Collins says players have 'chip on their shoulder'

Northeast Stinger

Helluva Engineer
Messages
10,829
i don’t know enough about that to say whether that is true or not but it makes a lot of sense and i will take your word for it.

either way, we have to also recognize we fail to consistently fill up a stadium that’s a little more than half of the attendance of our biggest in state rival. even though i’ve personally done my best to make up for that by buying enough beer to kill an elephant at the games we can’t really close that gap and that’s just attendance, not even counting the merch sales and other revenue uga is able to generate just by having the fanbase they do. there is no amount of money being withheld by the powers that can ever make up for that lack of a real fanbase
If you killing elephants will help the program, thank you for your service. 😊

I would think that giving to GTAA probably follows the same formula as giving to most non-profits or charitable organizations. People only give year after year if they “see” that their money is accomplishing some good. Some things at Tech are indeed rocket science but this isn’t one of them. Loyalty is cultivated. Organizations that rely on donations cultivate that loyalty by creating a narrative. The narrative is basically “here is what your gift accomplished last year.” Organizations can’t rely on donors to create their own narrative. The narrative has to be carefully curated for the audience and can’t have too much cognitive dissonance, like “I was told my money would accomplish such and such but it looks like the opposite happened.” My impression is that Tech has never been very good at salesmanship. If your teams are going to struggle on a regular basis to win then you better be a world class salesperson but even then you still have to deliver some tangible proof that the money is working for good.
 

Pointer

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,801
yeah i’m not buying this. 20 was hyperbole but i think the number was around 11-14. we also didn’t have a real qb on the roster and none of those guys who all eventually transferred ended up in p5 schools. johnson was the only one who went somewhere and was successful but it was at a lower level. james graham and tobias oliver are playing different positions at this point.

maybe we would have been better year 2 but i don’t see how anyone wins 6 with that roster
I loved taquan but he also wasn't a real QB and we still did ok with him.
 

bigrabbit

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
298
Organizations can’t rely on donors to create their own narrative. The narrative has to be carefully curated for the audience and can’t have too much cognitive dissonance, like “I was told my money would accomplish such and such but it looks like the opposite happened.” My impression is that Tech has never been very good at salesmanship. If your teams are going to struggle on a regular basis to win then you better be a world class salesperson but even then you still have to deliver some tangible proof that the money is working for good.
Good point - ironically the engineering school has been terrific in that regard for me. I heard from a prof who was retiring, just a catching up note, but he thanked me for a gift from 10 years earlier, the positive impact the money had on grad student recruitment. That particular situation didn’t even involve much money, maybe $20k. I always got nice feedback, narrative about their progress against future goals and needs. Made me want to keep feeding them checks, I knew they weren’t just pissing it away.
 

SOWEGA Jacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,075
Academic funds are not necessarily available for the athletic department. However, student fees can be up to a given dollar amount. I believe that is already happening to help subsidize the GTAA.
The research dollar funds that come from say Ford, some biotech company, etc. are not allowed to go to directly support athletics. However, if the fund a scholarship for a bright athlete, maybe that would free up a few bucks for the GTAA. Also, as has been stated elsewhere the Hill's biggest support to GTAA is via in-state tuition waivers for athletes that are out of state, if I recall correctly.
This is what is wrong “academic funds are not necessarily available for the athletic department”. This is why GT is a bottom feeder. GT is dumb. So won’t put money into the departments that draw thousands upon thousands of people to campus? I would bet that of all departments that make up GT that the athletic department brings more people to campus and gets more press than any other department. Maybe I’m wrong but I missed the 35,000 in person attendance for the mechanical engineering symposium. I get that the academic side is incredible which is great. But we should leverage that side to rise up all departments. But instead GT is a fiefdom where it’s every department for themselves because we have no visionary to lead. I see the day where the BOR will allow GT to be swallowed up by UGA and we’ll allow it.
 

awbuzz

Helluva Manager
Staff member
Messages
12,111
Location
Marietta, GA
This is what is wrong “academic funds are not necessarily available for the athletic department”. This is why GT is a bottom feeder. GT is dumb. So won’t put money into the departments that draw thousands upon thousands of people to campus? I would bet that of all departments that make up GT that the athletic department brings more people to campus and gets more press than any other department. Maybe I’m wrong but I missed the 35,000 in person attendance for the mechanical engineering symposium. I get that the academic side is incredible which is great. But we should leverage that side to rise up all departments. But instead GT is a fiefdom where it’s every department for themselves because we have no visionary to lead. I see the day where the BOR will allow GT to be swallowed up by UGA and we’ll allow it.
Check out the Board of Regents policy regarding intercollegiate sports. Specifically section 4.5.8

