Yosef Update

[DaphneUrquhart]

As always, I had a blast trying to help raise money for Yosef this past weekend. I only got hung up on once!

Here are some tidbits for those of you interested in knowing.
For those of you wishing to make the track disappear, take heart. There are long range plans for just that.

There are other facilities improvement goals as well including additional indoor practice space, longer softball field, longer throws area, etc. These, too, should be considered long range IMO.

There are efforts being made to raise significant funds for things other than simple Yosef benefits. Think here of separating some components of our "product". Right now, we sell parking space, tickets, and stickers. Our "product" is much broader than that. The first thing that came to my mind was additional naming rights, though I believe the efforts at raising funds are much broader than that.

No immediate changes to parking benefits are on the table, though Brian Tracy did make a comment about raising the minimum donation for a stadium lot space to $5,000 and the additional revenue that would generate. Personally, I still see parking as demand driven. When I first joined Yosef, $1,000 would get a stadium lot space. Demand has pushed that to the point that 65% of the stadium lot is $2,500+ donors. Time will tell what happens there.

Yosef folks know that there must be changes to giving platforms to make it easier to donate and purchase tickets. There is work being done to see what can be improved how. In the meantime, call Yosef for whatever donation questions you have. Please call. Call with all your questions. The more they know what we need, the better product they'll eventually come up with (I hope!).

Our athletic department continues to do more with less. We are one of very few schools nationally funding 20 sports. Until we fully fund the scholarships for our athletes, the athletic department will have to squeeze a scholarship from this travel budget or that staffing budget. Fully funding all of our scholarships means roughly $5,000,000. Last year we hit an all-time high of $3,000,000.

If you are or know a young alum, please encourage them to join Yosef at any level. While some of the high-ups would like to insist that everyone can "step up" and give more, the fact of the matter is that most of us are ordinary working class folks who love Appalachian.

I will continue to assert as long as I live that every $10 donor is crucial to the success of Yosef. If we could, somehow, get 70% of the graduates from last year to join Yosef and provide them with reasons to return to the mountain, we would develop an amazingly strong Yosef Club that could one day sustain itself. Imagine what it would look like if 70% of our living alumni made a gift of $5 each month ... $5 x 12 months x 70% of 117,000 = $4,914,000 per year. Just as no single raindrop is responsible for the flood, no single donor can consistently fund all we need as an organization.

For the love of Appalachian, please ... BE YOSEF!

Thanks.

[Saint3333]

Thank you for ALL you do for Appalachian.

I agree with everything you've said. The current leadership appears to be edging towards a similar path the last group went down. I understand the "instant" gratification of raising more this year than the last and one way to do that is to ask for more from those that already give.

What we need is a wider net to broader base of donors whose donations can grow as they grow in their careers. This approach is long-term in nature and often time people looking to build a name for themselves say this is important yet spend their efforts on the 80/20 principle (focusing 80% of their time on the top 20% of donors). I'm not saying it's the wrong approach in the short-term, but its ceiling is bad for Appalachian in the long-term.

The season ticket idea of $100 Yosef donations is a step in the right direction to build the lower level donor base. The $1,500 or $2,500 level of giving shouldn't be the largest donor level of the Yosef Club.

[Rekdiver]

I just read Saints post after I put the comments below.

Daphne. I too appreciate your efforts and have supported the Yosef Club for quite a few years at the $2,500 level. Before Yosef decides to "Tax the Rich" (ala Bernie Saunders) everything needs to be done to continue to broaden the base of donors. Continued Concerted efforts to reach more corporate donors off the mountain involving alumni chapters and centers of influence/leverage. Raise season ticket prices for non Yosef donors. I believe most larger existing donors give all they can now. Just be careful going to the same well over and over again.

[DaphneUrquhart]

I just read Saints post after I put the comments below.

Daphne. I too appreciate your efforts and have supported the Yosef Club for quite a few years at the $2,500 level. Before Yosef decides to "Tax the Rich" (ala Bernie Saunders) everything needs to be done to continue to broaden the base of donors. Continued Concerted efforts to reach more corporate donors off the mountain involving alumni chapters and centers of influence/leverage. Raise season ticket prices for non Yosef donors. I believe most larger existing donors give all they can now. Just be careful going to the same well over and over again.

Believe me when I say that I'm all about a broad base of $100 donors. I work very hard for the donations I make to the Appalachian Fund and Yosef. Our family is already doing, quite literally, all we can do. Anyone who knows me knows that I would never recommend asking those who already row the boat to row harder. It makes much more sense to put more hands to the oars.

