OWH articles regarding UNO sport transition to Division I

[HuskerFanChuck]

The OWH is in their fourth day of an eleven day series on UNO sports and the transition to Division I. Monday was men's soccer, Tuesday was women's soccer, Wednesday was women's volleyball, and today was women's cross country/track & field. Tomorrow is men and women's golf, Saturday is men's and women's tennis, Sunday is men's basketball, Aug. 15 is women's basketball, Aug. 16 is women's swimming, Aug. 17 is baseball, and Aug. 18 is softball. They've done some pretty good pieces so far, trying to capture the goods and bads of moving up.

 

Here's the articles so far:

 

Men's soccer

 

Women's soccer

 

Women's volleyball

 

Women's cross country and track & field

 

Men's and women's golf

 

Men's and women's tennis

 

Men's basketball

 

Women's basketball

 

Women's swimming

 

Baseball

 

Softball

 

Here's the OWH Mavs page: World Herald Mav site Some good accompanying articles, especially a few regarding the soccer team.

 

Series completed on Thursday, August 18. It presented good information regarding the goods and bads of the transition. Should be interesting to see what happens over the next year.

[Vuren]

The OWH is in their fourth day of an eleven day series on UNO sports and the transition to Division I. Monday was men's soccer, Tuesday was women's soccer, Wednesday was women's volleyball, and today was women's cross country/track & field. Tomorrow is men and women's golf, Saturday is men's and women's tennis, Sunday is men's basketball, Aug. 15 is women's basketball, Aug. 16 is women's swimming, Aug. 17 is baseball, and Aug. 18 is softball. They've done some pretty good pieces so far, trying to capture the goods and bads of moving up.

 

Here's the articles so far:

 

Men's soccer

 

Women's soccer

 

Women's volleyball

 

Women's cross country and track & field

 

Here's the OWH Mavs page: World Herald Mav site Some good accompanying articles, especially a few regarding the soccer team.

 

Keep an eye there for the remainder of the series.

i'm absolutely peeved about this. i want trev fired for this. he screwed over several programs just to keep tom happy.

[wildman]

I haven't followed this to much. But I don't see why they dropped football. From what I've seen and heard of them they were a decent program.

[Micheal]

It was one of the dumbest moves ever. 3 straight national champ wrestling...done. stupid.

[wildman]

I didn't see they got rid of wrestling to. Hopefully they bring those sports back.

[redblooded]

Money is why, football was a money pit. With wrestling I understand the outrage at cutting a successful program, but I attended UNO, I and probably 99% of Omaha didn't have a clue they even had wrestling until the switch happened (and wouldn't watch it anyways). Not to mention UNO wasn't in compliance with title IX and would've been looking at penalties.

 

The UNO athletic department was in bad shape long before Alberts came along. It's going to be better for the school long term especially since the other option would have been eventually dropping athletics.

[HuskerFanChuck]

Absolutely, redblooded. Football is one of the most expensive sports to maintain at a Division I level, even in the FCS. Put it simply, very few schools make money off of it, and most bleed serious dollars to keep it. There's a reason many don't play, period. One of the big things UNO could not afford to do going forward was have a program bleed money. For starters, you were talking about almost doubling the number of scholarships, and that was just to have a basement number that I believe FCS has, not even the limit. Football needed to go if the move to Division I was to made.

 

Whether the move to Division I needed to be made is up for debate, but considering many of the brilliant hiring moves that Alberts has made, it's tough to argue against him when it comes to the finances, especially when outside business people and an outside firm was brought in to look at the logistics and the finances of the situation. I'll give Trev the benefit of the doubt on how long athletics would have been around had the course remained the same. Even if you extend that twice as long, in ten years, you have no athletic department. Remember, the financial problems were not of Trev's making, and he was brought in to try and help fix them, and he did what he thought the program needed to do. I commend Trev for having the guts to do what he felt was necessary, even though he knew it would be unpopular. He's made up for that in spades with some great moves to attempt to create an atmosphere of excitement in the department. Specifically, the moves he has made with regard to the hockey program, and the hire he made for men's soccer have me excited for the future of Maverick athletics. The men's soccer program sounds like it's off to a fantastic start.

 

As far as wrestling, it's still tough to figure it out totally, I'll agree with that. I don't think it's stupid to want to bring yourself in line with the conference you're moving into, and something probably had to go in order to have at least five men's sports that are in the Summit League when you're moving into the Summit League. Wrestling would have needed it's own conference, and ultimately probably made the most sense of the sport to replace. Really bites to have to end a championship program. Maybe it can be resurrected at some point, but at this point, it is what it is, and you move forward.

 

I'm excited for what it will be, and ready to see what the Mavericks have in store for the future. I'm excited about having a third Division I school in the state, and more importantly, to potentially have more competition for the Husker athletic teams, to hopefully drive our teams to be better as well.

 

The toughest part is this first year, and the difficulty of scheduling teams. After this year, the Summit League schedules will ease the pain, and they'll be able to move forward into what hopefully is a bright new future.

 

My two bits, anyway.

[HuskerFanChuck]

Interesting tidbits from accompanying articles to the basketball stories:

 

Apparently, they've still trying to decide on where to play men's basketball games this year. They're having trouble with getting a lot of home games, so they're trying to decide if it would make more sense to stay on campus, at least for next year.

 

Men's and women's games used to be played back to back, but now they won't necessarily be tied like they used to.

[HuskerFanChuck]

I found quite a few things interesting throughout the series, but specifically the fact that the baseball team is having trouble drawing other teams to come in to their Boys Town site, and that the softball team will be able to compete for a conference championship in their first year because of their inclusion in the Great West as particularly interesting. It's nice to know the swimmers already have a nice quality facility to compete in.