(09-10-2019 09:11 AM)Tribe3455 Wrote: Certainly someone on here is close enough to AD Huge to ask if this was a freeze last fiscal year made necessary for budgetary reasons or a completely moronic decision that will negatively affect all scholarship sports (especially football).
(09-10-2019 10:53 AM)Tribe32 Wrote: This is an absolute disaster. It will impact football in a big way. We will see preferred walk on players go elsewhere going forward. Just another example of not understanding what W&M is all about from the AD. Huge mistake.
This policy is criminally stupid. It is not only bad for football, as noted by many, but it is also very bad for the Olympic sports on much smaller budgets.
My daughter ran track in high school. She was admitted to W&M on early decision. During the summer before she matriculated we all met with Dan Stimson. The Tribe was happy to have her run track -- but they did not offer a scholarship at that time, for two major reasons. 1) She made it clear that she was coming to W&M regardless, so the coaches did not need to offer a stipend to entice her to come, and 2) the track team had limited scholarships; in fact, most years, each scholarship was split between two, or even three, athletes.
My daughter worked hard, trained hard, studied hard, ran hard, and helped the Tribe win the CAA outdoor track Championship during her freshman year. She was rewarded with a small partial scholarship for her sophomore year. Not big -- but appreciated and every little bit helps. She continued to excel and received a larger stipend her junior year (about 50% bigger). Her senior year she earned a scholarship double what she got the junior year. She was injured during the indoor track season that year and so she still had one season of eligibility for indoor track remaining. The school asked if she wanted to return while she did post-grad work earning her MEd -- but by then she wanted to concentrate on her studies and so a great 4-year career came to an end.
She loved every minute of it (except for the injury) but, even so, it is very likely that she would not have run for all four years without the scholarship money. If the current rule was in place then, she would never have received a cent. If she had stopped competing because of lack of assistance, then the track team would have lost a valuable (and valued) competitor.
I know that there are THOUSANDS of other students with very similar stories. Imagine if all of those students had been deprived of scholarship financial aid. This decision is just so stupid and shortsighted that, if it weren't for the fact that it is occurring on Huge's watch, I would actually have trouble believing it was true. This needs to get reversed pronto. I will wait a few days to see what develops before I voice my displeasure to Rowe. Sooner or later you'd think that she would get tired of receiving so many complaints about Huge. I'm sure that the negative letters outnumber the positive ones by about ten to one.
Lastly, like Tribal, my first thought was that this was a mechanism to get funds to pay for Shaver's buyout. So, if true, then the negative ramifications of that blunder will continue to be felt BY MANY in the Tribe community for years to come.