Out sports were only at 52% female 48% male. So the only way to make this happen without adding more women’s sports is to drop mens sports so the percentages meet.
To increase the budget so we did not have to cut sports, TU would have to:
1) Raise the Student Fees. The student Fees are very high already, in fact, the student fees at TU are the second highest in the state. So this was a non starter from the Presidents view.
2) Raise Ticket revenues – This is happening, but not at the pace needed. we need to keep winning to make this happen. we need all of you to start buying tickets and come to games.
3) Raise Private Donation/Sponsorships – well, until you win consistently, this is difficult. TU has done this, but not at the pace needed. Winning in Football and Mens Basketball will help with this, but we have only just started this. Football has had a great 2 years, and Mens Basketball just set a NCAA record for biggest turnaround. But we need to keep winning. To keep winning, we need the resources. So you see, this is a catch 22.
So all of you that are so upset that TU had to drop sports, I am sorry, but some of the blame has to go to supporters and alumni for not supporting the teams buy donating to the Tiger Club, buying season tickets, or just buying single game tickets and come to a few games a year. How many of you out there can say that you have done all you can to support TU?
I am a Member of the Tiger Club (I am a Gold Tiger) I have had Season Tickets for Football for 22 years, and I am a season ticket holder for Basketball.
So all of you that have not donated, stop your complaining. Step up and support TU Athletics and this kind of decision wont have to be made again. It is time for all of you to support the programs the way they deserve to be supported.
What brought the situation to a head was not the spending to get the basketball and football teams competitive but the misspending by the AD to fill his own gut and the guts of his buddies.
Blah,blah,blah…chime in or company line, all the same. The answers do not add up. You have a President that is afraid to speak to the media, except arranged meeting with the Towerlight and her entourage present and cannot bring consistent numbers to the table…either financial or for Title IX. It is an insult to all women to constantly use a Title IX argument in any of this. OCR has stated that there are no complaints lodged against the university and work with all institutions if there are any issues before men’s sports are dropped. Future complaints? What, do you have a crystal ball? Bring OCR and the Dept. of Education in and open the books and see what they say. When you spend beyond your means this is what happens.
I can’t believe the audacity. To ask for more money in the wake of this decision speaks volumes to how the atmosphere at the University has changed for the worse. Don’t preach to me about giving money. I’ve given plenty and it hasn’t been spent very well. You’re asking me to believe that these clowns know what they are doing? There is evidence to the contrary.
If the Tiger Club truly represents the interests of Towson Athletics then I expect the President to get more than an earful from the Tiger Club with regard to how this situation was handled. Sell tickets to that event. The bottom line is that the players and coaches deserved to be treated with much more respect than they received. That part is what is most upsetting and that is why I will not give any more money to the University.
If you are so down on Towson then why are you spending your Friday night trolling the student newspaper web site? Somebody needs a life.
Looks like Luke Lax is trolling the same site and also needs a life.
Hahahahaha!
I’m a student. Stuck at work over spring break trying to pay off my student fees for sports at Towson. Jerk.
Etiger how can this plan to profit off of basketball and football ever work moving forward? Do you truly believe that either can seriously put a run of winning seasons together as you imagine? Do you really think that Mike Waddell, Pat Skerry, and/or Rob Ambrose will stick around in the coming year(s)? Would they or should they given the “loyalty” Towson has shown to two coaches who have given 60 years to this school? How many non-student tix does the school plan on selling to those two sports moving forward? You do know the Uni doesn’t make more money when students fill the stands since they are all already season ticket holders to every team? Even at D1 schools these sports are money losers. Tennessee is $200 million in debt over their football struggles, UNI had to be bailed out by their league so they didn’t lose money going to the BCS, UConn and others haven’t been so lucky. Before you publish anymore inane hopes and dreams step back and ask yourself if you truly know how many schools actually make money on these sports…oh and make sure you count the scholarships as subsidies from the school, then you’ll find out the answer is around 5!
I do agree though personal attacks don’t do anyone any good.
At least the jokes are funny. Do you think this site is accomplishing something? Who is doing anyone any good? Who even reads anything over 5 lines?
I am reading this as pure entertainment. Anything to pass the time until I get off work at midnight. Nothing is going to change and watching the posts of what all of the 217 people that give a rats ass about towson baseball think is funny as hell. If this many people actually showed up at games maybe this would not have happened.
