Back2BackU-MnPride2002
New member
Re: NCAA era Program rankings-accomplishments only
No, I wouldn't. Tennis is NOT a big sport in Minnesota. For one the weather here makes it difficult for Minnesotans in sports like Tennis and Golf to have huge success. Who do we have in Tennis history? David Wheaton? He went to Stanford I believe, and he's hardly one of histories greatest, and he's about all Minnesota has produced and like I said, he left the state. Golf? We have Tom Lehman who I played with in the past. And the golf team fluctuates, some years I know for a fact there were more Minnesotans on the team than out of staters, but they've tried to supplement the Minnesota talent with players from England and Australian and other places. And they've had a great deal of success because of this, thus keeping the Golf program alive, and allowing for Minnesota players to be able to stay home to play collegiate golf, an opportunity that would not be afforded them right now had the team not experienced some success, and that success was in part due to out of state talent, but only IN PART. I believe it was a local boy who had the best round of his career that really made the team that year?
Gymnastics as a high school sport, at least from my out-state perspective, doesn't exist, at all. So that one doesn't shock me. Swimming & Diving? Well, like I said, they make exceptions when the state alone can not supply enough quality athletes to put forward a highly competitive team. Coaches started making international connections and now we're getting a lot more out of staters, and have had success, too. As for Basketball? That fluctuates from year to year, and like I said, the more importance a sport has to the financial outlook of the entire athletic dept, the more willing everyone is to stray from the norm, but even saying that, the bb team has fluctuated from year to year, some years having more Minnesotans than other years, and one of the BIGGEST concerns of ALL Gopher bb fans, is that keeping Tubby Smith around will prevent us from getting what is being called the Big 3, that is 3 recruits all from Minnesota. There is another guy from Chicago who is good friends with the best rated of this group, but no one seems to care about this guy, argued by some to be the #1 overall recruit in the nation, and instead Gopher fans seem to act like they'd MUCH rather have a local boy who is rated in the Top 50, but no where near #1 like the guy from Chicago. WHEN the local talent is there, THAT is who the Gopher fans want. THAT is who the school wants. If those players leave the state, the school NEEDS the coach to get good players from somewhere else in order to keep paying the bills, as cbb and cfb do. Those 2 sports pay the bills for the other 20 sports. Hk basically breaks even.
As for the Women's sports, same goes for women's tennis as I said about men's. I'll add that Swimming and Diving is not a huge sport in Mn at the high school level, and again, that's coming from an outstate perspective, and by outstate I mean, not living in the Twin Cities, but in outstate Mn, or greater Mn as some call it, out in the boonies, the sticks, the country, up north, etc.. I know that the VB team takes the best from Mn, and gets almost all of them, but has expanded its out of state recruiting more and more in the last 15 years or so, and has had incredible success because of it. So the 33 percent or whatever that are from Minnesota, are getting to play on one of the best vb teams in the nation. The golf team sucks ash, so maybe they feel that they need to look out of state for recruits to improve the situation, before the risk of losing the program becomes a real issue again? Not sure about Gymnastics?
But I bet if you looked at the #s from the past 10 or 20 years instead of just one year, those ratios would fluctuate. Some of those sports would move up above 5-% and others might drop down below. It's not an exact science, and you can only do as much as you can without risking fielding a totally horrible team.
It's a balancing act. Back when the U didn't have 23 sports to support and players often played 2 or 3 sports in college, it was MUCH easier to field teams of primarily Minnesota natives, AND do well. And in some sports it honestly wasn't as big of a deal whether they did well or not.
But if you can believe it, the teams that formed one of the greatest cfb dynasties of history, the 1934-41 Gophers, were almost exclusively Minnesota boys, with a few exceptions. Those same players played hockey and basketball and track and golf and baseball for the Gophers as well. That doesn't happen anymore.
And Minnesota's population isn't growing like other states' are, so it forces the school to adjust, especially with Title IX and being forced to have more women's sports teams than mens.
And honestly, even 33% being the low end for all the 23 sports, is pretty **** impressive if you take all things into consideration.
