UT Sports Investment [Scipio Tex]

Discussion in 'On The Field' started by Godz40acres, Apr 6, 2021.

  1. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    The Investment by Scipio Tex
    Apr 5, 2021

    Right now, the University of Texas is funding, staffing, and resourcing its revenue sports in a coherent, considered, and rational way. It’s long overdue. It’s an attempt to shape and define the market rather than just react to it. An attitude we’ll be very pleased to have cultivated when conference realignment comes along.

    Look at the resources that have been made available to football and basketball, despite the cash crunch of COVID-19 and donors irritated with a decade of wasted money on non-performers.

    By pursuing this strategy, Texas has the best chance to maximize profits and then strengthen the entire sports portfolio.

    To put it bluntly, Texas can cut checks for excellence in the non-revenue sports, where money whipping the best available proven coach is already proving out. See women’s basketball, softball. That can only happen and be sustained with thriving men’s football and basketball. If baseball can get itself to revenue neutral (or even make a slight profit), all the better.

    The reciprocal effect is that the overall Longhorn brand is bolstered....And I’ll start seeing random teenagers in Newark and Los Angeles sporting Texas gear again.

    More than the head coach’s salary, which grabs the headlines, Texas is investing in total infrastructure. Both personnel and material. Facilities, support staff, developmental staff, analysts, and assistants. Typically, Texas has done a good job of supporting one arm, while neglecting the other. Our right arm looks like prime Arnold, the other is a withered T-Rex. When facilities are being upgraded, staff is neglected. When staff gets a rise, facilities degrade.

    What can Texas achieve when both align? We’re about to find out.

    Stadium expansion, new locker rooms, weight room, a bubble revamp. A new basketball arena. The basketball practice facility is already outstanding. And then there’s personnel….

    While Texas has not been shy in paying a star coordinator (Will Muschamp, Todd Orlando LOL), a broad commitment to support staff has not been there. Some of that is a function of the broader Athletic Department or administration being incapable of differentiating revenue producing investments from nonsense, but a good deal of that has to do with head coaches not getting it and pushing for reasons of ignorance, ego, or a lack of vision and understanding of process. Each of these descriptives apply in part to Charlie Strong, Tom Herman, and Shaka Smart.

    Under Steve Sarkisian, we have a TE coach making $1 million per year. ....[T]hat salary at that position would have been an impossible sell just two years ago, much less ten. ....Want Pete Kwiatkowski? OK. Done. What else? Analysts? Let’s wait for college and NFL firing season to finish and we’ll build out the roster. More recruiting support staff? Done.

    Chris Beard is building out a staff of outstanding bench coaches and recruiters, but cleverly supplementing them with pure developmental coaches who will do nothing but work with players on their games and scout out international prospects. Acquire talent, develop talent individually, teach talent the team game. This is the NBA model and it’s how they’re able to transform unskilled collegians into passable basketball players. What if we start that process at age 18? Maybe we can play tough and skilled basketball.

    It’s also incumbent upon the coaches and AD to enforce a vitality curve on their owns staff and with players. I don’t see complacency as a Beard problem and and I doubt it for Sark. Comfort breeds complacency and weakness. So it’s important that these resources be performance-centered – not “you’re a special snowflake” privileges. Our love comes with a price.

    So what if these investments don’t pan?

    Well, now it’s in the budget. That’s an important step in any bureaucracy. ....[Y]ou’d rather have money going to tangible things that benefit Texas athletics rather than Bellmont bloat and aimless capital projects. That revenue is getting zeroed out. This is about how we distribute it to best enable wins, titles, and crushing our enemies.

    Crucially, no Texas revenue or non-revenue sports coach can say or even intimate they failed for lack of resources. Simply point to the budget for personnel and walk through the new facilities. Failure is not an us problem. It will be a you problem. Every prospective hire knows who didn’t carry their end of the bargain. Then you feed the next one into the machine and hope they can get to home starting from 3rd base.

    Texas with momentum is a fearsome thing to behold. A boulder on greased ball bearings. Right now, we just need our revenue sports to shake off the inertia and let physics do the rest.

    [Read the full article HERE]
     
    • Like Like x 2
    • Winner Winner x 2
  2. beijinghorn1

    beijinghorn1 500+ Posts

    This sounds great. I was surprised when TH arrived and he complained about our out dated facilities. Then we heard how we will “catch up” to or pass Tech’s basketball facilities next year. Hard to understand how we seem to be consistently behind many schools in facilities.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  3. ViperHorn

    ViperHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Resting when you get to the top. To stay on top in any endeavor one has to constantly update and upgrade.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Like Like x 1
  4. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    I haven't seen the books, but in our case, I would think womens basketball is a $ winner, or at least it has been in the past.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • Funny Funny x 1
  5. Horn6721

    Horn6721 10,000+ Posts

    Winning jump started a lot of the branding.
     
  6. nashhorn

    nashhorn 5,000+ Posts

    I still think the damaging impact of ‘pay for play’ is going to overwhelm the sport and isn’t being considered because we have no idea the end result.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
    • Hot Hot x 1
  7. WorsterMan

    WorsterMan SEC here we come!!

    Brilliantly written. Scorpio TX is allsome.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  8. Vol Horn 4 Life

    Vol Horn 4 Life Good Bye To All The Rest!

    I still wish he would come back around here sometimes. His stuff was always good.
     
    • Agree Agree x 5
  9. 2003TexasGrad

    2003TexasGrad Son of a Motherless Goat

    Him and HP Slugga.
     
    • Agree Agree x 5
  10. moondog_LFZ

    moondog_LFZ 5,000+ Posts

    And Joe Fan
     
    • Winner Winner x 4
    • Agree Agree x 3
  11. WorsterMan

    WorsterMan SEC here we come!!

    Yes, he posted on HF often in the olden days....
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  12. Sangre Naranjada

    Sangre Naranjada 10,000+ Posts

    He gets paid for his musings these days. He figured out how to monetize his posts, so he won't be back. I still enjoy his sense of humor.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  13. Vol Horn 4 Life

    Vol Horn 4 Life Good Bye To All The Rest!

    When he was on here I would read his name as "sipio" with a silent c, but he came on the local radio and they introduced him as "skipio". Learned something new.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • WTF? WTF? x 1
  14. Sangre Naranjada

    Sangre Naranjada 10,000+ Posts

    I always thought of C3PO, but I'm a nerd like that.
     
    • Funny Funny x 1
  15. X Misn Tx

    X Misn Tx 2,500+ Posts

    The heck you say!
     
  16. Vol Horn 4 Life

    Vol Horn 4 Life Good Bye To All The Rest!

    I wouldn't dare kid a kidder. :smile1:
     
  17. Desperado

    Desperado 1,000+ Posts

    A binder is infrastructure.
     
    • Funny Funny x 1

Share This Page