Brady Hoke needs to produce within three years

Brady Hoke is the first tough-talking football coach at San Diego State since Al Luginbill in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.

On the field, Hoke will need to have tougher teams than Luginbill.

Despite having Marshall Faulk and Darnay Scott in back-to-back seasons, Luginbill’s teams only finished .500 both of those years.

Hoke needs to get the Aztecs to .500 or better within three years, or the football team may fold when SDSU selects its next president after Stephen Weber retires in 2 ½ years. (Weber has made it clear the team will continue to exist on his watch.)

It took Hoke five years into his six-year tenure at Ball State to turn that team around.

He had four straight losing records before finally finishing above .500. Then this year’s team was a remarkable 12-1.

However, starting with four (or even three) consecutive losing seasons at SDSU could mean the end of Aztec football.

Under Weber’s watch, the athletics program keeps begging and borrowing from other campus entities, boosters, etc. to keep going. In a down economy, this can’t go on forever.

Brady Hoke basically has three years to get things going. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if Weber’s successor will be charged with the task of pulling the plug on Aztec football.

San Diego State needs to drop football

San Diego State has said good bye to football coach Chuck Long.
Now SDSU needs to say "good riddance" to its football program.
In short, the program is a joke. The Aztecs have suffered 10 straight non-winning seasons while recording a .333 "winning" percentage.
SDSU is among three of 23 California State University (CSU) schools still playing major college football.
Of the other two, Fresno State is successful and San Jose State at least keeps its head above water.
In tough financial times, SDSU President Stephen Weber keeps handing millions of "discretional" dollars to athletics.
Forget about overcrowded classrooms. Forget about the library.
Good money keeps being thrown at a horrible football team.
University sources say all departments are being told to tighten their financial belts during a bad economy.
Student fees will even be raised (again) to cover the athletics budget. (This, during a time when the CSU will admit 10,000 fewer students next school year.)
SDSU would have to leave the Mountain West Conference if it drops football.
So what. There is still the Big West, a competitive basketball conference which would save on the travel budget.
And at a time when the economy is at its worst, the worst thing for SDSU to do is keep alive a football program that is a terrible drain on the university budget.

La Mesa man celebrates 100th birthday at SDSU

Let's put sports aside for one day and focus on a once-in-a-lifetime event going on at San Diego State University’s College of Extended Studies this afternoon.

William “Uncle Bill” Gilmore will celebrate his 100th birthday while joined by fellow classmates at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute through SDSU’s College of Extended Studies.

SDSU President Stephen L. Weber and Provost Nancy A. Marlin will make a special presentation to Gilmore during the celebration. Among other things, Uncle Bill will receive a certificate from President George Bush.

Gilmore still drives from his La Mesa condo to the SDSU Extended Studies Center, where he has taken more than 30 classes through the Osher Institute; a unique place offering adults 50 and better a chance to return to campus and study a fascinating array of topics from political science to art history, literature to astronomy.

Although once intimidated by compositional writing, Gilmore now takes joy in exploring the topic while writing his memoirs. He attributes his pursuit to Patricia Geist-Martin, professor in SDSU School of Communication and Osher Institute faculty, who persuaded him at age 99 not to drop her Osher “Of Lives and Words” course and continue on his memoirs.

He intends to always follow the advice he offers others: “Life is for the living – get busy, and be happy.”

That’s great advice from a great man!

SDSU athletics: A no win situation?

As spring football practice concludes this weekend at San Diego State, the old football vs. academics debate has resurfaced.

Specifically, the academics are wondering why SDSU President Stephen Weber gives so much discretionary funding to football as cutbacks in the classroom continue.

Here were some of the arguments in last Sunday’s San Diego Union-Tribune:

Former SDSU football player and long-time actor Fred Dryer: “The benefits of a successful football program are overwhelming. Such a program breeds pride and participation from the community, students and alumni.”

English Professor Peter C. Herman: “SDSU is subsidizing 42 percent of the athletics budget, about double the average for the NCAA's top-tier programs. Every academic department at SDSU must meet its budget, or face consequences. Why not football?”

Let’s take a look at the success rate of academics vs. athletics:

Academics –
For two years in a row, SDSU has been ranked the No. 1 most productive research university, among schools with 14 or fewer Ph.D. programs.
SDSU ranks No. 2 among universities of its type nationwide and No. 1 in California, for students studying abroad as part of their college experience.
Since 2000, SDSU faculty and staff have attracted more than $1 billion in grants and contracts for research and program administration.

Athletics –
The Aztecs have not had a winning football season since 1998.
The men’s basketball team has never won an NCAA Tournament Division I playoff game.
SDSU has not made the NCAA Tournament field since 1991
The alumni center now under construction will be two stories high, or half the size of the original plan; reportedly due to lack of funding.

What’s more important at SDSU; academics or athletics? You make the call.

Aztecs can't draw flies (or fans)

A local radio station recently went out to a restaurant/bar in Little Italy with 200 tickets to give away to a San Diego State football game.

It came back with 200 tickets.

Another radio station has a program where it gives listeners “points” in an Internet contest for such things as typing in the Word of the Day.

A $25 gift certificate to Jack in the Box or McDonald’s normally goes for 40,000-50,000 points. Four SDSU football tickets can usually be had for less than 1,000 points.

Does anybody care about SDSU football?

Apparently not, according to the radio station promotions and the number of empty seats at an Aztec home football game.

Athletic director Jeff Schemmel would have you believe that his department – and especially the football program – is able to carry its own financial weight.

If that’s so, then why does President Stephen Weber keep borrowing from a “one-time fund” to give millions to the athletic department?

The Aztecs conclude their season Saturday at home against No. 19 Brigham Young. Unless there are thousands of Mormons in the stands supporting BYU, expect another virtually empty stadium.

This week’s predictions:

BYU 38, Aztecs 20

Chargers 20, Kansas City 17