Father Ryan

[BDURHAM]

What does everyone think about this article?

 

Interesting comments from Kurt Page.

 

Irish Eyes Are Not Smiling -- Tennessean Article

[cbg]

IMO, it states what most everyone already knew. Father Ryan is giving financial aid the same way that they were before the D1 & D2 split. If you take the figures that were in the Tennessean you can do a little mathmatics and figure out that it looks like this:

 

Father Ryan Boys: 465

Financial Aid to male students: $88,500.00

 

Father Ryan has 3 choices:

1. Continue down the same path that they are on and not be able to compete in D2.

2. Do what Kurt Page said and go back to D1

3. Decide to give more financial aid to athletes so that they can compete.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

[itzme]

Interesting article, but misses the point to a degree, I think. The decline of the program has much more to do with Ryan's inability to keep the parochial middle school feeders loyal, and less to do with the methods of financial aid.

 

BTW, I don't know about MBA's policy, but contrary to Coach Lussier's statement, nobody (that's zero, nada, zilch) at BA receives 100% financial aid.

[rollredroll]

My opinion?

 

Lussier is showing signs of FIM (Foot in Mouth) Disease. He needs to either avoid talking to the media or file libel suits against the press, because the quotes that get attributed to him in the press are making him look rather bad (today and before). While it may be true, to some extent, that “[l]eaving Oak Ridge to come to Father Ryan is not a job someone looking for greener pastures would take”, you certainly don’t want your employer to know you feel that way, whether you believe it or not.

 

I also take exception to this quote:

 

“Whether we can compete with the Brentwood Academies and MBAs, who offer 100 percent tuition, I don’t know,” Lussier said. “I don’t have a (JPII receiver) Golden Tate. I don’t have a (Brentwood Academy tailback) Tyree Ford. I don’t have a (MBA tailback) Andy Snyder. They’ve got some athletes that make a difference.”

 

I’m sure the Lussier Fan Club is unfailingly going to come to his defense, saying he was quoted out of context, but to talk about 100% tuition and this particular MBA player (PJPII and BA can defend their own players) in the same breath is a travesty (and if I were Brad Gioia or Jeff Rutledge, I’d get Lussier on the phone and get him to clarify his statement). First off, based on publicly available records (check ‘em out some time, Bruce), the average family on aid at MBA (and only about 15-20% families at MBA are on aid) is still paying, out of its own pockets, over 50% of the roughly $15K tuition to attend MBA (that’s more than the Catholics are paying to attend FRHS). Secondly, while I don’t think we should get too personal about individual players on this site, let’s just put it this way – there is enough public information on MBA’s website to determine (with rather simple internet investigative skills) where the MBA player in question lives (hint: it’s in MBA’s zip code, and less than three miles from campus) and the value of the real estate of said player’s family to make a reasonable conjecture as to the financial aid status of said player. Lussier would have an uphill battle after doing this exercise and would need a double dose of Listerine to get the taste of Nike out of his mouth. Quite frankly, I think he owes MBA and the family an apology (not to mention the other two players/schools) for having a quote like that, which can be easily misconstrued as some sort of “recruiting” allegation, attributed to him in the paper, and if he didn’t say it, he needs to take the paper to task. I’m not holding my breath.

 

I think I’ll start calling him Bruce Loosecannon.

Edited September 23, 2005 by rollredroll

[cbg]

rollred,

 

I am not trying to defend Bruce (I don't know him) but from the way that I read the article, Bruce was not trying to say that any one player from another school was on financial aid. IMO he was saying that he did't have a player as good as Snyder, Ford, or Tate but if he was given the same amount of financial aid he would be able to go and get a few good players. Who knows what is going on? My educated guess is that the article was published to try and wake some of the Father Ryan alumni up and let them know that they have alot of work to do if they want to compete in D2 football.

[rollredroll]

rollred,

 

I am not trying to defend Bruce (I don't know him) but from the way that I read the article, Bruce was not trying to say that any one player from another school was on financial aid. IMO he was saying that he did't have a player as good as Snyder, Ford, or Tate but if he was given the same amount of financial aid he would be able to go and get a few good players. Who knows what is going on? My educated guess is that the article was published to try and wake some of the Father Ryan alumni up and let them know that they have alot of work to do if they want to compete in D2 football.