I continue to express my concerns and advocate for cultivating young alum buy-in that can be sustained year after year after year. I cannot count the number of times I've spoken up regarding the absolute necessity for thousands of $50-$100 donors rather than a handful of $10,000 donors.

I would dearly love for those of you who know young alums to encourage them to join at any level. I'll even be glad to call, text, email, tweet them my personal thanks for joining.

[Goapps15]

Daphne,

Joined the other day as a part of the young alumni program. Such a great opportunity for people just out of college to get involved with. This is something that really needs to be sold to the young alums. Thank you for all that you do! I'm glad I could join the YC!

[DaphneUrquhart]

Daphne,

Joined the other day as a part of the young alumni program. Such a great opportunity for people just out of college to get involved with. This is something that really needs to be sold to the young alums. Thank you for all that you do! I'm glad I could join the YC!

Excellent!

I love that young alums get double points for five years following graduation. The University Drive parking is pretty sweet, too.

Welcome to Yosef!

[NewApp]

I just read Saints post after I put the comments below.

Daphne. I too appreciate your efforts and have supported the Yosef Club for quite a few years at the $2,500 level. Before Yosef decides to "Tax the Rich" (ala Bernie Saunders) everything needs to be done to continue to broaden the base of donors. Continued Concerted efforts to reach more corporate donors off the mountain involving alumni chapters and centers of influence/leverage. Raise season ticket prices for non Yosef donors. I believe most larger existing donors give all they can now. Just be careful going to the same well over and over again.

Believe me when I say that I'm all about a broad base of $100 donors. I work very hard for the donations I make to the Appalachian Fund and Yosef. Our family is already doing, quite literally, all we can do. Anyone who knows me knows that I would never recommend asking those who already row the boat to row harder. It makes much more sense to put more hands to the oars.

I continue to express my concerns and advocate for cultivating young alum buy-in that can be sustained year after year after year. I cannot count the number of times I've spoken up regarding the absolute necessity for thousands of $50-$100 donors rather than a handful of $10,000 donors.

I would dearly love for those of you who know young alums to encourage them to join at any level. I'll even be glad to call, text, email, tweet them my personal thanks for joining.

[moehler]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made. Second, couldn't agree more that we need to broaden the alumi support among recent graduates, and alumi with family income under 100,000 per year. We need to be really careful that on game day we provide a game experience that is affordable, in ticket prices, parking, food, etc. I believe there is a untapped group of alumi who would love to be more involved, and attend more games, whether football, basketball etc, but feel they really cant afford the cost of attending more than one or two games a year.

[ASUGoose]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

[AppGrad78]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

So which programs do we cut? We can lop off men's golf and men's tennis and men's cross country, and that'll get us only a fraction of the way to where we can fund all of our athletic scholarships. The reality is, we will need to ax all or some combination of wrestling, men's soccer and baseball. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I'm in favor of a well-rounded athletics program that offers a wide variety of athletic disciplines.

[erd1028]

I do not post very much but do enjoy reading all of you guys responses. I am a $1,000+ Yosef Club Member so I am a vested Alumni and I care deeply about the athletic programs but I have always thought that 20 is WAY to many. I have no problems what so ever in closing down several sports. I agree with Appgrad78 that it is nice to have a comprehensive sports program but you also have to live within your means. To me we should put the majority of our money into Football and then Basketball. As those programs continue to grow/improve, maybe we will see an increase in donations and can then revisit the thought of adding programs back.

[vegattk]

My family, unfortunately, is looking like it's dropping the two Yosef memberships we've had previous.... Affordability is a big deal to us (two teachers) and doubling the cost of where we sit and the kid prices jumping ended up being too much.

I absolutely hate it, but the economics just aren't working out. Out of the 8 people that came to the games we have six that can't do Thursday nights, four that can't do bad weather, two kids that just got expensive, and two that only made a few games last year anyway.

It's disheartening to see how the process has made it harder for young families to enjoy the games. (Including a really bad experience with a green-shirt and our baby's stroller)..

Been to every single home game since 1997... It sucks... but life happens.

[APPARJ]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

So which programs do we cut? We can lop off men's golf and men's tennis and men's cross country, and that'll get us only a fraction of the way to where we can fund all of our athletic scholarships. The reality is, we will need to ax all or some combination of wrestling, men's soccer and baseball. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I'm in favor of a well-rounded athletics program that offers a wide variety of athletic disciplines.

It's easy to measure the costs of a sports program between equipment, travel, coaching, facilities, insurance and scholarship. Between field hockey (which won't go away because of their brand new facility), men and women's golf, track and tennis, I'd bet total costs are in the 6-figures.

