The Summit League and Sioux Falls Sports Authority

[sdyotefan]

Not as much doom & gloom as mentioned on the previous two posts. State fans have been used to attending the SLT for several yrs and have had good teams for the most part. Many State fans are used to getting their tickets ASAP. Last night was sold out so undoubtly some Yote fans could not get tickets. Things will balance out over time but I agree that USD fans need to be more committed and react quicker and more consistantly to support the Yotes both in the Dome and elsewhere.

[obc]

Rather than beat on the fans of USD (which the ones not interested enough to attend games certainly do not read this chat board) - my attention and criticism is more on the President and AD staff. Abbott has been awesome rebuilding the buildings on campus and it was a much needed change for the better. He is at the top of the house and has been at USD for a long time. Over that time he has failed to produce more fan interest from the students and new alumni. Tons of 38-22 year old alumni are in the general area that graduated at an Abbott run USD - where are they? Since he became president 16 years ago (July of 98 was his start) a lot of important decisions were made.

On the academic and academic facilities level I think he hit a home run. Unfortunately the results in undergraduate student enrollment do not look to have followed versus our relative regional peers.

His hires on the AD side have been average at best. Sayler's acumen for the job was the best but how long did he expect a guy to stay in Vermillion that took the job without ever stepping foot in town or on campus? The other hires? Not very impressive IMO.

The decision to allow an in state regional peer to move up and not take on the challenge was a huge mistake. SDSU always had better fan support but the move has supercharged their programs. The gap would still be there if USD had moved up 5 years earlier but it would be smaller than the gap today.

We can bang on the lack of fans forever and not get any results. If you donate any money however, I hope you start rattling their (President, AD & Staff, etc) cages to do something effective. What they have done to this point to connect with fans is a failure. Looking in the Arena stands last night, or in the stands in Brookings for the USD FB game, or at Howard Wood for the trampling by the Bison, or the basketball attendance at Frost versus the Dome this year - anyone should understand why the Argus, Scheels, advertisers, corporate donors, and other casual fans are deciding to do what they do.

This is just one crabby guy's opinion. I would be curious who agree /disagree. Often I've heard curt retorts to posters on here saying - well you should join if you want to help, so for full disclosure I do donate money every year and have the Athletic Department in my will. (I think if you are not a donor but do go to games you have a right to make your opinion known. if you went to USD for part of your education you have even firmer ground to speak up). Also for the record I have no plans of shuffling off the earth anytime soon - hopefully plenty of time to see some arenas full of red wearing loud fans.

Go get some friends you know involved. We all know many.

Go Yotes!

[redwhiteandyote]

let's be honest, there was no excuse for last night's fan performance. had at least a full year to gobble up tickets and make it a point to be in Sioux Falls. And, nothing? Embarrassing when Western Illinois had a decent student crowd and USD had, what, a handful of cheerleaders and dance team members?

That was a pitiful scene, Yote fans.

[Coyote Fan]

I don't mean to be a broken record with this but USD brought 2,500 fans with them to Kearney, NE in 2008 to watch a Women's NCAA Championship game so SOMEWHERE we have it in us to be able to show up and support this team.

What needs to be done to get the fan base out. Isn't Travis Lee the Learfield rep and marketing guy for USD. Maybe he needs to step up his game as well.

[#1CoyoteFan (Admin)]

Actually, 2,500 fans turned out for the CHAMPIONSHIP game in Kearney. The crowd for USD in the 2 games prior wasn't as good. It takes a title game for them to show up is all I am saying, which isn't good at all.

[azsod73]

Mar 10, 2013 9:25:44 GMT -6 obc said:

Rather than beat on the fans of USD (which the ones not interested enough to attend games certainly do not read this chat board) - my attention and criticism is more on the President and AD staff. Abbott has been awesome rebuilding the buildings on campus and it was a much needed change for the better. He is at the top of the house and has been at USD for a long time. Over that time he has failed to produce more fan interest from the students and new alumni. Tons of 38-22 year old alumni are in the general area that graduated at an Abbott run USD - where are they? Since he became president 16 years ago (July of 98 was his start) a lot of important decisions were made.

On the academic and academic facilities level I think he hit a home run. Unfortunately the results in undergraduate student enrollment do not look to have followed versus our relative regional peers.

His hires on the AD side have been average at best. Sayler's acumen for the job was the best but how long did he expect a guy to stay in Vermillion that took the job without ever stepping foot in town or on campus? The other hires? Not very impressive IMO.

