A Pac-10 proposal designed to save athletic departments tens of thousands of dollars each football season is bound to encounter resistance from coaches.
The NCAA’s Division I Legislative Council has been asked to vote on banning schools from housing their football teams in hotel rooms on the night before a home game, the NCAA News reports.
Public records obtained by The Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer show that N.C. State, for example, spent $85,923.79 in 2008 to take its team to a hotel on the nights before home games.
Also in 2008, Clemson paid $111,654.39, including $47,230 just to transport its team back and forth from the hotel in nearby Anderson, S.C. East Carolina spent $29,020.55 and South Carolina spent $70,474. Figures from North Carolina were not immediately available.
But aside from Florida State’s Bobby Bowden, who suggested eliminating them, coaches strongly favor Friday night hotel stays before home games. They say it’s difficult for players to get a good night’s sleep on a Friday night because neighbors in their dormitories or apartments can be extremely loud.
"When you put them in a dorm and ask them to live on campus on a Friday night of a home football game, that’s not exactly the environment to get eight, 10 hours of sleep," East Carolina coach Skip Holtz said Monday. "Everybody else gets to sleep in until noon and wake up and start tailgating again and go to the game. The players have to be in the meeting at 8 o’clock."
Comments
Footbal hotel stays
Thu, 08/20/2009 - 06:38 — krw127If hotel stays are needed the night before a home game for the football team why are they not needed for the other sports? To say the team has a meeting at 8 AM is a sorry excuse as these are grown men that should be able to get to a meeting at 8AM. Since most of these athletes have teammates as roommates the excuse that they need their sleep away from the noise is also not a good reason. The players also get food money and other expenses for this night at the hotel. That said the football program also generates a lot of money and there is no reason that that alone should not entitle the guys to the benefit. I would recommend that they rotate hotels so that all the local hotels that wanted the team could also benefit from the program.
Football at Hotels
Fri, 10/22/2010 - 18:30 — dubaihotelsIt is typical all around the world for sport fans to gather around the bars watching the game; the trend at Dubai is to have mega screens at where fans gather to watch the games and that’s when the beers dry up so fast
Who cares?
Thu, 08/20/2009 - 14:47 — bradleyb123First of all, who cares about other sports?
Secondly, how many other sports play at noon on Saturday?
If you still care about other sports, then consider this: Football brings in the big bucks. Without sports like football, other sports lose money. And losing games because your players are zombies from not being able to get sleep the night before games is counterproductive to bringing in the big bucks that athletics departments want and need.
So the players need to get their beauty sleep the night before games.
Perhaps I'm confused
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 21:10 — bblevinsLongtimepackfan
If I'm not mistaken (and I may be), we are not talking about tax money here. We are talking about money from the various private, separate booster organizations (Wolfpack, Rams or Pirate Clubs, Iron Dukes, etc). Pretty sure State and UNC (and the rest) are not increasing undergrad class sizes so that football players can crash at a hotel 6 or 7 times a year. This ain't about wasting tax money, it's just about waste, period. Come on guys, man up! If you can't play a game after listening to your neighbors fight (or frolic) half the night, then you need to work on your conditioning. :)
It's a game, ya'll, lighten up!
The danger with a public
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 20:25 — AgentPierceThe danger with a public discussion such as this is most of the comments will come from uninformed public.
The same sort of input into any disciipline will yield bizarre "suggestions" for savings in theory that are quite impractical in reality.
Frugal Living?
Fri, 12/04/2009 - 16:51 — eshavmAt least there's no harm in such a dangerous discussion. Personally I think there are many practical ways to save money, not the most insane of which is to simply shorten seasons for sports. But aside from that, couldn't someone in a sports organization spend some time on the phone and see if their enormous group might get a discount, or perhaps looking for travel offers for large groups? I could be mistaken but group rates are supposed to be incredibly low comparitively.
Check some out: http://www.choicehotels.com/hoteldeals
Oh The Irony of This...
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 19:56 — thereisnoconspiracyLook... I like college football. However, I would like to call attention to an inconsistency of outrage here.
