Old Dominion Cuts Wrestling
- Thread starter McScoreley
- Start date
Such a bummer. I looked at their roster and noticed a redshirt freshman named Billy Baldwin (father is named William). Anybody know if he is the son of the famous actor and wrestling fan?
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they have made a commitment to football a few years back. Wonder if that is impacting this move. Shame as there are some very good wrestlers in the VaBeach area. ODU isn't in the nicest of areas though.
Sophomore Killian Cardinale....ranked 15th at 125 is now a free agent. So are Perry at 141 and Early at 157. They are both listed as Seniors....don't know if either have redshirts left. But we all know Keyshawn is coming at 149 next year 
McGee was a RS last year and round 12 at 125 2 years ago will be a RS SO .Perry and Early are done.Sophomore Killian Cardinale....ranked 15th at 125 is now a free agent. So are Perry at 141 and Early at 157. They are both listed as Seniors....don't know if either have redshirts left. But we all know Keyshawn is coming at 149 next year
He's dead wrong if taken literally.
Reading the ODU release -- ODU Athletics has financial issues, otherwise why hire the consultants last year? Something was gonna give. Wrestling was vulnerable.
Want to save your program? Don't be vulnerable. If you can't be profitable, endow everything possible. (And put poison pills in the endowments: cut the program, donors get full refunds.)
""Organize & make your voice heard" does no good unless the voice speaks money.
Apparently not: In 1995, Billy Baldwin married singer Chynna Phillips of the music group Wilson Phillips and daughter of musician John Phillips by his second wife, Michelle. Together, they have three children, daughters Jameson (born in 2000) and Brooke (born in 2004) and son Vance (born in 2001).
OK, but if ODU’s program was to be saved, the effort would have to have happened some time ago. An endowment sounds like an excellent example of getting organized, if you ask me.
Just to be clear....wrestling was a financial hardship?
But ODU adds NCAA women’s Volleyball this year and a non NCAA sport, Women’s and CoEd Sailing.
The math starts with IX
But ODU adds NCAA women’s Volleyball this year and a non NCAA sport, Women’s and CoEd Sailing.
The math starts with IX
EJ....this has title IX allllll over it. Add 2.5 women’s sports this year and cut wrestling but only when a virus shows up.
I guess I could do a little more research on their M-F sport participation numbers but I admit to being lazy to prove my point.
But your point is also correct. Find your former wrestlers and get the program endowed to a point it wouldn’t be cut.
Agreed entirely.
That said, the virus was an excuse. They hired the consultants well before Wuhan had its first cases. They knew they were going to cut some men's sport, and used the consultants either to decide which sport or as cover.
Somebody smarter than me said college priorities will be, in order: football, basketball, women's sports, then all other men's sports. Women's wrestling can't come fast enough. It's not a cure-all, but makes men's programs less vulnerable.
I'd like to think the coaches would smarten up about financial outreach ... but we keep saying that, and programs keep getting cut.
Thankfully Rich Lorenzo had that vision 3 decades ago ...
Every school could use a David Lehman.
https://www.fandm.edu/news/latest-n...wrestling-for-generations-of-student-athletes
https://www.fandm.edu/news/latest-n...wrestling-for-generations-of-student-athletes
Bucknell and Princeton also had David Lehman type benefactors. So did Brown, but it did not prevent cutting the program.
Where is John Beresford Tipton? Wrestling needs you.
We are fortunate at Penn State, very few schools have the resources we do. The support for Athletics is in another stratosphere compared to most. As far as Old Dominion, this news saddens me. As Athletic Departments around the country sort through the mess that is Covid-19 caused, there will be more teams, not just wrestling, that will be cut, I'm afraid. Hope I am wrong.
Except Roar, that Covid is the scapegoat. This was planned before it.
Just imagine what college sports will look like if there is no college football this fall. If that happens, athletic departments will be the least of the worries, college towns will be decimated economically.
McAfee would be a nice add, very good chain wrestler and hopefully could stay a 125 . Could red shirt Howard this year and go from there in mcGee senior yr.
I hope JB rakes this dude over the coals, should he get an interview. I get fired up, reading his timeline.
Notre Dame (the big ND, not the Ohio one) wrestling was endowed by some oil millionaire (or billionaire), whose son, a Fighting Irish team member, had been killed in an auto accident.
After the rich old man died in the early 1990s, some ND officials smooth-talked his widow into changing the endowment so they could cut wrestling and use the money for some lesser, weaker sport (as if any sport can compare to wrestling).
Pretty classy stuff, eh?
I live across the water from Norfolk where ODU is. This is 100% about football expansion to conference USA ( I think) a little while back. Geographically, conference was hard in the $$ and product continued to decrease in quality. Last season stands were like a quarter full. Greed and hubris not corona made this decision. You can rest sssured, had they remained in lower level where rivalries were ( jmu, w and m, vmi for example) stadium would be full regardless of teams record. Seen by many as risky at the time they made the move. Then did major renovation of stadium between 18-19 . 60 million or so.
Born and raised in Hampton Roads ... grew up on The Peninsula, graduated from ODU. Usually my first through when I hear “across the river” is the Peninsula. My commute from ODU to Newport News when I worked at the Daily Press was through Portsmouth and I announced numerous regionals at Churchland.
Small world. I think they screwed the pooch trying to go big. And did it too fast perhaps.
All this Peninsula trivia is all well and good JB (@JasonBryant), but how often did you go to Pierce’s BBQ a little to the West?
I ask because there is no place on earth that makes better Hush Puppies
I went to Poquoson High School, so Bruton High was in the Bay Rivers District and with the number of sports I was involved with, I hit Pierce's EVERY single time we had a road match/game/whatever up at Bruton. Often times, if we couldn't go (or I didn't have my vehicle), we'd have a parent go get a load of it for us.
It was like drawing the long straw when I had to cover a Bruton game for the Daily Press back in the day.
I miss Pierce's
Yup. Loved the parking area and along the access road. You’d get student cars, farm trucks, deuce and a half trucks from the military bases, state trooper cars, etc. They truly served a melting pot of people
Woof.
Holly Hutchinson, Larry Early named ODU athletes of the year
https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/...thfbojfhe5wdncluh2i-story.html?outputType=amp
Holly Hutchinson, Larry Early named ODU athletes of the year
https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/...thfbojfhe5wdncluh2i-story.html?outputType=amp
