Chris Del Conte

[Scarface]

I think girl's gymnastics at TCU would be the coolest and bring the cutest.

Also, I believe women's rowing would do good. Plenty of locations to practice and rowers tend to be rather leggy with nice upper bodies.

I don't like the idea of a women's softball team. Too many scholorships and other major expenses and not enough hotties.


Go Frogs!

 

[NativeFrog]

I'd be happy if Del Conte pulled off some magic and got TCU's men's and women's basketball teams, the women's soccer team and the volleyball team ready to be competitive in the Big 12. Only athletic teams at TCU that currently have a chance to be competitive are football and baseball. Benefiting football was the main reason TCU joined the Big 12, but hopefully TCU re-commits itself in the other sports, also. Baylor is proving it can be done. Hopefully, it doesn't take TCU 15 years, like it did Baylor.

 

[steelfrog]

 

[roddog]

Baylor is proving it can be done.

and hopefully it can be done without anyone getting murdered!

 

[TAINTed frog]

_ _ _ _Nose has been known to get on some balls.

 

[dustinater@sbcglobal.net]

I'd be happy if Del Conte pulled off some magic and got TCU's men's and women's basketball teams, the women's soccer team and the volleyball team ready to be competitive in the Big 12. Only athletic teams at TCU that currently have a chance to be competitive are football and baseball. Benefiting football was the main reason TCU joined the Big 12, but hopefully TCU re-commits itself in the other sports, also. Baylor is proving it can be done. Hopefully, it doesn't take TCU 15 years, like it did Baylor.

Competitive or competing for conference titles? I think the only sport that we'll struggle being competitive in next year is men's basketball.

And I don't think Baylor is doing it in squeaky clean fashion, at least not in men's basketball.

 

[Deep Purple]

I'd be happy if Del Conte pulled off some magic and got TCU's men's and women's basketball teams, the women's soccer team and the volleyball team ready to be competitive in the Big 12.

Nope. Men's basketball is the only sport in which TCU is not competitive. The rest are in the same ballpark as the majority of the league.

 

[freebird]

Remember this article:
Bring back soccer at TCU.
See, there used to be mens soccer at TCU.


The program fell into a state of total disrepair under the attention of Dave Rubinson, Jay Fitzgerald and all. Rubinson had rather hit the golf course rather than the practice field and you never, ever saw a TCU coach scouting Dallas Classic League. Their attitude was "we dont need to recruit Dallas, the top players will just transfer back to us eventually."

Well that attitude never worked and the program languished in obscurity. Finally a new athletic director was brought in and the goal was to elevate all programs in the athletic department. Between Title IX compliance and a lack of ambition within the soccer program TCU mens soccer was cut.

...Now there are rumblings again. Could TCU men's soccer resurface in Fort Worth? .... There is a massive recruiting base right in their own back yard with the Dallas Classic League and the TCU name is carrying weight nationally with the powerful football program. The school would probably need to add a women's sport to balance Title IX, but again, the money will be there.

Hopefully in 2012 when TCU moves to the Big East, mens soccer will return. Some pressure from our soccer loving public couldn't hurt either could it? Maybe an email TCU's way is in order?

---

+ Add women's gymnastics.

Both great fits for TCU

 

[Kaiser]

I'd be in favor of adding Women's Softball & Men's Soccer. I want the B12 move to benefit the entire athletic department & don't want TCU to turn into a football only athletic department like a Boise State.

 

[Deep Purple]

Remember this article:
Bring back soccer at TCU.
See, there used to be mens soccer at TCU.


The program fell into a state of total disrepair under the attention of Dave Rubinson, Jay Fitzgerald and all. Rubinson had rather hit the golf course rather than the practice field and you never, ever saw a TCU coach scouting Dallas Classic League. Their attitude was "we dont need to recruit Dallas, the top players will just transfer back to us eventually."

Well that attitude never worked and the program languished in obscurity. Finally a new athletic director was brought in and the goal was to elevate all programs in the athletic department. Between Title IX compliance and a lack of ambition within the soccer program TCU mens soccer was cut.