But what are the financial benefits of keeping those programs? This is a legitimate question. If we cut 4 programs (men and women's golf and tennis) and eliminated (for the sake of discussion) $250,000 in costs, what revenue streams would we lose? In 5 years, will having 17 programs vs. 20 have a net-negative impact financially?

It may not be preferable to drop sports but I don't see how these sports add financial value to our athletic department that is already strapped for money. But this is all just an opinion. I don't have any statistics to prove otherwise - just a gut feeling.

[AppGrad78]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

So which programs do we cut? We can lop off men's golf and men's tennis and men's cross country, and that'll get us only a fraction of the way to where we can fund all of our athletic scholarships. The reality is, we will need to ax all or some combination of wrestling, men's soccer and baseball. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I'm in favor of a well-rounded athletics program that offers a wide variety of athletic disciplines.

It's easy to measure the costs of a sports program between equipment, travel, coaching, facilities, insurance and scholarship. Between field hockey (which won't go away because of their brand new facility), men and women's golf, track and tennis, I'd bet total costs are in the 6-figures.

But what are the financial benefits of keeping those programs? This is a legitimate question. If we cut 4 programs (men and women's golf and tennis) and eliminated (for the sake of discussion) $250,000 in costs, what revenue streams would we lose? In 5 years, will having 17 programs vs. 20 have a net-negative impact financially?

It may not be preferable to drop sports but I don't see how these sports add financial value to our athletic department that is already strapped for money. But this is all just an opinion. I don't have any statistics to prove otherwise - just a gut feeling.

At most schools, only two sports are money makers: football and men's basketball. I'm guessing at App that men's basketball doesn't break even. For me, intercollegiate athletics isn't about making or losing money. Same for the music program or the after-hours astronomy program. It's about the overall "university" experience. There are some sports we could probably do without and not miss them. Trouble is, they don't impact our bottom line very much. The ones that do -- baseball, wrestling and men's soccer -- are sports that many of us would miss.

[APPARJ]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

So which programs do we cut? We can lop off men's golf and men's tennis and men's cross country, and that'll get us only a fraction of the way to where we can fund all of our athletic scholarships. The reality is, we will need to ax all or some combination of wrestling, men's soccer and baseball. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I'm in favor of a well-rounded athletics program that offers a wide variety of athletic disciplines.

It's easy to measure the costs of a sports program between equipment, travel, coaching, facilities, insurance and scholarship. Between field hockey (which won't go away because of their brand new facility), men and women's golf, track and tennis, I'd bet total costs are in the 6-figures.

But what are the financial benefits of keeping those programs? This is a legitimate question. If we cut 4 programs (men and women's golf and tennis) and eliminated (for the sake of discussion) $250,000 in costs, what revenue streams would we lose? In 5 years, will having 17 programs vs. 20 have a net-negative impact financially?

It may not be preferable to drop sports but I don't see how these sports add financial value to our athletic department that is already strapped for money. But this is all just an opinion. I don't have any statistics to prove otherwise - just a gut feeling.

At most schools, only two sports are money makers: football and men's basketball. I'm guessing at App that men's basketball doesn't break even. For me, intercollegiate athletics isn't about making or losing money. Same for the music program or the after-hours astronomy program. It's about the overall "university" experience. There are some sports we could probably do without and not miss them. Trouble is, they don't impact our bottom line very much. The ones that do -- baseball, wrestling and men's soccer -- are sports that many of us would miss.

Thanks for expanding on your opinion. Every decision in life comes with a tradeoff. I think the problem is that if you really looked at the individuals that benefit from either playing, watching or following the sports we're talking about, it would be an incredibly low percentage. So the decision is how much is App willing to spend to keep the small percentage of people that care about wrestling, golf and tennis happy? The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the worst thing about eliminating those sports would be the initial bad press once it would be announced. Past that, I'd be surprised if anything negative would happen. Maybe there's a bigger percentage of people out there that wouldn't give to the Yosef Club if those sports were removed. That would certainly factor into whether or not a sport should be saved. But, again, my gut tells me it wouldn't make a negative impact but I simply don't know.

[eggers76]

At one time, didn't wrestling support themselves (or come close) from the proceeds of former coach Mance's summer camps? Appgrad78 asks an important question because the sports he mentions would be most likely to get cut, just based on the cost of scholarships involved.

[JTApps1]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

So which programs do we cut? We can lop off men's golf and men's tennis and men's cross country, and that'll get us only a fraction of the way to where we can fund all of our athletic scholarships. The reality is, we will need to ax all or some combination of wrestling, men's soccer and baseball. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I'm in favor of a well-rounded athletics program that offers a wide variety of athletic disciplines.

