(04-18-2024 12:11 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-18-2024 12:07 PM)b2b Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 05:39 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 03:43 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  Excellent news

What is acrobatics?

I assumed he meant gymnastics but apparently they're considered 2 different sports.

Yes - two completely different sports

I remember when Matt Brown did an interview with a leading, very enthusiastic, advocate for STUNT, which is similar to, but apparently different than Acrobatics and Tumbling. By the end of the interview, Matt was ready to endow a program at tOSU, until his wife put the kibosh on him selling their house.

The national championship in Acrobatics & Tumbling is next week in Fairmont, WV. Teams compete in head-to-head matches. The Elite 8 are:

Frostburg State v. Quinnipiac
Azusa Pacific v. Gannon
Mary Hardin-Baylor v. Oregon
Fairmont State v. Baylor

They appear to have enough schools to qualify as regular NCAA championship. That might be part of the appeal for La Salle. They don't have to have a special facility, other than the mats, and there may be enough high school talent coming out of competitive cheer and gymnastics to field a credible team.

(04-18-2024 07:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 05:17 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 04:52 PM)esayem Wrote:  Didn’t Temple cut baseball?

How many Big 5 play?


Yeah, I can use a search engine but I’d rather discuss

there are currently three DIVISION I baseball teams in the Philly area

So you have UPenn, Villanova, and St. Joe’s plus LaSalle and I’d include Delaware in the region.

Temple and Drexel both must have dropped.

Rider's out in that greater Philly area with a baseball program too.

(04-20-2024 09:24 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(04-18-2024 12:11 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-18-2024 12:07 PM)b2b Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 05:39 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 03:43 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  Excellent news

What is acrobatics?

I assumed he meant gymnastics but apparently they're considered 2 different sports.

Yes - two completely different sports

I remember when Matt Brown did an interview with a leading, very enthusiastic, advocate for STUNT, which is similar to, but apparently different than Acrobatics and Tumbling. By the end of the interview, Matt was ready to endow a program at tOSU, until his wife put the kibosh on him selling their house.

The national championship in Acrobatics & Tumbling is next week in Fairmont, WV. Teams compete in head-to-head matches. The Elite 8 are:

Frostburg State v. Quinnipiac
Azusa Pacific v. Gannon
Mary Hardin-Baylor v. Oregon
Fairmont State v. Baylor

They appear to have enough schools to qualify as regular NCAA championship. That might be part of the appeal for La Salle. They don't have to have a special facility, other than the mats, and there may be enough high school talent coming out of competitive cheer and gymnastics to field a credible team.

This is it.

My daughter transitioned from gymnastics to cheer to STUNT. She had a cheer/STUNT scholarship at Dallas Baptist before injuries ended her career. STUNT is basically match play competitive cheer, based on teamwork and judging. The opposing teams are doing routines at the same time and obtaining scores.

One of my daughter's best friends was a lifelong competitive gymnast. She transitioned to acrobatics in college and now competes for Mary Hardin-Baylor. The schools can recruit gymnasts, but do not need to buy gymnastics equipment.

So the transitions for the athletes are basically competitive cheer -> STUNT and gymnastics -> acrobatics. Athletic departments really only need to buy mats and uniforms and pay for travel.

Here's a random example of STUNT, from a brief YouTube search. It's from the 2022 national tournament. Cal Baptist vs Maryville.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJKBZSxcSQ

Stunt is basically making a sport of the cheerleading team.

"Stunt" is what I meant when I said it made more sense to have the cheerleading team, which is seen in stadiums and arenas when the football and basketball team play, a paid employee sport to help offset football for title IX, than some random sport with zero spectators like women's bowling, tennis or cross country.

My prediction still stands that by 2030 you will see what is FBS football, or rather of those still at that level (I expect a few G5 to abandon due to cost), at 65 "scholarship" employee athletes in football, plus both men's and women's basketball, and also women's soccer and volleyball as offsets for title IX as employee athletes. Schools will get creative to match ~55% of paid employee athletes women; this is one of the reasons I think football scholarships will be slashed to those who actually are in the playing rotation, as its nonsensical to pay a 4th string OL who is just a project to maybe develop someday into a 2nd strong backup.

Anyway nice to see a school add baseball. (I expect softball will be used as an employee offset for baseball.)

LOL of all the non baseball playing D1 schools La Salle wouldnt have been at the top of my list to bring back/add baseball. The A10 is a pretty crappy baseball conference.

(04-18-2024 07:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 05:17 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 04:52 PM)esayem Wrote:  Didn’t Temple cut baseball?

How many Big 5 play?


Yeah, I can use a search engine but I’d rather discuss

there are currently three DIVISION I baseball teams in the Philly area

So you have UPenn, Villanova, and St. Joe’s plus LaSalle and I’d include Delaware in the region.

Temple and Drexel both must have dropped.

Drexel dropped baseball in 2003. It was not long after we had joined the CAA, and we were very bad, so we dropped it as a way to focus on being competitive in other sports. No big loss, IMO, it's not like the northeast is a major baseball hotbed.

A 2013 article from the Drexel student newspaper, The Triangle, goes into some additional details about the varsity program's end, and the continued operation of the club baseball team: https://www.thetriangle.org/sports/drago...lub-sport/

Interestingly, one of the top results when looking up that 2003 Drexel baseball team involves a game where they went up against an up-and-coming sophomore pitcher from ODU named Justin Verlander: https://odusports.com/news/2003/4/25/208383107.aspx

(04-21-2024 01:00 PM)jcohen42 Wrote:  

(04-18-2024 07:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 05:17 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-17-2024 04:52 PM)esayem Wrote:  Didn’t Temple cut baseball?