...Now there are rumblings again. Could TCU men's soccer resurface in Fort Worth? .... There is a massive recruiting base right in their own back yard with the Dallas Classic League and the TCU name is carrying weight nationally with the powerful football program. The school would probably need to add a women's sport to balance Title IX, but again, the money will be there.

Hopefully in 2012 when TCU moves to the Big East, mens soccer will return. Some pressure from our soccer loving public couldn't hurt either could it? Maybe an email TCU's way is in order?

---

+ Add women's gymnastics.

Both great fits for TCU

Here's what the story didn't tell you:

• Men's soccer was a non-scholarship sport at TCU (women's soccer has scholarships). Officially it was a varsity team, but it operated like a club team. TCU never got any choice players because the team had no scholarship money to lure them. Dave Rubinson did the best he could with very meager recruiting inducements.

• Poor team morale and lack of success were the reasons TCU gave to can the sport, but the real reason was Title IX. It requires that a school must achieve "gender-equity" in varsity athletics relative to male-female enrollment on three fronts: 1) number of student-athletes, 2) number of scholarships, 3) distribution of resources. This is why men's soccer always remained resource-poor and scholarship-free.

• Since the 1990's, TCU (with a 58% female enrollment) has moved much closer to gender-equity in terms of number of student-athletes and distribution of resources, but is still pretty lop-sided in terms of scholarships. The reason is football, which consumes a huge proportion of male scholarships. No other sport, men's or women's, even comes close to the 85 scholarships football enjoys.

• The beneficial tradeoff is that football is the only sport that generates large revenue, sometimes enough to pay for itself, and sometimes even a profit that can be redistributed to other sports, especially women's sports, which often generate the least revenue. So even though football is much more expensive in terms of student-athletes, scholarships, and resources, football revenue also makes by far the biggest contribution toward paying for athletics operating costs.

• Under Title IX, if a school fails to achieve gender-equity -- and about 90% of schools haven't -- it must at least show sustained progress toward equity. This is why adding a women's sport to "balance" the addition of men's soccer will not be done. That's simply a wash. It contributes nothing in the way progress toward gender-equity. This is why TCU will continue to gradually add women's sports, but is extremely unlikely to add any new men's sports.

Here's how I came by this information: Every NCAA member-school must undergo a review for NCAA recertification every decade. I worked on the steering committees for two of these reviews at TCU, one back when Frank Windegger was AD and another under Eric Hyman. None of the above information is confidential. It's all publicly available, but apparently not widely understood.

 

[steelfrog]

Know it all...

That is interesting though.

Baseball, e.g., has what, 9.9 schollies available to it?

 

[Deep Purple]

Know it all...

Just sharing the limited info I have. There are actually several alums and lettermen on this board who are better informed than I am about current athletics doings.

That is interesting though.

Baseball, e.g., has what, 9.9 schollies available to it?

I don't remember the exact number of baseball schollies, but it's not that high. If I recall correctly, mens' and women's basketball have the most scholarships outside of football. Plus, no sport but football offers full scholarships. The rest spread their scholarship money over as many student-athletes as possible by offering only partials. But that is standard procedure at almost all NCAA-member schools.

 

[The original ArgyleFrog]

Actually yes I do, considering they added equestrian instead a few years ago. The big 12 pays 20x what the the mountain west did and considerally every school except kansas state has a team it makes sense. We have tons of potential recruits in DFW, texas and throughout the south. Softball is easily one of the biggests women's sports in the college.

It makes a lot more sense to add softball than any other women's sport. Men's sport isnt happening. Several million? Tcu just spent 300+ million in the past 5 years on the campus and football stadium

equestrian was relatively cheap to add.. the girls provide their own horses (I'm pretty sure) and they rent the arena in which they practice.. we didn't build anything for it.

for softball, we'd have to build a stadium on a campus that is land locked and running out of room.