Messages

I guess it begs the question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?". Lowposter said, "I don't like the current system".  To me, a system sounds like the transfer phenomenon is being driven primarily by coaches pushing players out to create openings for new players.  Is it that, or is it the current crop of GenY athletes who want a more immediate return on what is a huge commitment of time and energy?  I don't know the answer.  It would be interesting to hear from some parents of student athletes who have gone (are going) through this experience.

I'm with you WH on this one.  I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to be the parent of the HS star looking to sign, knowing that this dynamic is taking hold.  It used to be so simple:  have a great HS career, sign with a school at the right level, play 4-5 years at the same place, graduate.  Now that is no longer the norm -- the norm is much more complex.  As a parent I'd be confused, wary and concerned.

Just read Lazerus' column.  He stated the same thing about the self-perpetuating cycle.

Not to derail the line of thought on this string, but............

I am a relative newbie on this whole forum (couldn't ya tell?) and I could use some help.  And maybe there are a couple of others that are in my boat as well.  Anyway, to any of you grizzled vets: I am watching the transferring and recruiting stuff, and I find it facinating. It's almost like an underworld.  But, here's my question:  Is this a new and aggressive tack taken by Bryce, or was this always the way things were done and Homer did much of the same? 

Being from the other side of the world (east coast), in the past, until I found you guys, I only followed VU via the crawler on ESPN.  I knew, like everyone else, that foreign players were a strength in the past, but this is (to me ) pretty wild - the harvesting of dissatisfied BB players at other institutions.

I am feeling good about the fact that Valpo has suddenly found a higher gear in a better league (MSO, MBB are already HL champs and Baseball and Softball are on the possible verge of same). I'll be moving to WI within the year and look forward to seeing Valpo play more often -- been basically restricted to Marist in FB and one home FB game (oh, and I can remember a UWM game in MKE in the 90's when I was there on a consulting engagement).

So, thanks for any enlightenment.

I'm quoting myself, but yesterday's dialogue on the transfer environment answered many of the questions I had as expressed in my previous post. It still seems like a bit of an underworld to me.

The other thing that occurred to me is if freshman are recruited into a program that leans on xfers, they may get fidgety with lack of playing time cuz older xfers are brought in above them on the depth chart  so they decide to xfer and the cycle is perpetuated.  Make sense?

Don't you mean 12-13 the HL will have the full number?  Butler is out of here 13-14.  Regardless you are correct - three years from the end of this season.

[/quote]
The idea that somehow because we are small and successful we must be over achieving is just wrong.  Look, St. Bonaventure, in the vaunted A-10, has an undergrad enrollment of 2000.  Evansville, in the Valley (also a higher ranked conference) has about the same undergrad enrollment as Valpo.  I could go on but won't.  If enrollment size was the key to success then YSU or Milwaukee would win everything.
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Agree 72.  Wake Forest, private, Baptist, has 4400 undergrads and competes across the board in the ACC.  Not too many people consider them over-achievers. It's what you are willing to commit to. BTW they have produced 36 Rhodes Scholars,

According to Coach Carlson, that's one reason (besides the guarantee, I suppose) why PFL teams like Valpo are playing the likes of WIU and YSU:  to establish some level of competitive relationship/track record.  Admitted that Dayton, Jacksonville, USD and such have fared a bit better than VU, but it's a commitment PFL teams have made.  Just noted that USD will play Cal Poly, Western NM and @ Harvard (yeah, non-scholarship) this season.  Back in the day, didn't Valpo play Yale at the Yale Bowl?  I think that team lost.

I originally put down 21-45, but then felt an unexplainable need to go under 40 points allowed.  Anyway, I'm homing in on fact that we play the same scholarshipped FCS school in back to back years.  Don't know who YSU brings back from last year's team, but my feeling is that any difference in VU's favor from last year will tell us a lot, early, about the progress (or lack thereof) of the program. Last year the delta was 64 points. I'd love to see that 17 point spread I mentioned earlier.  But a 30 or even a 40 point difference would tell us something positive.  Another blow-out like last year and .............. arghh.      Obviously once the PFL season starts it'll be the usual suspects.

Not to derail the line of thought on this string, but............

