Geezus. How many years since he's been gone? And some of yall are still riding that man's d___? Do ?yall have a schedule? Do yall take turns? Do yall rock, paper, scissors? Is it like pick-up basketball where you just yell out, "i got next!"? Or do yall just fight over who rides next and strongest man wins? Embarrassing. I've seen teenage girls cry less about losing their boyfriends than some of yall.
Are you implying our past success in softball is mainly due to lack of competition (bigger schools not caring about softball) and now we will not have the same level of success since the bigger schools are investing in their programs?
Interesting, using that same thought process, do you think our lack of success in basketball is due to the same thing? We have not been relevant in basketball since the early 80's which is when basketball gain popularity nationwide and bigger programs started putting money into the sport.
that together with free transfer and NIL
the big boys have the money to rebuild every year and the athletes don’t have to sit out anymore to go where the money is and/or the talent to compete for a national championship.
If you paid attention to the lineup and pitching for the MCWS in baseball and the WCWS in softball, you notice that many of the star players transferred into the good teams.
So, a school like Louisiana who used to develop talent now can’t keep them once they show promise and they have little to no money comparatively to retain talent or compete in the portal for talent.
That's 100% what I'm saying
The SEC just got a $3 billion TV deal with ESPN. That's so much money that they'll end up accidentally throwing tons of money at baseball, softball, women's basketball, etc
They can hire better coaches, they can buy better players, they can promise better facilities, they can provide more amenities.
and for all of the "loyal fanbase" talk, there were plenty of 1000+ paid attendance games where you could count the number of people in the stands by hand. The same thing was happening in baseball, while we continued to chirp out this 3k+ attendance number every night, there was definitely less than 1000 in the stands.
Diamond sports are not immune to what's happening in football and basketball, and the smoke is getting thicker.
I hate the overall state of college athletics, but the transfer portal has worked in our favor in softball. Glasco has (edit: had) a consistent top-rated recruiting and transfer classes. Rarely losing high contributing players in the portal.
We are competing even in this environment. We're still winning conference championships. Still ranking in the top 20 each year. Still going to the regional finals. Made a super last year. 2 runs short of it this year.
We'll never know what next year could have been if everything stayed together. But we are relevant in softball. Even after nearly 20 years of the money conferences deciding to invest in the sport.
AMEN.FIND A WAY !!
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