Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

It’s time to dig deep – let’s endow a football scholarship

Fellow SouthernFACTS supporters,

Back in March of 2007, many of us decided that the time for standing idly by had come and gone. By banding together in a grassroots effort, we were able to set and achieve our goal of convincing the University to pursue a FBS Feasibility study. Sometime next month, we will learn the results of that study and should be able to gauge where we stand in our pursuit of bringing better competition to Paulson Stadium.

Today we have launched our second grassroots effort in coordination with Southern Boosters and GSUFans.com – we are looking to raise money to endow ONE football scholarship.

Southern Boosters has set the cost of this endeavor at $50,000 and if we hope to add the 22 additional scholarships necessary to compete at the FBS/I-A level then we have to start gathering these funds now. We raised over $2,000 last time very quickly just out of a few donors to do some simple advertising – today we need you all to pitch in to directly help the football program ramp up for what’s next.

We ask that you visit SouthernFACTS.org and click on the ChipIn link on the right hand side. Send over whatever you can offer, $5, $10, $100, $1000 or more. The money will go directly to the Southern Boosters bank accounts and Dan O’Dowd and his crew will be able to give you credit for your donations just as if you had mailed the check in yourself.

So get your end of the year donations in and help us make a difference!

If you can’t give, then go out of your way and recruit a new booster to the program – have them ChipIn! – and make sure to let us know that you did so! Every little bit helps!

As an incentive to the largest donor during the month of December, I will personally mail you my last original copy of the coveted NCAA Drive to Dixie poster which celebrates Erk Russell’s undefeated 1989 national championship season. These originals have gone for over $500 on eBay and are great find for the GSU collector in your home.

So dig deep, and if you want to spread the word you can add a ChipIn widget to your sites by clicking this link.

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Dr. Grube Reverses Course on Student Fees?

Jake Hallman got a chance to talk with Dr. Grube in an article in the paper yesterday. Some interesting comments came out of the interview, the biggest of which was in regards to student fees.

Grube has no doubts that GSU will eventually enter the FBS, but said the university has to balance its checkbook while making the move. That means a lot of private financial support, not student fee money.

“There’s some room for movement on student fees. That would require students to be in support of that,” Grube said.

It’s good to see that we are getting closer to being on the same page, a modest increase in fees could net the University an additional $1M which is more than Southern Boosters has ever ponied up in a single year.

With that said, I personally think it must also be mandated that our Southern Boosters program be able to match any increase by students fees (if not set goals for even more than that). Additionally, we must be able to find donors and match them to projects specifically sought to facilitate the move up. I think that we now see that our officials are telling us that concessions have been made on every front … it’s now up to the study, our next leaders, and our boosters to carry the torch.

As Grube noted, “I can’t take a business plan that’s not real to the Board of Regents,” Grube said. “We need to do it right.”

And that’s all the I-A proponents ever wanted I believe, as Erk said often, “Do right.”

Here’s hoping our new leaders are willing to take on this challenge. It’d be awful nice to see our current leaders lend them a helping hand however.