No, I wouldn't. Tennis is NOT a big sport in Minnesota. For one the weather here makes it difficult for Minnesotans in sports like Tennis and Golf to have huge success. Who do we have in Tennis history? David Wheaton? He went to Stanford I believe, and he's hardly one of histories greatest, and he's about all Minnesota has produced and like I said, he left the state. Golf? We have Tom Lehman who I played with in the past. And the golf team fluctuates, some years I know for a fact there were more Minnesotans on the team than out of staters, but they've tried to supplement the Minnesota talent with players from England and Australian and other places. And they've had a great deal of success because of this, thus keeping the Golf program alive, and allowing for Minnesota players to be able to stay home to play collegiate golf, an opportunity that would not be afforded them right now had the team not experienced some success, and that success was in part due to out of state talent, but only IN PART. I believe it was a local boy who had the best round of his career that really made the team that year?
Gymnastics as a high school sport, at least from my out-state perspective, doesn't exist, at all. So that one doesn't shock me. Swimming & Diving? Well, like I said, they make exceptions when the state alone can not supply enough quality athletes to put forward a highly competitive team. Coaches started making international connections and now we're getting a lot more out of staters, and have had success, too. As for Basketball? That fluctuates from year to year, and like I said, the more importance a sport has to the financial outlook of the entire athletic dept, the more willing everyone is to stray from the norm, but even saying that, the bb team has fluctuated from year to year, some years having more Minnesotans than other years, and one of the BIGGEST concerns of ALL Gopher bb fans, is that keeping Tubby Smith around will prevent us from getting what is being called the Big 3, that is 3 recruits all from Minnesota. There is another guy from Chicago who is good friends with the best rated of this group, but no one seems to care about this guy, argued by some to be the #1 overall recruit in the nation, and instead Gopher fans seem to act like they'd MUCH rather have a local boy who is rated in the Top 50, but no where near #1 like the guy from Chicago. WHEN the local talent is there, THAT is who the Gopher fans want. THAT is who the school wants. If those players leave the state, the school NEEDS the coach to get good players from somewhere else in order to keep paying the bills, as cbb and cfb do. Those 2 sports pay the bills for the other 20 sports. Hk basically breaks even.
As for the Women's sports, same goes for women's tennis as I said about men's. I'll add that Swimming and Diving is not a huge sport in Mn at the high school level, and again, that's coming from an outstate perspective, and by outstate I mean, not living in the Twin Cities, but in outstate Mn, or greater Mn as some call it, out in the boonies, the sticks, the country, up north, etc.. I know that the VB team takes the best from Mn, and gets almost all of them, but has expanded its out of state recruiting more and more in the last 15 years or so, and has had incredible success because of it. So the 33 percent or whatever that are from Minnesota, are getting to play on one of the best vb teams in the nation. The golf team sucks ash, so maybe they feel that they need to look out of state for recruits to improve the situation, before the risk of losing the program becomes a real issue again? Not sure about Gymnastics?
But I bet if you looked at the #s from the past 10 or 20 years instead of just one year, those ratios would fluctuate. Some of those sports would move up above 5-% and others might drop down below. It's not an exact science, and you can only do as much as you can without risking fielding a totally horrible team.
It's a balancing act. Back when the U didn't have 23 sports to support and players often played 2 or 3 sports in college, it was MUCH easier to field teams of primarily Minnesota natives, AND do well. And in some sports it honestly wasn't as big of a deal whether they did well or not.
But if you can believe it, the teams that formed one of the greatest cfb dynasties of history, the 1934-41 Gophers, were almost exclusively Minnesota boys, with a few exceptions. Those same players played hockey and basketball and track and golf and baseball for the Gophers as well. That doesn't happen anymore.
And Minnesota's population isn't growing like other states' are, so it forces the school to adjust, especially with Title IX and being forced to have more women's sports teams than mens.
And honestly, even 33% being the low end for all the 23 sports, is pretty **** impressive if you take all things into consideration.