The decision to allow an in state regional peer to move up and not take on the challenge was a huge mistake. SDSU always had better fan support but the move has supercharged their programs. The gap would still be there if USD had moved up 5 years earlier but it would be smaller than the gap today.

We can bang on the lack of fans forever and not get any results. If you donate any money however, I hope you start rattling their (President, AD & Staff, etc) cages to do something effective. What they have done to this point to connect with fans is a failure. Looking in the Arena stands last night, or in the stands in Brookings for the USD FB game, or at Howard Wood for the trampling by the Bison, or the basketball attendance at Frost versus the Dome this year - anyone should understand why the Argus, Scheels, advertisers, corporate donors, and other casual fans are deciding to do what they do.

This is just one crabby guy's opinion. I would be curious who agree /disagree. Often I've heard curt retorts to posters on here saying - well you should join if you want to help, so for full disclosure I do donate money every year and have the Athletic Department in my will. (I think if you are not a donor but do go to games you have a right to make your opinion known. if you went to USD for part of your education you have even firmer ground to speak up). Also for the record I have no plans of shuffling off the earth anytime soon - hopefully plenty of time to see some arenas full of red wearing loud fans.

Go get some friends you know involved. We all know many.

Go Yotes!

Can't argue with this well stated opinion.

We are going to build the new arena but it will take more than bricks and mortar to turn things around. Conference championship caliber programs has to be the goal - winning teams put butts in the seats. For that to happen we need an innovative Athletic Department willing to shake things up.

Hope we are heading in that direction.

[yotefan]

@ gorabbits,
Keep in mind, a big reason there were so many State fans in the stands Saturday night was because BOTH your teams played on the same day.

Additionally, many of those State fans now have had the SLT experience to know the importance of buying an all session pass ahead of time. Many USD fans did not realize how important that purchase would be until it was too late and the game was sold out. Hopefully that will now change.

The USD turnout for today's women's game had far better attendance than last night's men's game. Why? Because so many USD fans were prevented from attending a "sold out" game because that ticket was in a State fan's hand. All one had to do was look around the Arena in the second half of the USD v. Western Ill. game and see how many empty seats there were that had just been occupied by a State fan who had gone home, while many USD fans were left to watch the game on TV. Simply put, your fans knew better than to wait to buy a ticket, ours did not.

Your comment about who went D-1 first reminds me of the tired arguments that used to exist on the old board prior to USD joining the Summit and the MVC for football. I thought the old "we blazed the trail first" camp had pulled up tent stakes a long time ago. Last I checked USD became a school in 1862 and State finally got with the program about 20 years later though I'm pretty sure President Abbott doesn't remind President Chicoine of that fact at every Board of Regents meeting. Time to move on.

The earlier post stating THE REASON the SLT is in Sioux Falls is because of SDSU and SDSU alone made this happen is another kind of March Madness altogether.

There were 38,000 tickets sold as of Friday and undoubtedly more have been sold since then. Even if you assume everyone in the building at noon on Saturday was a State fan, that's only around 6,000 tickets. Who purchased the other 32,000 tickets? Even if you assume, everyone present for the SDSU women's game at noon bought a ticket and then left when the game was over and bought another ticket to come right back in to watch the men play, at best that's 12,000 tickets, who bought the other 26,000 tickets? That would be local sports fans who have a school in the tourney and those who just like to watch a good basketball, not just SDSU.

So, to follow your suggestion, this is me giving credit where credit is due: Thank you Sioux Falls sports fans and SLT corporate sponsors.

[Yote 53]

Let's keep in mind that the weather to the south was rain/freezing rain all day, lots of it, and then snow. It was a freaking mess down here and I know more than a few people who decided to stay home and watch the game on TV rather than try to drive back from SF at 10pm in a blizzard, risking their lives in the process.

There is also the problem of USD fans being used to showing up at the gate, buying a ticket, and walking in. As has been posted you needed to get your ticket early, something USD fans are not used to doing. Lesson learned for some and maybe things will change in the future.

[summitfan]

Mar 10, 2013 21:21:25 GMT -6 yotefan said:

Last I checked USD became a school in 1862 and State finally got with the program about 20 years later though I'm pretty sure President Abbott doesn't remind President Chicoine of that fact at every Board of Regents meeting. Time to move on.

I didn't want to get into the who did what first argument. However, it bothered me when I saw the USD video ad at the game the other night where they "were established in 1862 and the oldest university in the Dakotas". Because it bothered me I looked it up yesterday morning.

