UL Commissioned Review ( James L. Fisher, Ltd )

[NewsCopy]

Entire UL Institutional Review

Intercollegiate Athletics portion   The University of Louisiana at Lafayette competes in the Sun Belt, a Division I conference, in eight men’s and eight women’s sports. Both its teams and its athletes have achieved conspicuous success over the years, especially in baseball, softball and football. Several dozen National Football League players have claimed ULL as their alma mater. At the same time, ULL athletes increasingly have performed well in their respective academic programs and their graduation rate exceeds that of the entire student body by about 27 twenty percent (according to the NCAA). In 2006, ULL student athletes had a 61 percent graduation rate. Further, in a recent year, ULL’s athletes earned the highest grade point average among Louisiana’s state universities. Praise is due those in charge of intercollegiate athletics and President Authement who have made this a priority. We encourage the next President to continue this leadership role and, indeed, determine how to transfer some of that success to the non-athlete portion of the student body. While there are several challenges associated with ULL’s intercollegiate athletic programs, the primary challenge is financial. ULL competes in the NCAA’s highest division, the Bowl Division (until recently, I-A), but spends far less money on intercollegiate athletics, and even on football, than the great majority of I-A members and less than many of the institutions in the lower Championship Division, which until recently was known as I-AA. Further, ULL and most institutions in the Sun Belt Conference contribute a significant proportion of their intercollegiate athletic revenues via direct and indirect institutional support. We understand that the Board of Regents has made it possible for Louisiana’s public universities to increase the proportion of their budgets that can be spent on intercollegiate athletics. Many regard this as a questionable decision: “Spending more money isn’t going to change the situation at these schools very much unless they really spend lots more money, but it will take more money away from academic programs,” lamented a university president who would prefer a different approach. Further, “the Sun Belt football teams often act as punching bags for SEC teams in order to take home a large financial guarantee.” More than one athletic director noted to us that Division I-AA teams often can obtain similar financial guarantees and that Division I-A status is not a prerequisite to such scheduling. At a typical Division I-A (Bowl Division) institution, football ticket sales are a significant source of revenue. ULL’s total football revenue in 2004, from all sources, including gifts, was $1.286 million. However, in 2006, ULL averaged only 14,516 attendees per game, 116th among 119 Division I-A football teams. Fully 13 I-AA teams registered higher average 28 attendance. Troy State led Sun Belt Conference institutions with a 20,810 average attendance, ranking it 87th. The upshot is that it is quite difficult for ULL and similarly situated institutions to support football programs at the Division I-A level. (It is apparent that ULL and similar institutions can compete very capably in other sports.) A senior administrator expressed the dilemma this way: “The amount of money available for athletics probably needs to double or even triple for it to be a successful program.” We believe this proviso applies in particular to football. An example may be instructive. Let’s compare ULL to the University of Montana and McNeese State University, two successful I-AA level programs.   ULL U Montana McNeese Football Revenue 2004 $1.286 m. $5.95 m. $1.687 m. Football Expenditures 2004 $2.748 m. $4.18 m. $1.598 m. Football Attendance 2006 14516 22600.000 10882 Total Athletic Revenue 2004 $7.62 m. $15.34 m. $4.987 m. Total Athletic Expenditures 2004 $8.157 m. $12.69 m. $4.775 m. Gain or Loss -.537 m. +2.65 m. +.212 m Institutional Support 2004 $3.23 m. (42%) $3.79 m. (25%) $2.35 m. (47%) Source: NCAA We do not propose that ULL eliminate intercollegiate athletics because we believe they have had a beneficial, unifying influence on the campus over the years and in addition have been a great source of institutional and regional pride. ULL needs intercollegiate athletics and demonstrably it can be very competitive in many sports. Therefore, (19) we recommend that the next President reexamine ULL’s intercollegiate athletics programs and ask pointed 29 questions about their long-term revenue sources and expenditures, ULL’s conference affiliation, and especially the institution’s NCAA competitive level in football.

Among the questions UL’s next president should consider is whether or not the university can continue to support a Division 1-A football program, according to an institutional review of the university. The report released Monday also says the university should seek to change its culture of micromanagement, increase its tuition to the regional average and find money for nearly $130 million in deferred maintenance. But the university’s situation is far from bleak, according to the review led by James Fisher, the consultant hired by the system to come up with recommendations for UL’s next president. “The University of Louisiana () provides a sterling example of how one can achieve much with comparatively little,” Fisher writes in the opening line of the review. The rest of the story Marsha Sills msills@theadvertiser.com

[Cajun Express]

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Thank God, thank God there is only 1A football as our McNutt buddies try to remind us daily. The writer of this evaluation clearly lacks the intellectual authority to offer an opinion on football, as they are not even literate on current football classifications.

