Cost of Attendance, New Baseball Coach
The full football schedule was released last week and we’ll be covering that in a bit more detail soon, but today we just wanted to touch briefly on a couple of other recent developments around JMU Athletics.
First, the good news, or at least what we assume to be good news. JMU announced the hiring of Marlin Ikenberry to become the new leader of the Diamond Dukes and mercifully replace the [too] long-tenured Spanky McFarland. Â Needless to say, he’s got his work cut out for him after the otherworldly malaise of the last few years. Ikenberry’s record doesn’t shine on the surface, but even being in the .500 ballpark at a place like VMI is damned good and we’re hearing anecdoctally that he had a great reputation with players down in Lexington and he’s clearly plugged into the Virginia recruiting pipelines. It can’t get much worse than the last few years so we’re choosing to be excited about the hire. Plus, we don’t need to tell you that the name Ikenberry just screams “rootin’!”
Next, some much more concerning news out of the greater CAA. Despite the CAA’s general ideological opposition to paying Cost of Attendance Stipends (or being relevant in any way actually) even in limited sports, the conference’s membership agreed this year that the decision would be left up to each individual member school. Didn’t take long for JMU to fall behind the pack as UNCW, Towson, and College of Charleston have all announced they’ll be paying such stipends beginning immediately in some form or another. Really, forget falling further behind former “peers” like App. St. or GMU and just get used to the fact our walk in the wilderness may only be just beginning. Look, like most halfway considerate fans, we’re not all that comfortable with this idea generally or at JMU specifically, but seriously – what the hell is the purpose of massive investment in shiny new facilities if you’re going to cheap out on this and just admit you’re falling into a massive competitive disadvantage (and don’t forget Liberty is going FCOA across the board because they can afford it)? If JMU is going to stay in the CAA forever so be it, but if they’re going to continue talking about being the “national model” for anything other than monitoring the situation, don’t they at least have to keep up with their conference mates?
All D-1 programs should be providing at least a partial stipend to offset the full COA. As long as the schools are making money on the backs of the athletes, the athletes deserve compensation of some sort. I fully agree that a scholarship and free education IS that compensation, but the NCAA rules then prevent the student-athlete from working and/or receiving assistance that a non-athlete gets to help cover what a scholarship does not. Until the NCAA (the only organization that can hold a candle to FIFA in terms of corruption and unfair practices) changes its draconian rules to let athletes get some money to live on while enrolled, then the schools themselves should provide a stipend.
And, yes, JMU will fall farther behind the competition if the university does not do this. How long can you maintain those shiny new facilities when the best athletes are not coming to your program? Because without the top athletes, your teams will not win consistently, and if your teams don’t win consistently, your alumni and fan base get stingier with their donations, etc., etc. So pay the players at least a partial stipend.
I really don’t see how this is even a question. When I was in school we used to compete heartily against Richmond, Mason, Old Dominion and Navy. Now they’ve all moved on to greener pastures and we can’t even keep up with Wilmington, Towson and Charleston. It’s downright depressing, and the silence coming out of JMU on this topic is, unfortunately, typical. Obviously if we do not promptly adopt cost of attendance it is going to hurt our recruiting. 1+1=2.
We should be the leader of the pack. Period.