Q&A with UL President Joseph Savoie

[DestinCajun]

_ I don't know how much faith I'd put in that guy's "expertise" regarding athletics and the 1A / 1aa question. His "expert" opinion seemed to be that dropping to 1aa would be a ecomomic boon to the athletic department. But all of the people many of us would consider to be the real experts, that is the coaches and athletic directors, feel that 1aa is at best a wash and more than likely a losing proposition financially. Also, I think the logic used in that report made the assumption that all teams in Louisiana other than the sacred flagship should / would drop to 1aa which figured into their economic reasoning of travel cost savings. The report also assumed that dropping to 1aa would have no negative effect on the caliber of players or the level of fan support which I believe we all know to be a misguided assumption. _

Here's a link to the Carr Study Report on ULM in 2004. It's conclusory findings was pre-ordained by the purpose of the study.

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelatio.ne04/carr.html

[Hammer58]

_ If it's the same reports I read, they were done by a professional out of state consulting company (and darn if I can think of the name of the company right now) and the biggest point I recollect is that our athletic department needed to get in gear and do a whole lot more in order to be successful at what we're trying to accomplish. The bottomline recommendation was increased funding. _

And yet that bottomline recommendation of increased funding is ignored by many of the same folks in this state who want to beat the drum for all of us except the sacred flagship dropping to 1aa.