With the basketball program at the proverbial crossroads, it's time we ask some hard questions: 1.) Regardless of how you feel about Brady, how will it look to the college basketball world if we DON'T give him a MAJOR raise after taking us to the Final Four? Who in there right mind would take this job if we don't give him that raise and he leaves? 2.) Facilities. Baseball will at best break even or maybe make a 100k or so. Basketball at least has the POTENTIAL to pull in some decent cash for the Athletic Department. Why are we going to build baseball a new stadium and yet refuse to provide basketball with the facilities they need to be competive? The renovation of the PMAC was a good start, but we need to give the basketball team new locker rooms and practice facilites. the bottom line is that we can't expect to have a consistently strong basketball team without putting up the money to pay our coaches competitive salaries and investing in the program via facility upgrades. If we dont then it will be AT LEAST another 20 years before we go back to the Final 4, you can count on that.
What we do in baseball should have no bearing on what we spend on basketball and vice versa. Baseball needs a better arena to play in, basketball needed the renovation of the PMAC. Get both done. Baseball need practice facilites really bad, basketball needs new locker rooms, get both done. Keep up with the other SEC programs as close as possible in all sports.
I agree... with CajDav... lord know the TAF president would go into a coma if football needed something like this and it wasn't being done we need to treat all our sports equally...
This is true only to a point; the money has to come from somewhere and the pockets aren't infinitely deep. The kind of facilities wanted and needed by the baseball program is beyond it's ablility to support. Contributions have to come from sources that will not jeopardize investments in football and basketball as these are the king and prince of the hill and must be served first. If they can get money, say from former players, to do what they need to do, go for it. Otherwise they must wait their turn because the money needs to go to those who can generate excess funds to pay for these wants. Like it or not, when you have limited funds, you gots to make choices.
We all know football will keep paying the bills but I agree that basketball needs to see some money. Having good programs in other sports will no doubt also help football and make LSU a more recognizable name to high school recruits nationally, regardless of sport. One thing I would never support is spending money for other programs at the cost of football. As long as football gets its well deserved money (it pretty much pays for almost all the other sports) I'm happy, and I imagine most tiger fans will be too.
Sure it does. There is only so much money to go around. The sad reality is that Joe Dean didn't spend anything on facilities for a decade. It's going to take a decade to get all our facilities to where they need to be. Unlike some programs, we don't use taxpayer money to pay for our athletic department. It's a pay as you go program, which will take some time. The first commitment was to football a few years ago. That's pretty much completed now, so we can move on to other facilities. The PMAC renovations are nice, but far from what we need. And a new baseball stadium is long overdue. It'll happen, but it's going to take time...
Yes, that's true that the money pit isn't endless. But we need to attack it from every angle possible, get out and beat the bushes, get corporate involvement right now, just as Skip said in yesterday's paper. And funnel a little less to football as most of the major work has been accomplished on those facilties for now. If Ole Miss and Arkansas can build baseball facilties that dwarf LSU's than we should be able to find the money to at least keep up with them. Now, I know we aren't going to find a Dyson or Walton to build an 18,000 seat arena but we can at least get these guys $500,000 to build locker room facilites.
Where have you been the past 5 years Rip? From a recent article: As was pointed out by TigerWins, we have a lot of catching up to do, and it seems to me that increasing average annual spending by a factor close to 30 is being pretty aggressive. Your posts seem to imply that these guys have their heads in the sand. They are simply making prudent choices. As TigerWins also said, give it some time.
It's just a time & money issue. LSU is doing so many projects right now. There are plans to get all of these things done, but the admin can only take on so much at a time. As for Brady's salary, before this year he didn't deserve to be paid top dollar. Now he does, and he will be.
