Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
Yesterday afternoon, Texas State Associated Student Government passed emergency legislation supporting move to Division I-A (FBS). The entire legislation is documented here.
The jabs at the inaction by the administration was humorous … if not unfortunately familiar.
WHEREAS: In the past similar efforts have been made to move Texas State football up to a higher division, and failed, largely due to a lack of enthusiasm and vision on the part of the administration; and
WHEREAS Due to this lack of enthusiasm and vision many alumni and supporters have chosen to withhold donations to Texas State; and
The key pieces of the resolution is here for your convenience.
BE IT RESOLVED: By the Associated Student Government of Texas State University that University President Dr. Denise Trauth, or an authorized representative, hold a press conference or some other public event to enthusiastically announce that Texas State has decided to move up to NCAA Division 1 (FBS) in football; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the administration present a plan to the Associated Student Government with specific benchmarks, dates by which these benchmarks should be met, and the fiscal impact to the students, regarding this move up in football as soon as possible; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That President Trauth commit, in writing, to this move and that this commitment be published to the student body as a sign that we are all in this together, and that all levels of this university support and look forward to competing on a truly national level; and
Again I ask, where is Georgia Southern’s leadership in the SGA when you need it?
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
Kennesaw State’s Student Government Association is sponsoring an online vote starting today until to 11/9 for students attending KSU in the fall. They are offering T-shirts, food, etc to promote the event on campus. The questions will ask whether they are willing to raise their student fees in order to fund their football program.
The fee hike options on the survey are $35 – Non-scholarship football, $70 – Division I-AA, and $105 – Division I-A. For a school with 20,000 enrolled, the proposed $105 hike would bring in around $5M annually. Similar fee hikes are being bandied about at West Georgia and Georgia State.
With the SGA vote, they are another small step closer to playing football in the state of Georgia.
Where is GSU’s student government association on the I-A issue? We know many of you have signed the survey … but have remained silent on the political front. Even the George-Anne has not taken an active role in the debate despite nearly 1000 students signed on to the Facebook movement.
Is anyone willing to step up? Send us an email at southernfacts@southernfacts.org and we’ll give you all the ammo you can use.
Monday, October 29th, 2007
Keys to the game … the Citadel offense was held to a single field goal in the 2nd half by a strengthening defense. It gave the offense time to adapt as Foster took over the game with “80 yards and a cloud of dust“. A great outing by the defense in an otherwise atypically bad year. But for a great feat … how about this … with another 151 yards passing, Foster will become the first 1000 / 1000 QB since Greg Hill in the magical year of 1999. He also just passed Tracy Ham’s career rushing total and is 3 TDs away from Greg Hill’s 71 TDs which ranks 3rd in SoCon history. We may look back at Foster one day and wonder why his jersey is not hanging from the stadium wall.
Next up, the Woofies from Spartanburg … word is that GSU has at least 1,000 fans making the trip up to take on the 11th ranked Terriers (and visitor tickets have been selling fast in the front office!).
Show up in your blue gear and let’s take the guesswork out of the pollsters hands! Let’s make sure everyone at GSU is focused on this game this week – the biggest game of our season!
(Oh and we had an ad in the Herald this weekend – you can see it here.)
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
Some of you may have noticed the recent absence of the Thursday Thousand (and judging from my Inbox, you haven’t) and may be expecting, after several weeks, a Thursday 3,000 or something comparable. I make no promises, although this edition does prove to be a little longer than the usual 1,000 words. By way of an explanation for the hiatus, please read the following. I hope you will bear with the footnotes as I have been reading David Foster Wallace. I thought I’d take the stylistic tweak out for a test drive. You’ll have to expand the article to use the footnotes, and the first three are pretty cluster%$#&ed, and I can’t fix it on this blogging platform. Sorry.
