Golf
Eastern Michigan picked up a stroke on the front nine to narrow the gap to four heading into the final nine holes of the MAC Tournament.
The Eagles are 6-under on the day. Akron is 5-under, as is Kent State, who sits in third, 10 strokes off the lead.
Golf
Eastern Michigan cut the Zips' 10-stroke lead to five in the third round of the MAC Tournament.
Ryan Culbertson's score of 5-under was the day's lowest card.
The tournament will conclude with one round Saturday morning. You can follow it live at Golfstat.com.
Golf
Akron leads by 10 after the first two rounds of the MAC Tournament.
Four of the Zips' five golfers are in the tournament's top six, individually.
Leading the whole thing is Brad Wright, who is 6-under. Colin Clemente (3-under), Ryan Culbertson (2-under) and Blake Sattler (2-under) are close behind.
Ten strokes back, Ball State is in second place, followed by Kent State (11 behind Akron), Eastern Michigan (12 behind) and Ohio (14 behind).
The nine-team field will play a round Friday and a round Saturday to determine the conference champ. If Akron can close it out, it will be the first secondary sport that actually followed through on a promising nonconference performance to win the MAC (track and soccer not included).
Miscellaneous
I have written about 150 columns in the Buchtelite to go with my about 300 straight news or sports stories.
Since I'm graduating in two weeks, here is my final column, summing up the four years of Zips sports I witnessed…
This is my last week before graduation.
In this final installment of "Rasor's Edge," I will be your guide as we reminisce through the roller coaster's hills and valleys of the past four years in University of Akron sports.
…
The ride noisily creaks to a start.
"Who's got the WD-40?" asks a smart-aleck Dru Joyce from the back.
To your left, you will see the building of a great foundation for the men's soccer, men's basketball and football teams. There is J.D. Brookhart and Keith Dambrot. They are signing contracts to become head coaches at UA. On the other side of the train is Ken Lolla, recruiting Sinisa Ubiparipovic and Ross McKenzie.
Riders begin to sense the train is about to descend.
"Holy cow!" former athletic director Mike Thomas shouts. "Is the coaster seriously going down there?"
(Heh. You have no idea where this thing is going, I think to myself.)
In Brookhart's first year, and Charlie Frye's last, Akron will be the only bowl-eligible team not to play in the postseason.
"Dang. That hurt my groin just seeing it," Dambrot jokes to assistant coach Jeff Boals.
Don't get too comfortable, coaches. This ride shifts quickly. As a matter of a fact, the men's basketball team will miss out on the NIT in Dambrot's first year as head coach, despite an RPI that almost qualified the Zips for the Big Dance.
But please nurse your bruises quickly, gentlemen. We are preparing for a steep incline. This is the fall of 2005. The men's soccer team will reach the ultimate regular season pinnacle: a No. 1 national ranking. The football team will shock the Mid-American Conference by coming back to score two touchdowns in the final minutes to win the title over Northern Illinois. Yep, that's right. Wee-little Akron is on SportsCenter and getting national publicity. There's Chris Berman, calling the Zips the athletic department of the week.
"You've got to be kidding me," a bitter Buckeyes fan says from the back of the train. "The only school in Ohio is The Ohio State University."
Jay Rohr and John Mackey, the most intense football players you'll meet, begin to growl. Concerned about self-preservation, the OSU fan buttons up.
Don't get too excited Zips fans. This won't last. As you'll learn, one of the themes of this ride is that the powers-that-be won't let this roller coaster reach too high. And so begins our descent. The NCAA gave the soccer team a nine-seed for the national tournament, despite Akron losing only one game. The courageous Zips will fight to the Elite Eight, but lose in a shootout against Maryland, the eventual national champions.
Thomas and Lolla unlatch their harnesses.
Sirs, I don't recommend…
Thomas and Lolla leap off the train. Their parachutes open to reveal logos for the universities of Cincinnati and Louisville, respectively.
Ladies and gentleman, we just lost two talented men, but the coaster will continue as planned. Actually, we're heading up. Welcome to the ride, Mack Rhoades and Caleb Porter.
On your left, you can see Dambrot leading the Zips to a 23-win season in 2006. This team actually got an NIT berth and beat Temple on the road in the first round, thus ending the career of the legendary coach John Chaney.
All of a sudden, riders on the train begin to stir. They anticipate the football team has a chance to be special in 2006.
I hate to disappoint you, but this team is going nowhere. Look to your left as the offensive line won't protect quarterback Luke Getsy. The kickers will miss extra points. Players will squabble. No leaders will emerge.
"So what's the damage?" asks Rhoades, the new athletic director.
(Gulp.) Five and seven, including a blowout at the hands of Kent State.
But please remain in your seats. Don't follow your colleagues off the rollercoaster. Joyce and Romeo Travis are about to take this train to new heights. How does 26 wins sound?
The riders erupt into a chorus of cheers.
"Obviously, this means we're going to the Big Dance," a giddy Cedrick Middleton says with a giant grin consuming his face.
Ced, you're not going to like this. But take a look to your right. That is you clanking a free throw with 6.6 seconds left in the MAC Championship. After Miami's Doug Penno banks in a 3-pointer, the Zips' two-point lead will turn into the most disastrous defeat in tournament history. And no, Cedrick, the NCAA Tournament did not invite Akron. (Gulp.) … Neither did the NIT.