It's easy to measure the costs of a sports program between equipment, travel, coaching, facilities, insurance and scholarship. Between field hockey (which won't go away because of their brand new facility), men and women's golf, track and tennis, I'd bet total costs are in the 6-figures.

But what are the financial benefits of keeping those programs? This is a legitimate question. If we cut 4 programs (men and women's golf and tennis) and eliminated (for the sake of discussion) $250,000 in costs, what revenue streams would we lose? In 5 years, will having 17 programs vs. 20 have a net-negative impact financially?

It may not be preferable to drop sports but I don't see how these sports add financial value to our athletic department that is already strapped for money. But this is all just an opinion. I don't have any statistics to prove otherwise - just a gut feeling.

As much as I like baseball I wouldn't be surprised to see it dropped at some point. The travel costs have to be extremely expensive with the number of players, length of hotel stays, and number of road games they have. Add in a very tough conference slate which will make it hard to stay competitive on a consistent basis.

We know there is a push to increase the size of the indoor facility and build a new softball stadium. Converting the baseball stadium to softball would be a simple solution.

I'm not advocating this, but the financial impact would be larger than any other potential sport to drop.

[HighlandsApp]

first Daphne, thank you so much for the update, and all the hard work you, and others do for the Yosef club, it is much appreciated. Now, a couple things stand out after reading your post, first, funding 20 programs for a mid major school, in this economy where revenues have hit a ceiling, but expenses keep going up, is too much. I appreciate our University trying to keep all these programs going, but, we are stretched too thin, I believe the time has come, to take a hard look at the total number and make the tough decision to cut 2 or 3 programs. Doesn't have to be done immediately, but within the next 3-5 years, if nothing changes for us financially, ie: dramatic revenue increases, then tough decisions need to be made.

This. For a G5 football school 20 teams is asking a lot to support. I'd be in favor of cutting multiple teams to get into the 17 total teams range going forward.

So which programs do we cut? We can lop off men's golf and men's tennis and men's cross country, and that'll get us only a fraction of the way to where we can fund all of our athletic scholarships. The reality is, we will need to ax all or some combination of wrestling, men's soccer and baseball. Personally, I think that's a mistake. I'm in favor of a well-rounded athletics program that offers a wide variety of athletic disciplines.

It's easy to measure the costs of a sports program between equipment, travel, coaching, facilities, insurance and scholarship. Between field hockey (which won't go away because of their brand new facility), men and women's golf, track and tennis, I'd bet total costs are in the 6-figures.


Very doubtful that any women's sports will ever be dropped other than possibly women's tennis, but wrestling, Mens soccer, mens tennis are not played at most P5 Schools.
But what are the financial benefits of keeping those programs? This is a legitimate question. If we cut 4 programs (men and women's golf and tennis) and eliminated (for the sake of discussion) $250,000 in costs, what revenue streams would we lose? In 5 years, will having 17 programs vs. 20 have a net-negative impact financially?

It may not be preferable to drop sports but I don't see how these sports add financial value to our athletic department that is already strapped for money. But this is all just an opinion. I don't have any statistics to prove otherwise - just a gut feeling.

[AppDawg]

As much as I like baseball I wouldn't be surprised to see it dropped at some point. The travel costs have to be extremely expensive with the number of players, length of hotel stays, and number of road games they have. Add in a very tough conference slate which will make it hard to stay competitive on a consistent basis.

We know there is a push to increase the size of the indoor facility and build a new softball stadium. Converting the baseball stadium to softball would be a simple solution.

I'm not advocating this, but the financial impact would be larger than any other potential sport to drop.

BJ certainly has ran the program into the ground.

That said, I think out of all of our sports Baseball has the biggest upside. With the growth of college baseball and the visibility it now receives nationally, this is the one sport that transcends the P5 / mid-major designations. We are in a competitive conference that will propel us into the national conversation. LaLa recently ranked #1 in nation does nothing but help us. Pollard proved it can happen and provided a blue print for success at App. That plan just needs to be rekindled. The way I see it, baseball can be our 2nd revenue sport if we put the right pieces in place and fully support the program as such.

[moehler]

after reading your guys responses to whether we should, or shouldn't drop any programs, I still stand, though not with a great deal of confidence, we should consider dropping some programs. But, one thing I am sure of, that on the surface, it appears cutting programs is an easy solution, but in reality its anything but simple. A lot of questions must be answered before anything can be done. I hope whatever the school chooses to do, they take their time, weigh the financial gains vs the altering peoples lives with their decisions, and plan for every possible outcome of their decision both positive and negative. Bottom line is, take your time, and whatever decision you make, you stand behind your convections that this is the right decision for the school, no matter how unpopular it might be.