Forgive me for venting. I know the following would never be done, BUT there are ways to make Football the absolute priority if the administration chose to do so (like Bama and other Football schools). I'm confident other schools do such things.
Essentially, what I'm questioning is if UK offers more sports than necessary thus has to spend more of what could be spent on Football on lesser sports in order to comply w T9. If UK funded only those sports required by the SEC, budget equally between men/women, and then only funded sports other than Football (and, bball) as necessary to ensure some semblance of equity, would there be more money to spend on Football? Did the renovation of CWS fall within the purview of T9 ?
I understand Title 9 as I've had to deal with the issues in the public schools (obviously not to the extent that UK guys have to deal with it). I understand equity. I understand being slapped on the wrist by T9. I also understand there are creative ways of compliance. Don't get me wrong, but the T9 bean counters don't understand, nor do they care about the real issues/needs that administrators have to deal with, but there are ways to get things done that you know need to be done, yet still be within the bounds of T9.
Wild, you and Fuzz have a good handle on this. My frustrations come from a Football fan's position. As far as I'm concerned, the lion's share of the available $ should go to Football. Identify what needs to be done to make Ky a Football power; figure out how much funding is necessary; allocate that funding, then take an equal amount and spread it out among all the other sports....then do only what is done to bring the ath program within the limits of minimum compliance with T9
ram, there really is no such thing as "minimum compliance". In theory minimum compliance would be just enough to keep from being sued... With Title IX everything is relative to everything else you do. If your men's teams travel on yellow school buses, then you can require that the women's teams do the same. But if the men's teams take private chartered flights...you got to treat the girls the same. LSU got in trouble some years ago because they wouldn't allow their volleyball team to travel to Hawaii for a tournament but they had allowed the men's basketball team to go there.
UK offers men's soccer and co-ed rifle that aren't SEC sports. If you took the entire budgets for those two sports together, eliminated them and gave all the money to football it would be a drop in the bucket for football and you would eliminate opportunities for about 25 kids.
UK has made commitments to football in the past, when CWS was built it was one of the finest in the country, UK was one of the first in the SEC to have an indoor practice facility. But the commitment that is needed most is along term from big money donors who in the past step up for a couple of years here, there, don't see the progress they want and retreat.
We are both on the same team as UK football fans. I desperately want them to become winners and make it easy to get excited to go to CWS on those Saturdays in the Fall. I don't know that just throwing money at the problem will do it. UK spends a lot more on football than a lot of other schools including the one 70 miles to the West. UK has, and always has had better facilities than many others that have done well in the sport.
I don't know man. I really think a lot of it is the toxic environment that exists in Lexington for UK football. I think about the story of Randall Cobb going to Red Lobster in Lexington right after they had just beaten someone. The waiter/waitress making small talk with Cobb, not knowing who he was made a remark like..."yeah, they won but they'll return to sucking soon enough". I've known/talked with several guys who have played there and they all have similar stories. I think that crap takes its toll.
It takes a collection of a few special players, team leaders to get past all that crap. Coaches can only do so much.
Sadly, there can only be 1 top commitment and that commitment is always going to be dictated by external forces, not the administration. If tomorrow the administration (Mitch) altered the budget to parallel spending at Bama (7x basketball), Auburn (4.5xbasketball), Georgia(4.4xbasketball), etc he would be fired on the spot. Hell, Georgia spends less on football+basketball than does UK but where it is pretty much split 50/50 at UK, it is 85/15 at Georgia. Auburn spends more on football than UK spends on football+basketball... Arkansas spends about the same combined but more than 75% goes to football. The closest comparison to UK I could find was Vandy that only spends 2.5x on football.
I've argued with people on here for years who want to blame Mitch for all of this. Mitch can be replaced and his predecessor would face the same challenges.
