SLU Track

[Lord Elrond]

52 minutes ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

We had a golf team? 

I’ve always wondered why SLU doesn’t have men and women’s golf teams, seems right to be appropriate for SLU

[brianstl]

It appears in February 2006 it was decided to add track and drop golf.  The reason was supposedly to help the cross country program and initially was only distance runners. It caused a little bit of stir with the recently resigned golf coach making a post about it on here.

https://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?/topic/6396-sport-realignment/

[billikenfan05]

1 hour ago, Lord Elrond said:

I’ve always wondered why SLU doesn’t have men and women’s golf teams, seems right to be appropriate for SLU

Golf is dumb for a small AD like SLU. They were right to drop it. If SLU is in the market to make big changes, the move would be dropping field hockey for women’s lacrosse. It’s essentially the same sport financially but they can host on campus. 

[billiken_roy]

my memory was it was cheryl levick who was the mastermind behind drop golf and start "track" using the cross country team for both sports.   it was a way to have the minimum number of sports needed to be D1 and yet reduce total expenses.   in hindsight it has developed into a good move imo if all the school was interested in was again saving expense money.   what a fabulous BoT!

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

6 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

dropping field hockey

I was advocating you point to some folks a few weeks ago and they looked at me sideways.

[kmbilliken]

9 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

Golf is dumb for a small AD like SLU. They were right to drop it. If SLU is in the market to make big changes, the move would be dropping field hockey for women’s lacrosse. It’s essentially the same sport financially but they can host on campus. 

Lacrosse is a great spectator sport. They would get fans in the stands.

[willie]

10 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

Golf is dumb for a small AD like SLU. They were right to drop it. If SLU is in the market to make big changes, the move would be dropping field hockey for women’s lacrosse. It’s essentially the same sport financially but they can host on campus. 

If I remember correctly the golf team was fairly successful. When they killed it there were a couple of Irish golfers on the team. The school caught some flack from the St Louis golf community. It certainly had a higher profile than track and field. 

[billiken_roy]

It was all about the financial bottom line.  

[billikenfan05]

8 hours ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

I was advocating you point to some folks a few weeks ago and they looked at me sideways.

To be clear, I would feel terrible for field hockey. But like, at the end of the day, if we're going to be bare competitive at a sport lets not have to rent out practice and game fields upto 30 minutes away from campus. Sh!t who knows, if you have a sport based on campus, maybe you get more support for it from students and fans.

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

6 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

To be clear, I would feel terrible for field hockey. But like, at the end of the day, if we're going to be bare competitive at a sport lets not have to rent out practice and game fields upto 30 minutes away from campus. Sh!t who knows, if you have a sport based on campus, maybe you get more support for it from students and fans.

Plus, isn't the FH program usually toward the bottom compared to the costal schools? I would also feel bad.

[billikenfan05]

1 minute ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

Plus, isn't the FH program usually toward the bottom compared to the costal schools? I would also feel bad.

Yes, field hockey at SLU is not very good comparatively but St Louis is a really good FH city for being in the Midwest. And that's the thing, it's a good bet that even if you switch the lacrosse you're going to run into the exact same issue being a Midwest school in an east coast sport. The biggest difference is being able to play on campus.