So Loeschke finally comes out of hiding and regurgitates the exact same BS reasons for cutting the sports that everyone knows are TOTAL LIES. Instead of an armed security detail, for the Towerlight she gives the interview flanked by a group of her admin. lackey’s in a feeble ham-handed attempt at damage control. NO one believes that you’ve gotten 50/50 feedback on your decision, another of your BS Lies. That you still fully support your arrogant, narcissist, self-promoting AD after his 2 year spending spree has put the dept. in a 1.3 mill. deficit shows how much of an idiotic, inept, moron you must be.
Hey Luke, glad to entertain you and be prepared for those student fees to increase in the next three years. So go to as many games as you can to get your money’s worth after you work the midnight shift.
etiger, how hard is it to get high school basketball players to a school who just spent $82M on a arena, Mr Waddell inherited the arena. As far as football i am ashamed of the leadership….when a coach states i don’t care if Jesus and his disciples are playing agianst them we are going to kick their A%%…..
am ashamed with everything that is going on…..very sad for the state of maryland and the university. The President will retire in 2 years and Mr Waddell will move on (by the way he is still renting after 2 years, he has an agenda)…..
etiger –
Winning/losing has very little to do with why Towson reached this point. You need to do some research on your own. Towson got to this point partially because of the move to the CAA which is a significant step up from the America East in terms of competition and more importantly budgets. Towson’s current budget in the America East would be at the top, in the CAA as you stated no where near the top, especially considering that Towson offers Football, Basketball and Men’s Lacrosse, yet the overall budget was almost $10 million less than JMU and Delaware. As recently as three years ago VCU budget was similar to Towson’s but VCU does not offer Football or Lacrosse. So Towson has been fighting that battle since the transition.
You then encourage people to buy tickets and make donations, which can help, a little, but that will not solve the issue. Check the stats – the average FCS school gets about 80% of their revenue from student fees or University direct funds (usually at private schools). Here is a hypothetical for you. Let’s say that becuase of the winning this year the Football team sells 6000 season tickets at $100 per ticket, Basketball sells 5000 tickets at $100 per ticket. Then The Tiger Club grows to 5,000 donors with an average gift of $250 per person. That would be a amazing year, right? Do you know what that does?
Football Ticket Revenue – $600,000
Basketball Ticket Revenue – $500,000
Tiger Club revenue – $1,250,000
For a total increase in revenue of $2,350,000
That would bring Towson’s total budget to about $23.5 Million. Guess what, that is still $1 less than Stony Brook (new conference member) spent in 2011. $7 million less than what JMU spent in 2011, $10 million behind ODU from 2011, and $13 million less than Delaware in 2011. So if Towson has a historic year in ticket sales and fund raising they are still significantly behind what those teams spent two seasons ago.
You make the assumption that ticket sales and fund-raising drive the revenue at those schools, guess again. Here are the percentages of revenue that come from either student fees or University subsidy
JMU 83%
ODU 72.7%
Delaware 79.1 %
Stony Brook 73.5%
FCS schools athletics department survive on student fees and university funds. If Towson is going to catch up with those peers and compete with them over the long term fund raising and tickets sales will help, but it just does not get them to the budget levels of those teams. Chances are it will take Towson a few years or more to achieve those levels of support.
They have the right to choose to eliminate the sports and try to find ways to be more competitive and spend more on those sports to help generate revenue and win more games. The question becomes how much of a budget will they need to get to where they want to be and then you should assume that at least 75% of that budget is going to have to come from student fees. That is the model at the FCS level. The University needs to figure out where it ultimately wants to be. As you say, “we need to keep winning. To keep winning, we need the resources” – so where does it stop. The answer – it never stops. The budgets just keep going up and the brunt of the increases fall on student fees.
Here is where I got those stats – http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2012-05-14/ncaa-college-athletics-finances-database/54955804/1
Things were much better at my alma mater when we were focused on creating great teachers instead of being competitive at college games. I believe that the easy answer to this issue is for Towson to drop sports altogether, or at very least out of the current tier that it plays games in and go back to the type of sports that were waged in the 50′s and 60′s. I have no problem with eliminating any sports as that is not the reason why schools exist. I truly believe that moving to the same level of play as schools like Johns Hopkins (they play big time lacrosse but lesser caliber other sports) would be a move in the right direction. When we were Towson State Teacher’s College there were clear priorities. It was about creating teachers. Now it seems the only thing that matters is new buildings, entitlements for every perceived talent under the sun, and the result is that multiple generations of whiny people are being produced. Why should anyone get a scholarship for hitting a ball, or another person for that matter. It’s barbaric and against the very etymology of the word SCHOLARSHIP. Those funds, all of them, should be used for scholars and people with a commitment to being educated. By allocating dollars exclusively based on academic accomplishments Towson would set an example to the rest of the higher educational system. If these children want to play sports then they can play in competitions between their dorm halls or between their academic majors. That would be a pure, honest environment. I am one voice, but represent a large number of my peers who say please, do not stop with just baseball or soccer, do the right thing economically and morally and give our university back to the students. End the athletic program in total at Towson. Return the $20,000,000 spent annually on this spectacle back to the academic side of campus and get on with the mission of the academy which is producing scholars and educators for our land.
