Grambling Football Crisis

[Drip]

This would never happen under the late Eddie Robinson.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/swac/2013/10/16/grambling-football-boycott-practice/2997601/

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Mapquest has it as a 12 1/2 hour bus ride from Grambling to Indy. And the players aren't getting their road trip meals and a walk-on was dumped after he complained.

Yeah, I don't blame the players for being upset.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Sounds like a massive fustercluck. The downfall of HBCU football is an unfortunate byproduct of the vast good of integration.

 

[Football_Bat]

What Grambling needed was this:

I joke, but I once covered a HBCU that was at one time this bad, and the new coach rebuilt the program by recruiting both white and black kids. He was pretty successful until they caught him stealing Pell Grant money.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Interim head coach is out:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9840886/grambling-state-fires-interim-coach-george-ragsdale-replaces-dennis-winston

 

[Batman]

Players boycotted practice again today, and the interim coach has been fired.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20131017/NEWS01/131017013/Interim-coach-Ragsdale-hurt-by-GSU-decision?nclick_check=1

Obviously a charged, sensitive situation that Grambling's administration seems to be handling well:

The information came after a planned 3 p.m. meeting in which players were to discuss whether they were going to play Saturday's game against Jackson State.
Shortly after the planned time of the meeting, reporters on the scene were told to leave the premises and that GSU coaches and players were off-limits.

Then when Ragsdale was fired, Grambling police barricaded off the football complex.

 

[Batman]

Had another thought on this this afternoon: Combined with the push to pay players, is it possible this turns into something much, much bigger?
These players are basically on strike over poor working conditions. If someone is smart enough to turn this into a big picture issue, glomming onto the fact that more schools' athletic programs are closer to this than they are the big BCS schools, I wonder if a relatively isolated incident could become the first shot of a revolution.

 

[Stoney]

Grambling went 0-28 in basketball this past season, has gone 1-17 in football since the beginning of last season, their players are in full scale mutiny mode, and they're now on their third head coach this season.

Hands down winner of this year's Worst Overall Athletic Department prize.

 

[Batman]

Grambling went 0-28 in basketball this past season, has gone 1-17 in football since the beginning of last season, their players are in full scale mutiny mode, and they're now on their third head coach this season.

Hands down winner of this year's Worst Overall Athletic Department prize.

Considering there's a half-dozen candidates in their own conference alone, that's quite an accomplishment.

 

[Boom_70]

Players boycotted practice again today, and the interim coach has been fired.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20131017/NEWS01/131017013/Interim-coach-Ragsdale-hurt-by-GSU-decision?nclick_check=1

Obviously a charged, sensitive situation that Grambling's administration seems to be handling well:

The information came after a planned 3 p.m. meeting in which players were to discuss whether they were going to play Saturday's game against Jackson State.
Shortly after the planned time of the meeting, reporters on the scene were told to leave the premises and that GSU coaches and players were off-limits.

Then when Ragsdale was fired, Grambling police barricaded off the football complex.

Wasn't Ragsdale the HC at Huxley College before heading to Grambling.

 

[93Devil]

Dirt Winston is now the coach? Was Sidney Thornton busy?

 

[Boom_70]

Is it possible that the HBCU education model has passed it's time.

 

[Batman]

Is it possible that the HBCU education model has passed it's time.

I think there's still a place for them, but it's definitely changing. Some of the more forward-thinking HBCUs are trying to reinvent themselves as second-tier, affordable state colleges. Alcorn State, for example, has two or three branch campuses scattered around Mississippi. There's also a push to recruit white students to some HBCUs by using minority scholarships -- in Mississippi, at least, white students are eligible for them at HBCUs since they're the minority of the student population; it's a useful tool for baseball coaches trying to save a scholarship.
Other HBCUs in rural areas or inner cities can serve as educational hubs for areas where minorities are the majority of the population.
By trying to fit those corners of the market, HBCUs will still primarily market themselves toward minorities and still have a place on the landscape.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Had another thought on this this afternoon: Combined with the push to pay players, is it possible this turns into something much, much bigger?
These players are basically on strike over poor working conditions. If someone is smart enough to turn this into a big picture issue, glomming onto the fact that more schools' athletic programs are closer to this than they are the big BCS schools, I wonder if a relatively isolated incident could become the first shot of a revolution.

I'm thinking because it's a smaller school like Grambling, which, instead of one of the big boys, it's more of an extra stick on the fire that's been going on the last couple of years (O'Bannon, video games, Johnny Football) rather than turning into a huge explosion in itself.