If our public schools spends money on programs or policies that the general public (who have very little real concept of the actual mechanics of the public education system) finds "unnecessary", the "comments" portion of the web-page scrolls on and on with these tirades about government waste.
College football has little to nothing to do with academic excellence. How well the players are rested has little to nothing to do with the quality or accessibility of the University of North Carolina public education system.
It seems to me that most of the people who have read this article seem to accept that this money (add it up for ALL UNC schools and it should get substantial) seem to accept this as a totally acceptable, justified use of "tax payer money".
I am not saying it isn't.
I am just saying that it would be a lot cheaper to simply ask the players to demonstrate personal discipline and responsibility to rest before a game regardless of the actions of their peers--especially in the climate of our current economic situation.
With the money saved from eliminating this kind of spending from the UNC budget, they could be reducing class sizes, offering more services, constructing new projects, funding research, etc.
But since it is football, and football seems to be some sacred cow in the public education system... no one seems to be critical of it.
Wake Co. decides to add time to 4 days a week and dismiss school early one day of the week so teachers can collaborate over solutions to improve the quality of education and there is nothing but negative remarks about how "unnecessary" and "wasteful" the decision is.
Public funds are used to set up college football teams in hotels so they can get some shut-eye before the big game, and there is little to none of the typical "WASTING OUR TAXES" rants.
Can we at least prioritize our outrage in some logical way News and Observer bloggers?
How about this for logic.
Thu, 08/20/2009 - 09:26 — JPDOhioSince many major football programs are revenue raisers for the university, the "wasteful use of tax money" argument is invalid. In fact, they often finance non-revenue sports that otherwise would be dropped and, for those programs with on-campus stadiums, bring thousands of consumers of goods and services to campus. Sounds like an economic win to me.
I actually agree that the pre-game hotel stay is dumb, but I understand the coach's reasoning. They want to make sure everybody is accounted for and gets to the lockerroom on time. After all, unlike tenured professors, a coach's continued employment depends on results.
Anyway, the amount of money spent on these hotels is a pittance when compared to a university budget. And it's not "taxpayer money" anyway, so the saving money argument is bogus.
If you really want to save money and improve academics, here is one suggestion. Eliminate tenure, which is nothing more than a political job protection program. Then, poor teachers can be fired, better teachers can be hired and promotions can be based on merit instead of seniority. I bet you would be amazed by the positive impact this would have on academic quality.
Absolutely right ....
Sun, 11/08/2009 - 07:22 — jolly01Absolutely right .... "Then, poor teachers can be fired, better teachers can be hired ." very well said :) ....
jolly
Dubai Hotels
Tenure
Thu, 08/20/2009 - 14:37 — mad_maxYou're right on the money regarding teachers and tenure JPD. My mother has been a high school teacher in wake county for over 25 years and she's been saying the same thing since day one. Some teachers/professors get to a point where they really don't care about their job performance anymore, and why should they? All they have to do is show up to class and take roll basically, and they get their paycheck. Boy is our public school system screwed up.
hmmm host families- pay or
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 19:41 — tboard47hmmm
host families- pay or stay
Hotels
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 18:44 — DocTeeBeeI'm with Skip Holtz on this one. Besides, you want your team in once place, in bed at the same time, and up and ready to go at the same time, in the same place, and without a hangover. As long as this all comes out of self-generated (tickets, big-shot donors) revenues, I don't care. If this is coming from public funds, then it should come from somewhere else, but, really, no public funds should support revenue sports, period.
SKIPPY
Sun, 08/23/2009 - 14:13 — bluecat101I BELIEVE SKIPPY HOLTZ IS THE SON OF THE BIGGEST CHEATER OF ALL TIMES IN FB, OL ROY IS IN BB , LOU GOT EVERY SCHOOL THAT HE COACHED PUT ON PROBATION, BUT DIDNT I READ WHERE HE IS GOING INTO THE FB HALL OF FAME, WHERE IS THE LOGIC IN THIS STATEMENT. DID HE COACH AT NCS OR UNC, PLEASE ADVISE, GO DUKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bad idea.
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 17:32 — eminentBad idea.
igiiiili
Wed, 08/19/2009 - 16:26 — AgentPierceINCOMING from igilliii on this one ....