Interesting point since the two teams eliminated had the highest grade point averages among male student-athletes, well over a 3.00. In fact, the men’s soccer team has received a national award three years running for academic excellence. Elimination is the prize they received.
Athletics play a vital role in education. It teaches the student dedication, teamwork, character, leadership, and health better than any other school curriculum can. It goes back to the Greek ideal of building body, mind, and spirit. It’s the reason why the service academies require their students to take part in a sport whether it be at the intramural level or on an intercollegiate team. The purpose of education is to produce well rounded, productive members of society, and athletics play a vital role in that goal. But schools can do that only if the opportunities are provided to as many students as possible. That’s possible only if the school promotes athletics as a participation sport and not a spectator sport. Mike Waddell, on the one hand, wants to turn sports into more of a spectator sport and reduce the participation level at Towson. You, Lida Lee Tall,on the other hand, want to take away the opportunities completely. Both, of you, in my opinion, are enemies of education.
I’m a graduate of TU, and one who didn’t (and still doesn’t, sorry) care about the sports programs at Towson. With that said…I’m upset with how this all went down. I personally don’t care about the substance – in the end, this is something that doesn’t impact most students.
What I am upset about is what this is INDICATIVE of; what the standard is for making decisions like this. This time it was something that doesn’t matter to me, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be next time. As an alumnus, I care about how my school continues after I’ve left and while I don’t feel like my degree is diminished just from this, I hate feeling like it could happen next time.
I don’t mean disrespect to others – I know this matters greatly to those directly impacted, and I think you should continue to have your voices heard. In the end I’m really just trying to make the point that those of us who don’t feel that this is so dire – such as those calling for the Pres’s resignation – need to take notice.
Paper Tiger makes a solid point about participation vs spectator. That’s a big part of this situation as I see it. The participation model is what Towson has been for a long time and how they were funded dating back to the college division days. Unfortunately Towson has competed at the division 1 level and the CAA for the last decade plus. The results have been unimpressive. So the question is does Towson keep doing athletics the same way they always have and just expect different results or do they change it up, make some choices and make a play to compete? That choice looks to have been made to do something different in the hope of getting different results.
The president should step down. Her reputation as a liar is her legacy. A vote of no confidence is what she needs. Run her out of town.
At least change her name to president Lieschke’s
Here’s the real plan:
1) Ambitious AD diverts hundreds of thousands of dollars to football and basketball programs to attract better high school and transfer student athletes
2) Football and basketball teams win some more games
3) Ambitious AD leaves TU to take the job he really wants, which is AD at a major athletic program
TU is first and foremost an educational institution, not a content provider for ESPN2. Student athletes should not be thrown under the bus to subsidize the career ambitions of an AD who I am sure has no loyalty to this school. And how does eliminating two of the most popular sports in the world support TU’s stated goals of attracting more male and international students?
Finally, the bunker mentality being shown by Loeschke is very disappointing, and reflects poorly on her as a leader.
Explaining in detail the 13 options studied would remove the misperceptions regarding this decision.
A university’s primary role is to educate, not play sports. Anyway, too bad they had to cut a cool truely athletic sport like soccer and not American football. What a joke, play for 20 seconds then rest and everyone wears body armour, so many rules and regulations it’s hardly a sport. Try rugby, nancies!
I would like to see the President apologize to the baseball and soccer players for the short notice provided to have the decision commuinicated to them. All baseball and soccer players should have had the opportunity to be informed by the President. It is sad that these student-athletes were pulled from class to receive this news and even worse they were not allowed to ask questions of the President. I believe an explantation is due for the different numbers presented in the proposal in October to the acceptance of the proposal by the President which shows an increase in the football number to 107 – how did you get to that number.
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