1862 was when the Dakota Territory Legislature enacted that the University of SD would be in Vermillion. USD did not start in 1862. The first classes were taught in 1882 which is 20 years later. From USD itself the top section on school history: www.usd.edu/medical-school/history.cfm

Also, from your own alumni page on the "150 Year anniversary". Scroll down the Timeline of USD history half way down on the right side: www.usdalumni.com/page.aspx?pid=555

1882: First USD classes held at Clay County Courthouse.

1883: South Dakota Gov. Ordway signs bill accepting all USD real property, making it an official state University.


So according to your own alumni group it wasn't even an official state university until 1883.

The Morrill Land Grant act was passed by the Federal Government in 1862 which gave every state a Land Grand University. SDSU doesn't say they were established by the federal government in 1862 but they could using the criteria used by USD which is enabling legislation by a governmental body. Dakota Agriculture College was established in 1881 and the first building was built in 1883. The same year USD became an "official state university".

If I'm wrong someone please correct me but my sources are both USD websites.

[jackjd]

Mar 10, 2013 9:25:44 GMT -6 obc said:

The decision to allow an in state regional peer to move up and not take on the challenge was a huge mistake.

One could interpret the sentence above to mean that USD was not in favor of moving up and I don't know if that's what obc intended. Every so often on the SDSUFans.com board, one of my fellow Jackrabbit fans will make that claim -- it is not true.

When UNC left the NCC, NDSU and SDSU advocated taking the entire conference up to D1. They were committed to moving. USD under Pres. Abbott voted in favor of the entire conference, USD included -- or as many that could make the move -- going to D1. But, none of the other schools wanted to move. At that point, it made perfect sense to have the NCC remain intact, sans NDSU and SDSU. Intelligent people argued that remaining in the D2 NCC was the only sensible decision. Loyal SDSU alums were split on the question although I remember thinking support for the move to D1 was surprisingly strong.

The leadership of NDSU and SDSU felt the D2 landscape was quickly changing with many schools moving up from NAIA and NCAA D3, schools there were not peers of the two States, USD or UND. However, reasonable people could conclude that a move by NCC schools to D1 would be a mistake. I recall UND saying "we are D1 in hockey so we know what it's like and we're staying D2 in everything else". At the time, that sounded like a solid position. The NCC without NDSU and SDSU decided to stick together.

Now insert the cliche: hindsight is 20/20.

At least credit Pres. Abbott with making the decision to move to D1 once the evidence became clear D2 was rapidly changing.

When I think of the move to D1, I compare it to the end of the Wizard of OZ when the wizard behind the curtain is handing out symbolic gifts...the clock, the diplomma etc. D1 athletics is symbolic of where USD and SDSU are positioned academically -- and above all else, its academics that counts first.

With all the shifting going on in D1 conferences, are more changes on the horizon? Will having FCS in football lead the way to a second-tier D1 in all sports?

[obc]

Mar 16, 2013 12:11:00 GMT -6 jackjd said:

Mar 10, 2013 9:25:44 GMT -6 obc said:

The decision to allow an in state regional peer to move up and not take on the challenge was a huge mistake.

One could interpret the sentence above to mean that USD was not in favor of moving up and I don't know if that's what obc intended. Every so often on the SDSUFans.com board, one of my fellow Jackrabbit fans will make that claim -- it is not true.

My statement was just the two obvious facts that USD did not move up at the same time as NDSU/SDSU and those two proved it can be done well. My opinion as a former player and current fan was and currently is that having a strong recognizable regional peer institutions to compete against is good for the program. Having a chance at getting into the Big Dance is huge Nationally. I have two Bison FB alumni friends that have told me as much excitement that came with the FB program winning back to back National Championships, going the the big Dance to face off against Kansas was even bigger for the school's National credibility. 10 minutes on ESPN versus constant exposure being on millions and millions of brackets. SDSU has become more nationally relevant in MBB and WBB from getting into THE top tournament for NCAA Basketball repeatedly.

[jackjd]

The move to D1 has been great for SDSU and it should be for USD too. One quick example: SDSU's research grants have gone up considerably to the point SDSU is now ranked ahead of a number of schools that had in the recent past received more dollars. Two in the region we have surpassed: Wyoming and Montana. Nearly all of the schools that receive more research dollars than SDSU have medical schools. We intend to keep growing those numbers.

[azsod73]

Per tweet from JH re: Summit vs. Southland conference championship game attendance:

Here's a stat for you: Attendance for Southland Conference women's final, won by Oral Roberts? 933. Summit League women's final? 6,153