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Bowling Green Bringing Baseball Back

While this is very much a positive for the Falcons and the sport as a whole, there is still a lot of trepidation about future of the team.

They bought themselves some time, but the program will be running on vapor for the next three seasons unless they can continue to raise more money. Strongly appears the program will not be fully funded for the full scholarship amount.

It sounds like not only will Coach Schmitz be let go, but the staff will be limited to only two full time coaches and one part time. A source I trust, told me the expected salaries that will be offered and I had to ask if they were serious. I could think of half a dozen big high school coaches who are making more than the figures they mentioned..
 
While this is very much a positive for the Falcons and the sport as a whole, there is still a lot of trepidation about future of the team.

They bought themselves some time, but the program will be running on vapor for the next three seasons unless they can continue to raise more money. Strongly appears the program will not be fully funded for the full scholarship amount.

It sounds like not only will Coach Schmitz be let go, but the staff will be limited to only two full time coaches and one part time. A source I trust, told me the expected salaries that will be offered and I had to ask if they were serious. I could think of half a dozen big high school coaches who are making more than the figures they mentioned..

A not fully funded program is a death knell. Just ask our friends in Macomb how difficult it is to build a program without 11.7 scholarships.

I am always thrilled to see donors step up to commit the money to continue (or revive) a program for a bit but wonder what happens when the shine wears off. Tough to raise that money twice.
 
A not fully funded program is a death knell. Just ask our friends in Macomb how difficult it is to build a program without 11.7 scholarships.

I am always thrilled to see donors step up to commit the money to continue (or revive) a program for a bit but wonder what happens when the shine wears off. Tough to raise that money twice.

hope things stabilize by three years is probably the hope
 
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Bowling Green's athletic department wouldn't be able to stay afloat long without state funding and student fees. It doesn't have a deep base of donors, and many of their biggest are focused on the hockey program. With the state already warning all public higher education/universities that $110 million is going to be cut for the next fiscal year, the school as a whole is looking at losing it's share of roughly $20-25 million.

The donors that did come forward to at least temporarily save the program were former players. It sounds like the university may have finally mended ties with Hershiser, otherwise the doors were going to stay locked. Even so, $500,000 per year for the next three seasons is looking up at a shoestring budget. At this point, it is unlikely the team will suit up for the first week of next season in order to save money to put toward travel on the back end of its schedule.

As expected, Coach Schmitz will not be retained, but will stay on in an advisory role. The pitching coach was promoted to Head Coach, but it's rumored he will not receive any raise.

At best the program has its back against the wall. Privately, an administrator at a different university told me "they are living on borrowed time".
 
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Bowling Green's athletic department wouldn't be able to stay afloat long without state funding and student fees. It doesn't have a deep base of donors, and many of their biggest are focused on the hockey program. With the state already warning all public higher education/universities that $110 million is going to be cut for the next fiscal year, the school as a whole is looking at losing it's share of roughly $20-25 million.

The donors that did come forward to at least temporarily save the program were former players. It sounds like the university may have finally mended ties with Hershiser, otherwise the doors were going to stay locked. Even so, $500,000 per year for the next three seasons is looking up at a shoestring budget. At this point, it is unlikely the team will suit up for the first week of next season in order to save money to put toward travel on the back end of its schedule.

As expected, Coach Schmitz will not be retained, but will stay on in an advisory role. The pitching coach was promoted to Head Coach, but it's rumored he will not receive any raise.

At best the program has its back against the wall. Privately, an administrator at a different university told me "they are living on borrowed time".

Is this the same type of thing Ivy League teams face? I’ve noticed a lot of them don’t even play their first game until the official third weekend of the season.
 
I have only had (very) limited interaction with any Ivy League coaches. They are a different beast. The Ivy League for baseball didn't officially exist until the early 1990's.

As you can probably imagine, those schools are about academics first. These institutions recruit students who are athletes...instead of the other way around. In the rare case an athlete is looking to play a sport while attending an Ivy League school, many of my colleagues will often suggest the kid look into a high level DIII school/program (Emory as an example) instead.
 
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