UNO Athletics Crisis

I was kind of disappointed that I didn't have the opportunity to cover the whole "Student Government vote" that is currently all the talk here at UNO (among those of us who stay on campus after class long enough to actually hold a conversation with someone).

For those who don't know, UNO has had some major financial problems over the past few months, to say the least.

Rumors of potential and upcoming budget cuts have been included in The Driftwood nearly every week we have come out with an issue this year.

The newest budget cut alert has resulted in Student Government voting 20-0 on a referendum to allow students to vote on whether or not they are willing to raise their student fees from $8. 33 per credit hour to $16.33 per credit hour.

This would essentially be UNO's message to the Athletic Department saying "we aren't going to pay for this nonsense anymore."

To be honest, I can't blame them either.

I mean I have only been covering sports here at UNO for seven months, so I'm not going to act like I know everything about UNO sports, but once I attended my first women's basketball game I realized very few people can claim they know alot about sports here at UNO.

They had more empty seats in the "new-and-improved" Lakefront Arena than I could have even imagined.

I honestly think the attendance at all the women's games this year might have never went above double-digits.

Then at one game, as I picked my head up off of my binder and noticed the puddle of drool I had accumulated on my notes as a result of my body saying "I can't take it anymore" and passing out during a game and said I would see if it were any different at the men's games.

So I went to "Senior Night" for the men's team and halfway through the first half I felt my body saying, "Stop it, I can't take it anymore!"

So as I made my way back home I wondered 1) How much money I can make if I revealed to all the insomniacs in New Orleans the place where they could sleep like a baby and 2)How is this a Division 1 school?

While I enjoy being able to say I cover a Division 1 sports program and how it allows me to rub elbows with some of the most talented people in the journalistic world as well as college athletics, UNO needs to realize it is not a Division 1 program, at least not right now.

Obviously, whenever somebody says something like that about UNO the first thought that comes to mind is, "They don't have a football team."

While this is true, there are many Division 1 teams that don't have football teams but UNO is in an even smaller minority when it comes to sports.

The minimum number of sports a D-1 school can have if they don't have football is 16. UNO currently has eight, but have a waiver from the NCAA which allows us to remain D-1 citing Hurricane Katrina's impact on the athletic department.

So basically, we have half the number of sports we are supposed to have to be D-1,and we can't even afford those eight!

While we hate to admit it, UNO is not a D-1 school and probably won't be one for a lon time, if ever.

I'm not saying we need to get rid of sports like some people around campus are saying, but we need to come to reality.

Our baseball team won the Sun Belt Conference two years ago and the largest crowd that has attended a baseball game this year was because 80% of that crowd came to support the other team (LSU's 19-8 smackdown that was put on UNO earlier this year).

My fellow Driftwood writer Michael Arvites wrote in this week's issue how we need to fight for our athletic program and not just give up on it.

Sometimes you just have to realize when it's time to throw in the towel.