 

I understand, and I respect your opinions and wide array of knowledge probably more than anyone else's on this site, but I still find his comments, if not taken out of context, to be haphazard. When one has little or knowledge about how other schools obtain their students, whether athletes or not, caution should be used in using terms like "100% financial aid" and particular names in the same sentence.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Andy Snyder's stats versus the Irish next week.

[itzme]

Just to get a bit more specific, about 15% of BA's students receive aid. 107 to be exact. (of which 77 are in the upper school) If you take the reported figure of $274k, which sounds right, then that's $2560 per student that receives it. BA's tuition is in excess of $12k. While some receive more than others, I repeat that BA does not grant 100% financial aid to anyone, ever.

 

I will also add that anyone who makes assumptions about which students receive aid, and in what amount, is wrong and potentially hurtful.

[big red big blue]

I don't buy what either of these guys are saying. As usual in these types of discussions, people have a hard time looking inward. Ryan had no problem beating MBA and winning a district title in 1992. They won DII-AAA in 1997, when MBA and BA were a year removed from being the two best teams in the state, period. Are you telling me there were such drastic changes in the subsequent 3-4 years in all the other DII-AAA teams that Ryan all of a sudden became uncompetitive? MBA, BA, and Ryan have attracted the same types of students for years and no one all of a sudden started some sort of "athletics arms race" following the implementation of the split. I'd bet a lot of $$ that the make-up of MBA, BA, and Ryan teams by zip code, household income, religious background, etc. is exactly the same today as it was 10 and 20 years ago.

 

Rollredroll, you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, but MBA didn't change the way it administers financial aid just because of the split. They pretty much said, "this is what we do, and if that means we are now a II-AAA team, fine. We aren't changing our policies either way regarding financial aid."

 

All this also begs the question: why does this unfair nature of DII-AAA only apply to football, and not other sports, like baseball, basketball, and wrestling, where Ryan has been successful?

[tnsddeveloper]

All this also begs the question: why does this unfair nature of DII-AAA only apply to football, and not other sports, like baseball, basketball, and wrestling, where Ryan has been successful?

 

Great point about the other sports! They kind of get lost in the shuffle sometimes.

[rollredroll]

Rollredroll, you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, but MBA didn't change the way it administers financial aid just because of the split. They pretty much said, "this is what we do, and if that means we are now a II-AAA team, fine. We aren't changing our policies either way regarding financial aid."

 

I doubt anything has changed as far as process is concerned. A third party determines the amount of money for which a family is eligible.

 

The only thing I see that has changed is the amount of money available for financial aid, which is mostly the result of private school tuition increasing at a greater rate than inflation. Having a healthy Annual Fund and endowment helps make these financial aid pool increases possible.

[DS2001]

The biggest thing financially speaking that has hurt Ryan since 1997 is that Div.II created unlimited financial aid for as many students as you could dole it out to,rather than to just 4 students in football as it was pre DIV.II.

Ryan has just had a hard time raising financial aid funds just to keep up with other D-II schools.

I agree that Coach Lussier probably misspoke when he commented on the 100% scholarship for a football player. I don`t think that exists.

I do know one player at a d-II school (not Father Ryan) who`s father told me that they pay $1,100 per year to a school with a tuition rate over $10,000. Not a bad deal. His son is an excellent athlete and a good kid.

[cbg]

DS2001

 

What is Father Ryan going to do in the future? The rumor on the street is that they will go D1 during the next classification period unless all of the private schools are placed in D2. From what I hear the new headmaster and board wants to cut back on the amount of travel (play a local schedule) required of the D2 schools. They feel that the time away from school is too great and the financial resources used for travel should be used to in other areas of the athletic program. Everyone associated with D2 understands that all of the schools have been lucky that a group of students or a family has not had a fatal automobile accident returning from an athletic event at 2 or 3 in the morning.