I am a relative newbie on this whole forum (couldn't ya tell?) and I could use some help.  And maybe there are a couple of others that are in my boat as well.  Anyway, to any of you grizzled vets: I am watching the transferring and recruiting stuff, and I find it facinating. It's almost like an underworld.  But, here's my question:  Is this a new and aggressive tack taken by Bryce, or was this always the way things were done and Homer did much of the same? 

Being from the other side of the world (east coast), in the past, until I found you guys, I only followed VU via the crawler on ESPN.  I knew, like everyone else, that foreign players were a strength in the past, but this is (to me ) pretty wild - the harvesting of dissatisfied BB players at other institutions.

I am feeling good about the fact that Valpo has suddenly found a higher gear in a better league (MSO, MBB are already HL champs and Baseball and Softball are on the possible verge of same). I'll be moving to WI within the year and look forward to seeing Valpo play more often -- been basically restricted to Marist in FB and one home FB game (oh, and I can remember a UWM game in MKE in the 90's when I was there on a consulting engagement).

So, thanks for any enlightenment.

Dale Carlson just posted a new blog on the VU site that talks about the Spring and discusses a number of the players.  Pretty interesting. Jalen Johnson (DE) has put on 20 lbs. and at the end of last season he was blowing people up. Good to see Hoffman back at QB with a little pressure behind him from two other QBs.  I'm hoping the D can keep the scoring down so the O can compete.  Tough trying to win a game from 30 points behind by the end of the 1st quarter. Biggest barometer in the fall IMO -- YSU: gotta do better than 13-77.  I'd take a 21-38 verdict as a good omen.

Jeez! What goes through 23 year old minds (at 3:30AM)?

Wow, what a month!  14-4 in April and 12-1 since the beginning of the second week in the month (4/9). Can you say 'hot' boys and girls?

I kinda agree with you Joe (but there are no checks going to Coral Gables from me). 

I'd like to see the the university lead by investing and then saying to us alumni -- back us up.  The current philosophy -- conservative (and that's not wrong) is slow and may not produce results -- has't generated funds for athletic facilities on a par with what else has been built recently. I am not disparaging the Drew BB court or the scoreboard in the ARC, but these are things at other colleges that would be part of normal upgrades to maintain a solid status quo. But where the heck is the track around Brown Field that was part of the FITT campaign that was initiated years ago?

If VU wrote me and said:   We built a track and needed to update the ARC and we're in debt to the tune of X dollars, would you contribute? I'd write a good sized check (for me at least) immediately.  But as it stands, I see no focus and so I am not writing as much in the way of donations.

[Indianapolis]

Horizon target Markets:  Indianapolis (Butler - leaving), Chicago (UIC, VU, Loyola) , Detroit UDM), Cleveland (CSU, YSU), Dayton (Wright State), WI (UWM and .......(100 mile stretch)......GB).

So...... We need to retain Indianapolis -- IUPUI? :-(    .... and add a market.  How about St. Louis? Can we steal one from there?  How about a second school in the Detroit area? And Joe, you've got a point -- would WKU bring in a market?

Wow. All of these are within bussing distance [Butler's A-10 flipping travel budget is going to be incredible].

Wait! How about recruiting this mid-sized (what, maybe only 6000 under grads) catholic school -- Notre Dame?  It's private, certainly lacks a national presence.  Their facilities are OK, but they'd have to commit to some improvements.  They are within bussing distance of most HL teams, and they desperately need to improve it's branding across the country.  Perfect!  We'll, maybe not -- South Bend, Indiana is not a very good market.

Second that.  There is so much more to learn about individual Valpo sports programs that never come across in the simple releases.  Keep it going and growing.

Check out the YouTube Spring Football recap on the Valpo Athletic site.  Some pretty decent detail.

Right now (10:35 AM EDST) the new coaches are profiled and Kormara is still on the WBB web page along with Helm.

[HIPAA]

HIPPA is a convenient way for schools to say they don't want to release any information. If the player in question doesn't mind talking about the situation, everything is fine.
I know the head coach was asked about Kurth several times, and the answer was always politely evasive along the lines of "still working through some things." And this would have been in the November-December range.