The subsidy percentage shall not exceed:
  • 10% for NCAA DI-A institutions affiliated with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or SEC; often referred to as the Power 5;
 

Vespidae

Helluva Engineer
Messages
5,328
Location
Auburn, AL
Check out the Board of Regents policy regarding intercollegiate sports. Specifically section 4.5.8

The subsidy percentage shall not exceed:
  • 10% for NCAA DI-A institutions affiliated with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or SEC; often referred to as the Power 5;
THIS. I might add the waiver of tuition fees (especially for out of state athletes) is a grant-in-kind and counts against the 10%. So basically, there is almost zero cash transferred from the Hill to the GTAA.

There are very few teams that are fully funded by a university. I can think of only two ... Notre Dame and Tennessee. Even at Auburn, athletics is entirely self-sustaining and does not receive any state funds.
 

SOWEGA Jacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,075
Check out the Board of Regents policy regarding intercollegiate sports. Specifically section 4.5.8

The subsidy percentage shall not exceed:
  • 10% for NCAA DI-A institutions affiliated with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or SEC; often referred to as the Power 5;
You obviously aren’t getting what I’ve been saying - there are “other” ways to transfer money. GT has plenty of money. They simply don’t want to do what it takes to get the money where it would help. But yet they claim poverty and call the fans cheap.

But it’s the GT way. We wonder why we don’t win yet every school in our region has players driving Chargers or like Herschel, a Camaro and then we wonder why 5 stars don’t even pick up the phone. As the movie quote says “you can get busy living or get busy dying”. GT athletics are dying on the vine in front of our eyes while the school sits on billions. It’s all done purposely.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
11,519
You obviously aren’t getting what I’ve been saying - there are “other” ways to transfer money. GT has plenty of money. They simply don’t want to do what it takes to get the money where it would help. But yet they claim poverty and call the fans cheap.

But it’s the GT way. We wonder why we don’t win yet every school in our region has players driving Chargers or like Herschel, a Camaro and then we wonder why 5 stars don’t even pick up the phone. As the movie quote says “you can get busy living or get busy dying”. GT athletics are dying on the vine in front of our eyes while the school sits on billions. It’s all done purposely.
That’s not money from the school. UGA and LSU and Alabama aren’t diverting academic funds to players. That’s booster activity. For cars, it’s usually a car dealer. I don’t think a lot of our grads have car dealerships.

We probably have an edge if someone wants a few lasers, nice laptops, and 3D printers that slipped out the back door. Maybe we can get them some NFTs, DogeCoin, and Fortnite items.
 

bigrabbit

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
298
You obviously aren’t getting what I’ve been saying - there are “other” ways to transfer money. GT has plenty of money. They simply don’t want to do what it takes to get the money where it would help. But yet they claim poverty and call the fans cheap.

But it’s the GT way. We wonder why we don’t win yet every school in our region has players driving Chargers or like Herschel, a Camaro and then we wonder why 5 stars don’t even pick up the phone. As the movie quote says “you can get busy living or get busy dying”. GT athletics are dying on the vine in front of our eyes while the school SITS ON BILLIONS. It’s all done purposely.

What are the other ways?

The billions I’m aware of from an institutional standpoint are the endowment and research money. I have in depth experience with research grants, GTRC, expendable gifts and endowments, so I understand the limitations with those.
So, what are we missing?

There is generally an inverse relationship between endowments, research dollars and quality of football. For example, Rice and Duke have far larger endowments than GT, uga and especially bama are far lower.
 

Northeast Stinger

Helluva Engineer
Messages
10,829
Get with the times man. Reddit is a great source for reading opinions on numerous subjects. I've also used reddit for certain investment talk and its worked out very well for me. Not sure why people constantly give reddit crap, to me you're missing out.
Just looked up Reddit and noticed that they do a lot of good in the world such as supporting Doctors Without Borders which is a group I’ve donated to for several decades.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
18,240
Like I said they are hard to keep. He even left Florida where he had played.

Spurrier won a national championship, and UF was one of the best teams in that era. He left because he accomplished all he could, and the NFL was a different challenge.

It's similar to what Ross did with us (though BR wasn't a GT alumnus).

TBH, any coach that comes to GT and wins a natty can do whatever he wants and will always be revered here...regardless of how long they were here.
 
Top