Willie said:This whole deal is completely baffling me. Between their scholarships and God knows what else they get on the side, there's no reason whatsoever that they need a stipend to help out. It's so ridiculous.
So the question becomes, can Montana and the Big Sky remain competitive in a sports landscape that appears to be shifting, and for how long?
Liberty, a private Christian institution in Lynchburg, Virginia with about 14,000 undergraduates, may be improving its bid to become an FBS member in the near future -- "Liberty has the resources to jump into that pool and say, 'Look, we're all in on this,' " Haslam added -- but the Flames are hardly the only current FCS program weighing its options.
North Dakota State Athletic Director Matt Larsen mentioned on KFGO radio earlier this year that the four-time FCS football national champion Bison are looking at adding stipends for football, men's basketball and women's basketball to remain competitive in the recruiting realm.
The Griz play both schools during the opening four weeks of the football season this fall.
"We certainly want to do all we can to be competitive," Haslam said. "We also have to do it financially in a responsible way.
"It's going to be something where folks kind of stand back and see, OK, what are the others gonna do? Are we gonna go as a conference and how are we going to tackle this as an institution?"
Back in "ancient times" when publicly-supported colleges/universities didn't cost so much, I could have used some extra dough ... but didn't feel I needed it. Summer job, etc. handled my costs just fine. (Zero money from my mother and step-dad.)Willie said:It doesn't matter to those not on scholarship either. I went to a private school where the tuition was 3x that of the U of M and I had no problem making it through college. Didn't need extra money handed out to me. Worked in the summers and did my workouts, survived just fine.
wbtfg said:Clearly the only player who has earned a full cost stipend, and I think Ken Jones will back me up on this one, is Caleb Lyons.
IdaGriz01 said:However, I've read enough stories -- in places like Sports Illustrated and so on -- about kids not being able to buy food, etc. that I'm starting to believe them. Athlete-students who get no help from "home" (if they even have one) apparently do have trouble making ends meet at school. So I'm not as "hard over" against the COA notion as I used to be.
billings_poke said:Going to make it a lot tougher for you guys to get better in basketball. Heard many in the wcc and a few in the big eest are going to pay their basketball players.
billings_poke said:Going to make it a lot tougher for you guys to get better in basketball. Heard many in the wcc and a few in the big eest are going to pay their basketball players.