If, indeed, the Valpo athletic department uttered/invoked/hid behind HIPAA it did so erroneously or as an invalid smoke screen.  This is directly from the US Department of Health and Human Services about the Health Insurance and Accountability Act (HIPAA):

Who is Covered by the Privacy Rule

The Privacy Rule, as well as all the Administrative Simplification rules, apply to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and to any health care provider who transmits health information in electronic form in connection with transactions for which the Secretary of HHS has adopted standards under HIPAA (the "covered entities").

Note that it is focused Health Insurance.  The only part of the university impacted is the infirmary or whatever they call the place on campus where you go when you get sick and you have to show your health insurance card. 

I have to reiterate my previously posted opinion regarding the "whys" of the limited released info but I still agree with FWalum that the provided info was bare bones and that Bryce and the athletic department could have done a better job dealing with an obvious issue.

Having said that, and hoping that the HIPAA issue is now forum history, I notice that amidst all the transfer musical chairs that is happening, Kurth's name has not surfaced in any discussions except for his health -- a sign that Bryce intends to use a healthy TK next year

Good to hear a first hand account. Let's hope that the improved D will keep scores a bit closer so the O can score a few more points.  Thanks for the report!

The HIPAA privacy rule regulates the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI) by what is termed "Covered Entities (generally, health care clearinghouses, employer sponsored health plans, health insurers, and medical service providers).  Applying HIPAA to this situation a very long stretch unless the SID were to make public Kurth's actual medical records without his written permission.  The athletic department could well have released information to effect that Kurth had an intestinal problem that has kept him from practicing or playing effectively, and it would be analogous to announcing that someone blew out his ACL and was lost for the season or suffered a concussion and would miss the next game.  IMO, maybe the staff just didn't think it was as newsworthy as our board or maybe misunderstood the interest and ramifications.  Maybe they just reached some accommodation with Kurth to not talk about it until things got straightened out.  I think it was an innocent "let's try and keep it in the family" approach.  I think that this is reflected in the ease with which he talked about it to his local paper at season's end.

She's brought at least 1 assistant with her from Ferris State -- Kurt Westendorp -- according to the VU Athletics website.

It appears from the year-by-year record attached to the release that she only had three sub.500 seasons and two of those were consecutive.  And with that exception, whenever the record dropped below .500 it was immediately followed by progressively stronger winning seasons.  That suggests recruiting youngsters and developing them into winners and then  starting over again.  Hopefully, at Valpo she can reach the re-load level.  Best wishes to her.

Based on the schools on McKenzie's list he is no stranger to the classroom.  Quite selective schools in the east and Davidson is well thought of in the south.  And of course Valpo.

[From the SB Nation website:]

Thanks WH.

From the SB Nation website:


"Report: VCU And George Mason To Join Atlantic 10 On May 1
Apr
20
1:32p
by Mike Rutherford

On May 1, George Mason and VCU will be leaving the Colonial Athletic Association to join the Atlantic 10 Conference. This according to Lenn Robbins of the New York Post.

Robbins added that Butler will "probably" be joining the conference as well. The Bulldogs are currently a member of the Horizon League." [my emphasis]

Cute.  Good background music.  Lots of smiling faces. Nice message.

Here's the NWI Times Spring game preview.  Again, a bit more info than in the VU site release. For some reason I thought that Cody Gokan was gone, but he's back next season and that's a good thing.

http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/college/valparaiso-university/crusaders-ready-for-annual-spring-football-game/article_77aef99c-7127-547d-b9a2-abf94bae24a6.html

IMO as a fan, I'd like to see a traditional game format:  #1 O v. #1 D, #2 D v. #2 O.  I attended the preseason scrimmage in August and it was more like watching a practice than seeing game conditions -- and the scoring was weird.  But these things are not for the fans -- they are for the kids and the staff. BTW I am in favor of the recent trial balloon in college football to allow one scrimmage against another team. I think it should be restricted to FCS and below. D-III already can scrimmage. For BCS schools it would just be a another money grabbing event.

There was a significant roster drop between Carlson's year 1 and year 2 with many kids leaving or just opting out.  Based on Carlson's recent comments, player retention has improved. If things follow last year's form, I'm looking for a release in the next couple of weeks that announces the new recruiting class.  I, for one, am really curious about that part of the program's development. Better retention + improved size, speed and skills + better prospects = improved team = fewer blow-outs  and more wins = added measure of respect.