Please do not think that I am making any attempt at contrarianism here, but after my own initial elation over Georgia Southern’s win at Appalachian State sunk into my bones in a soft wave of contentment, I started to ponder two things. One: how does Georgia Southern move forward after a season-defining win, especially considering that the season is still at the very least four games from its conclusion? Two: could determining last weekend’s win in terms of ranking against other program-defining wins actually give the kind of perspective needed to move past the triumph in Boone and possibly into this season’s playoffs? For that matter, where does the 38-35 win over the Mountaineers rank in Eagle history compared to other individual wins? More…
Footnotes
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
We will be running a large ad in the Herald on Saturday morning, make sure you grab a copy early that morning and take it with you to the game to show off. Some of our crew should be in the parking lot giving away some promotional items as well.
Just wanted to make sure everyone got a heads up. I’ll update with the ad and more news as it is ready.
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
Word has come in that Georgia State’s mandatory student fee committee unanimously approved the $85 per semester fee hike on Friday.
With this single vote, their athletic fees, which already exceed Georgia Southern’s, are set to rise to $227. An increase of this much at Georgia Southern would bring about nearly $4M more per year for the University.
The next step, once approved by the University’s senate committee, will be for Georgia State President Carl Patton to make the recommendation to the USG Board of Regents.
Athletic Director, Mary McElroy has made the bold moves to undertake this initiative, University President Patton will back it … so this is all but a formality now.
Will the leaders at Georgia Southern be stepping up to the plate any time soon?
We hope so.
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
You gotta love college football this year, the offensive show we put up on this year’s Giant Killers keeps our SoCon title chase alive. With that win, we’ve beat both Michigan and Notre Dame by proxy :) App State didn’t appear to be on par with Elon and SDSU to me … Edwards and Richardson made them more dangerous than any of them for sure, but we continued to have trouble in the 4th quarter. Kudos to Coach Hatcher on a great game.
Homecoming is here, we have to get up for this game … the Citadel has always played us tough, but this year they appear to be ready to put up a stronger fight than ever before.
All in all, a great way to spend my birthday … MASN did a great job on the broadcast too. Kudos to Jim Hunter, he was solid in the booth all day.
Friday, October 19th, 2007
UPDATE: Here’s a link to the video. Sam answers Butler’s question about FBS, blasts a few of the loud voices out there (hi Opie & brooks!), and a few other topics are addressed. All in all, glad to see some actual tough questions put out there … hope that Baker is willing to keep that up.
After all, most business people will affirm that (some) scrutiny is often the best way to tune an organization. And tuning an organization teamed with innovation is often the best recipe for growing it.
Kudos to Baker & the Boosters for a strong first step at communicating with the fans.
Word on the street … Fair Road maybe … is that athletic director Sam Baker is hoping to make some amends with fans and boosters to have a more interactive experience in order to give fans some insight into what’s going on in the AD’s office and mind.
He’s planning on taping the first one tomorrow and will try to answer as many questions as possible. They’ll put up the answers up on Eagle Vision for free afterwards.
To submit your question, compose an email to athletics@georgiasouthern.edu with the subject “Sam’s Journal”.
Some questions that deserve to be asked … stadium expansion, parking issues, fundraising goals, oh and don’t forget :) the I-A study idea.
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
The State Board of Regents is set to approve naming the main athletics area on the Georgia Southern campus the “Erk Russell Athletic Park”.
The area named after Russell would include Paulson Stadium, the Troy A. & Mozelle Cowart Building, the Gene Bishop Fieldhouse and the university’s track and soccer facility.
The Real Estate and Facilities Committee approved the renaming Tuesday will submit its recommendations to the full board, which rarely rejects any committee recommendations.
The board also signed off on an Alumni House and Welcome Center for the university. The $3.2 million project will be funded in part by $1 million in donations to the school.
A fitting tribute … let’s hope that the name is displayed prominently.
Monday, October 8th, 2007
I’m never a fan of watching close games involving my teams, but man … the last second field goal by Jessie Hartley was one of those great moments you always love to see. From wide right, to Carson Hill’s retribution pick, to the play call to kick a 54-yarder.
The excitement at the end of that game was immense … relief, maybe, but a great win nonetheless. Two amazing halves of football which made more than the sum of their parts.
Talk about a tale of two seasons, Hartley has officially banished all memories of 2006 from my mind. Great win for Coach and all the Eagles!
Oh and we finally broke back in to the top 25. :) GATA Eagles!