How many Big 5 play?


Yeah, I can use a search engine but I’d rather discuss

there are currently three DIVISION I baseball teams in the Philly area

So you have UPenn, Villanova, and St. Joe’s plus LaSalle and I’d include Delaware in the region.

Temple and Drexel both must have dropped.

Drexel dropped baseball in 2003. It was not long after we had joined the CAA, and we were very bad, so we dropped it as a way to focus on being competitive in other sports. No big loss, IMO, it's not like the northeast is a major baseball hotbed.

A 2013 article from the Drexel student newspaper, The Triangle, goes into some additional details about the varsity program's end, and the continued operation of the club baseball team: https://www.thetriangle.org/sports/drago...lub-sport/

Interestingly, one of the top results when looking up that 2003 Drexel baseball team involves a game where they went up against an up-and-coming sophomore pitcher from ODU named Justin Verlander: https://odusports.com/news/2003/4/25/208383107.aspx

Somebody should write a book on that, because at one time...

There already is competitive cheer. The University of Kentucky even had a reality TV series on their team. Apparently there are two different groups, Universal Cheerleaders Association and National Cheerleaders Association:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCA_Divisi...ampionship

https://www.varsity.com/news/nca-college...n-daytona/

https://www.inquirer.com/education/la-sa...ent#loaded

Good article in the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing the reason why La Salle is growing its D1 athletics programs.
28% decrease in La Salle enrollment during the past 5 years.
47% decrease in the size of the incoming full-time freshman class.

There are too many Catholic universities in the Philly metro area that can’t differentiate themselves. Villanova and St Joes are the only two that seem vibrant in terms of growth. La Salle is competing with a dozen nearby Catholic universities for a shrinking number of potential students.

(04-21-2024 05:00 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  https://www.inquirer.com/education/la-sa...ent#loaded

Good article in the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing the reason why La Salle is growing its D1 athletics programs.
28% decrease in La Salle enrollment during the past 5 years.
47% decrease in the size of the incoming full-time freshman class.

There are too many Catholic universities in the Philly metro area that can’t differentiate themselves. Villanova and St Joes are the only two that seem vibrant in terms of growth. La Salle is competing with a dozen nearby Catholic universities for a shrinking number of potential students.

I had an uncle that taught at LaSalle for many years.

Villanova is sort of Philly’s equivalent of Boston College in terms of student types and enrollment - it’s very strong in terms of enrollment and finances, but they’re also keeping enrollment down to a mid-sized level.

LaSalle’s competition comes as much from the public school flagships like Penn State and Rutgers increasing their enrollment as local schools. Drexel has also been stable among the larger Philly area private schools - they have fairly good STEM programs are in high demand.

(04-21-2024 05:53 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-21-2024 05:00 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  https://www.inquirer.com/education/la-sa...ent#loaded

Good article in the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing the reason why La Salle is growing its D1 athletics programs.
28% decrease in La Salle enrollment during the past 5 years.
47% decrease in the size of the incoming full-time freshman class.

There are too many Catholic universities in the Philly metro area that can’t differentiate themselves. Villanova and St Joes are the only two that seem vibrant in terms of growth. La Salle is competing with a dozen nearby Catholic universities for a shrinking number of potential students.

I had an uncle that taught at LaSalle for many years.

Villanova is sort of Philly’s equivalent of Boston College in terms of student types and enrollment - it’s very strong in terms of enrollment and finances, but they’re also keeping enrollment down to a mid-sized level.

LaSalle’s competition comes as much from the public school flagships like Penn State and Rutgers increasing their enrollment as local schools. Drexel has also been stable among the larger Philly area private schools - they have fairly good STEM programs are in high demand.

West Chester University, the local public, is doing well in enrollment.

https://www.wcupa.edu/communications/new...Education.

Temple, which is near La Salle and a quasi-public, is also struggling with enrollment.

If enrollment was a driver, it could have returned football.

La Salle football lost 17-7 to Husson University in 2006. Husson was a D-3 program in its third year of existence.

The listed attendance was 1,000. That may have been accurate, if the players, game staff, and people wandering within three blocks of the field were included.

Even if La Salle went zero scholarship, I'm not sure they'd get enough players paying full tuition to make that profit/loss calculation a net positive.

(04-21-2024 01:57 PM)bullet Wrote:  There already is competitive cheer. The University of Kentucky even had a reality TV series on their team. Apparently there are two different groups, Universal Cheerleaders Association and National Cheerleaders Association:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCA_Divisi...ampionship

https://www.varsity.com/news/nca-college...n-daytona/

Yep. Competitive cheer and STUNT are similar and often (not always) use the same athletes.

UCA and NCA were once competitors but are now owned by the same umbrella organization: Varsity, a cheer company based in Dallas. Their national cheer competition is something that could very easily be sponsored by the NCAA and picked up as a varsity sport.

STUNT is match play: two teams competing against each other at the same time. Judges assign assigned point values based on a range of skills.

At this time, schools ranging from mid-major D-1 to D-III and NAIA sponsor STUNT as a varsity sport, while larger (P5) schools sponsor it as a club sport. The smaller schools will use their varsity cheerleaders, while bigger schools generally do not, from my understanding. Kentucky is an exception to that rule, as they sponsor Stunt as a varsity sport, or at least they're listed as such. UK is a powerhouse in competitive cheer. Schools such as Michigan, Texas, and Oklahoma State offer it as a club sport. The club teams from the bigger schools compete against varsity teams from smaller schools.

Here's a list of schools that sponsor Stunt:
https://stuntthesport.org/college/