If something like this were to happen at a BCS school, all hell would break loose.

 

[Batman]

Had another thought on this this afternoon: Combined with the push to pay players, is it possible this turns into something much, much bigger?
These players are basically on strike over poor working conditions. If someone is smart enough to turn this into a big picture issue, glomming onto the fact that more schools' athletic programs are closer to this than they are the big BCS schools, I wonder if a relatively isolated incident could become the first shot of a revolution.

I'm thinking because it's a smaller school like Grambling, which, instead of one of the big boys, it's more of an extra stick on the fire that's been going on the last couple of years (O'Bannon, video games, Johnny Football) rather than turning into a huge explosion in itself.

If something like this were to happen at a BCS school, all hell would break loose.

Oh, I absolutely agree. If this had happened even at a MAC or Sun Belt school, it'd be leading Sports Center. At the lowest of low-level FCS programs, even one as historically significant as Grambling, it barely rates an item on the crawl.
I'm just wondering if one of the pay-the-athletes crusaders will take up the cause.

 

[Armchair_QB]

I think this says more about the Clown College administration at Grambling than it does about how colleges at large treat their players.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I think this says more about the Clown College administration at Grambling than it does about how colleges at large treat their players.

Well, that too.

It's also illustrative on how times have changed in the past few decades, both culturally and in college football. In Robinson's time, or at least the first half of his career, the players would have been happy to ride a bus 15 hours because it would have meant that they wouldn't have to drive multiple cars to get to their game, and it meant that they actually had someone willing to play them.

Today, especially with how big-time college sports have gone and the change in racial culture, athletes have different expectations. They no longer have to fear teams refusing to play them, and they see other teams traveling in style and question why their team is stuck in the past.

 

[JayFarrar]

HBCUs are the worst to cover. Just the worst.

And when I was skimming the page, I read the thread title as Gambling football crisis and I thought the line had another typo in it.

 

[Drip]

Is it possible that the HBCU education model has passed it's time.

I think there's still a place for them, but it's definitely changing. Some of the more forward-thinking HBCUs are trying to reinvent themselves as second-tier, affordable state colleges. Alcorn State, for example, has two or three branch campuses scattered around Mississippi. There's also a push to recruit white students to some HBCUs by using minority scholarships -- in Mississippi, at least, white students are eligible for them at HBCUs since they're the minority of the student population; it's a useful tool for baseball coaches trying to save a scholarship.
Other HBCUs in rural areas or inner cities can serve as educational hubs for areas where minorities are the majority of the population.
By trying to fit those corners of the market, HBCUs will still primarily market themselves toward minorities and still have a place on the landscape.

There is a need for them. White institutions began raiding these colleges back in the 60's for talent both academically and athletically. Funding for these schools has also dwindled and definitely not on par with what majority white institutions receive from state and national coffers. What has happened to Grambling and other HBCUs is disheartening.
I may be stereotyping here a bit but white kids attend HBCUs and there is very little in the way of racial problems. Ask any black kid who goes to a predominately white institution if he can say the same thing.

 

[Boom_70]

Is it possible that the HBCU education model has passed it's time.

I think there's still a place for them, but it's definitely changing. Some of the more forward-thinking HBCUs are trying to reinvent themselves as second-tier, affordable state colleges. Alcorn State, for example, has two or three branch campuses scattered around Mississippi. There's also a push to recruit white students to some HBCUs by using minority scholarships -- in Mississippi, at least, white students are eligible for them at HBCUs since they're the minority of the student population; it's a useful tool for baseball coaches trying to save a scholarship.
Other HBCUs in rural areas or inner cities can serve as educational hubs for areas where minorities are the majority of the population.
By trying to fit those corners of the market, HBCUs will still primarily market themselves toward minorities and still have a place on the landscape.

There is a need for them. White institutions began raiding these colleges back in the 60's for talent both academically and athletically. Funding for these schools has also dwindled and definitely not on par with what majority white institutions receive from state and national coffers. What has happened to Grambling and other HBCUs is disheartening.
I may be stereotyping here a bit but white kids attend HBCUs and there is very little in the way of racial problems. Ask any black kid who goes to a predominately white institution if he can say the same thing.

The HBCU's have also lost out on all the tv money now going to even 2nd tier D1 programs
which has enabled them to cast a wider net for athletes around the country. Besides money
it's exposure. In past I doubt as many would have even considered schools like Boise
or Fresno State but now they are on tv almost every week.