Connor Hoffman
Managing Editor
The Fredonia Athletics Program and budget are looking to face some changes this year. Promoting the Blue Devil brand is one of the goals of Cedric Howard, the new vice president for Student Affairs.
Howard said that the Fredonia campus can have a bigger Blue Devils presence than it does right now.
“I noticed this even during my [job] interview. When you look at athletics on-campus and off-campus, there’s really not a Blue Devils Athletics presence,” said Howard. “Other than the Steele Hall or Dods [Hall], I did not see Blue Devils anywhere.”
He explained why he thinks Fredonia lacks a big Blue Devil presence.
“I think part of it that, as a school, we have to get comfortable as a school with having shirt identities,” said Howard. “Let me give you a great example of having the shirt identity. If you think of Duke University, you think of its academic excellence, but you also think of basketball.”
Howard, who has also worked at multiple universities across the country, explained how the athletic culture at some other universities differs from Fredonia’s culture.
“Well, the first difference is our athletic program is Division III and is from my perspective the purest sense of collegiate athletics, where the students are truly students first and then athletes,” said Howard. “In our situation, our students have to meet our admissions standards prior and are actually admitted into the school prior to being considered for participation in any of our 19 athletic programs.”
Greg Prechtl, the athletics director, explained the difference between a Division I school and a Division III school.
“If you’re Division I, you have to commit to a certain level of support,” said Prechtl. “Your attendance figures have to be at a certain level … It’s basically more about playing a national schedule and making a financial commitment that far exceeds the kind of commitment that the bulk of the schools in the NCAA can commit to. There are more Division III schools than there are Division I schools by far.”
There are 347 Division I schools in the U.S., according to atheleticscholarships.net, and there are 442 Division III schools, according to collegesportsscholarships.com.
Another difference between Division III schools and Division I schools is that it’s actually against NCAA rules for a Division III school to hand out athletic scholarships, according to Howard.
The Fredonia Blue Devils athletics program consists of 19 different teams: eight in men’s sports and 11 in women’s sports. Their 2015-2016 budget was 1,506,935, according to the University Budget. This was a decrease from 2014-2015 budget which was $1,708,400. The athletics budget is mostly funded by the Intercollegiate Athletic Fee that every student pays. The Intercollegiate Athletic Fee is currently $159 per semester, which is one of the lowest fees in the SUNYAC.
Prechtl explained that some of the biggest costs for Fredonia’s athletics program are travel, lodging, officials, meal money, uniforms and coaches. He also mentioned that when his department budgets, it looks at where they have to travel and makes changes depending on how much they have to travel.
He explained that the decrease in enrollment and inflation are the main reasons for the decrease to the athletics budget.
Also, he said that the teams fundraise to try to cover most of their travel costs, like when the softball team has to travel to Florida to train during the winter. For example, the swim team works at the concession stand of every Buffalo Bills home game to raise money money, and the softball team sells poinsettias at Christmas time.
Prechtl said that coaching is one of the areas he would like to see an increase in funding.
“What concerns me the most is our inability to pay assistant coaches a reasonable salary for the work we expect from them,” said Prechtl. The salary is well under 20,000 a year according to seethroughny.com.
President Virginia Horvath explained what she thinks will help increase our campus’ Blue Devil spirit.
“I think having more people realize that coming out and supporting teams is really coming out and supporting their fellow students, and I see people doing that with arts programs. If someone’s exhibiting a work of art or if someone is performing in a recital or concert people will come out just to support them, but there doesn’t seem to be that same level of support for athletes,” she said.