[RaginCajun77]

Reviews like this and the reports that are generated are pure opinion. Chances are the guy who did this report knows nothing about the university and it's struggles.

[USLJim]

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You can't tell me that LA Tech and ULM are more financially stable to keep a D1-A football program than us. Hogwash. This guy is stupid.
The only thing Tech has going for it right now is Boise State and Hawaii winning programs and possibly a second BCS appearance and big payoff to them at their expense. SO, now it seems worth staying in the WAC for big payoffs from Boise and Hawaii. We Know Tech will never make a BCS game and for UL, very unlikely unless I live to be 80 and that's 20 years down the road. Sorry, politics will prevent that.

Geaux Cajuns

[MissingMandy]

As I am sure all of you have read the article regarding recommendations to the new pres. Quite obviously the report must recommend that UL drop to to a lower division in football. Is this something that you think will actually happen?

[RaginFan2]

As I am sure all of you have read the article regarding recommendations to the new pres. Quite obviously the report must recommend that UL drop to to a lower division in football. Is this something that you think will actually happen?

Why do you think that the recommendation MUST be to drop to a lower division? To answer your question, I think there is NO WAY we'll do that in the foreseeable future. I think this review is a great thing. It makes us take an introspective look at how we are doing things. As with any university, some things will need to be changed, some things may need to be thought about (but not necessarily changed), and some things we may be doing well. I found the short-fall in maintenance very telling. It was staggering how far behind we are in that area. I would hope that this report will generate much-needed discussion within the university community, and that the result is that some decisive action will be taken in a timely manner.

[CajunNation]

Hey Turbine, maybe we could combine all of the threads about the Baldwin lawasuit and all of the threads about dropping down a division and the reccomendation report into one big thread and call it:

THE AUTHEMENT LEGACY

[rhineaux]

_ Why do you think that the recommendation MUST be to drop to a lower division? To answer your question, I think there is NO WAY we'll do that in the foreseeable future. I think this review is a great thing. It makes us take an introspective look at how we are doing things. As with any university, some things will need to be changed, some things may need to be thought about (but not necessarily changed), and some things we may be doing well. I found the short-fall in maintenance very telling. It was staggering how far behind we are in that area. I would hope that this report will generate much-needed discussion within the university community, and that the result is that some decisive action will be taken in a timely manner. _

Agreed, the article didn't necessarilly quote the report as saying that the school should drop down, but that it should consider whether or not it can support a D-1A program. I think that this school can certainly support such a program. It just needs to be done right. I think that Authement said in the article that we're just beginning to get our heads above water in that regard, and Walker gave enough reason for it not to drop down. I also think that, with the new president coming in, (Hopefully its Joe Savioe, I talked with a co-worker yesterday who said he knows him and his family and that he loves athletics and he loves this school and town), and other great things happening around the school, like with athletic facilites improving, new athletic administration, new athletic foundation pending, new state dollars, etc. that Authement is right to have a positive outlook. I also think that this report offers great evidence that something like student athletic fees is needed, and gives the new president a great tool in efforting to get that sort of thing passed.

[ljr3721]

All of you need to go and read the actual report, not the Daily Advertiser's twisted interpretation of it.

[AstroCajun]

All of you need to go and read the actual report, not the Daily Advertiser's twisted interpretation of it.

Thanks for stating the obvious.

There's nothing wrong with asking the question, particularly when we all know the answer.

The better question should have been phrased along these lines and qouting from the report:

The next president should examine (not re-examine because he hasn't had the opportunity to do so in the first place) UL’s intercollegiate athletics programs and ask pointed questions about their long-term revenue sources and expenditures and how to improve upon them, Louisiana conference affiliation, and especially the best methods the institution should consider in order to improve its competitive level in football.

That's a better, and more proactive, question.

[RaginFan2]

I found this piece from the report to be be quite interesting.

"Information gathered indicates that UL has $129.6 million in deferred maintenance needs and the UL System has needs totaling $505 million. Alas, the prospects for state funding of these needs are not good. Since 1993-1994, only $58.7 million in state funding has been allocated for that purpose in the entire System."

This state has consistently ignored the need to provide adequate maintenance funding in virtually every area of operation. And when I say state, I am not just referring to state government. I also mean local and municipal governments as well. I find the fact that during the course of about 14 years, the state has allocated A TOTAL of less than half of the funding needed at just one institution to be extremely negligent. And for our university to account for over a quarter of that unmet need is unacceptable! Well, thank goodness our state has it's priorities straight - make sure that we fund the flagship's French House as the No. 1 priority!