"That's utter bull—-," Dambrot says as he loosens his harness.
I know, I know. Try to sit tight, coach.
The other riders slip out of their seatbelts, too.
People, please!
Rather than taking the plunge, the riders crawl across the train to console Middleton, Dambrot and the team.
Dozens of fans write letters to the selection committees and the MAC, decrying the injustice. About 700 fans plan to meet for a postseason pep rally to give the Zips a proper sendoff.
Rhoades leans over to Dambrot and pulls out his university checkbook. "You mean so much to us," he says, as he rewrites the coach's contract.
Fans alternate chanting, "Rom-e-ooooooh!" and "Let's go Zips!" The school's spirit is higher than ever.
I hate to stop the party, but you must return to your seats. This train is going up again.
You'll never believe the view.
Golf
As you might expect to hear from a coach who lost a tournament by one stroke, Tom Porten blamed putting for Akron's second-place finish at the FirstEnergy Intercollegiate.
The team is still going strong heading into the MAC Tournament, which begins Wednesday in Westerville, Ohio.
Track
The Buchtelite's Tony Bosma wrote an interesting feature about coach Dennis Mitchell, who built up a rotten program to one of the nation's elite during his 11 years at the helm.
Football
The Buchtelite's Vincent Dorsey wrote about Andy Alleman's reaction to being drafted by the Saints.
On Sportscenter, Mel Kiper Jr. just said Alleman could be a factor on New Orleans' offensive line soon.
The ABJ's David Lee Morgan wrote about Getsy landing with the 49ers. He mentions how the MAC set a new high for players taken in the draft's first three rounds with five. Brookhart says the lack of respect for the MAC in football is more with the public, not insiders and professionals.
Miscellaneous
I did some snooping this semester about where the athletic department – and the university as a whole — spend their money.
There might be some stuff in the story you might not know.
I'll post that story below. If you're interested, here's the link to the main story, which focuses on the whole university.
Mack Rhoades stood over his desk, placed his hand on his jaw and sighed.
"We have to get a football stadium built," said the University of Akron's athletic director.
"The Rubber Bowl prohibits us with attendance - especially with students," he continued. "The lack of amenities, the deteriorating seats, et cetera. It prohibits us from maximizing revenue."
Having the $54 million on-campus stadium ready for 2009 is a goal held by many at the university, but especially by the fans.
An entirely different contingency among the university community is asking, "Why bother?"
UA subsidized its athletic department $13.1 million last year. That is $13.1 million that could have gone to improve academic programs, they say.
The football program alone lost more than $3 million. No sport came even close to breaking even (see chart on A2).
Also, coaches spent $500,000 last year in recruiting. In layman's terms, the university is paying $500,000 to coax high school students to accept a full-ride scholarship at UA. It's a double whammy.
Rhoades offers several defenses against these points.
Although Akron sports don't come close to paying for themselves, only a handful of the teams at the 119 Division IA schools do.
The national standard is that a university subsidizes athletics with about 5 percent of its total budget. The $13.1 million subsidy is just less than 4 percent of UA's $345 million budget.
Some sports also help by attracting paying students. The track team, which awards only a small fraction of its 90 athletes with scholarships, increases tuition by attracting students to UA, who normally would go elsewhere. That figure could reach $1 million for the track team alone.
"We are, by far, a great bargain with what we bring in and provide," track coach Dennis Mitchell said.
About 200 athletes on campus are without a full scholarship, Rhoades said. Those students pay tuition, but that money is not calculated as athletics revenue.
Rhoades also points to the publicity sports garner for a university. The football team will play twice on ESPN next season. Ninety million homes receive that network, and each of the viewers, conceivably, could walk away from the television set with a higher level of respect for UA.
"For most universities, the greatest marketing window is athletics," Rhoades said. "It can lead people to investigate the academics, which is most important."
Another intangible benefit is the cohesion that university athletics offer.
"It can be a focal point of celebration," Rhoades said. "If you're winning, it brings a sense of school spirit to the campus."
Still, Rhoades said his department must improve upon the $3 million in total revenue it generated last year.
The department has improved already since Rhoades arrived in January 2006. Football ticket sales brought in $349,000 last season, which is double the total from 2005 when Akron won the Mid-American Conference Championship. With Keith Dambrot's Zips winning 26 men's basketball games, attendance income jumped 15 percent to $270,000, and that's even with a massive blizzard wiping out attendance for the game against Ohio University which was expected to be a big money maker.
Women's basketball is considered the third-largest collegiate sport. Akron's team brought in only $25,800 last year. That is a figure with perhaps the highest potential to grow, Rhoades said.
"It hasn't been a successful program," Rhoades said. "People want to see a quality product. Before we can think about making money, we have to have a better product."
That illustrates the importance of winning to a financially successful institution. Take Ohio State University, for example. The Buckeyes were national runners-up in men's basketball and football. OSU's budget of $98 million reflects that. It is the highest of any department in the nation.
Merchandise sales at Ohio State also boost revenue significantly. It's hard to walk anywhere without seeing a Buckeyes shirt or baseball cap, even on UA's campus.
UA's merchandising is not so lucrative. The university hires Licensing Resource Group, Inc. to protect its brand and logo. LRG collected about $50,000 last year from manufacturers, such as Nike or New Era, who sold Zips merchandise in retail stores or over the Internet. Of course, the university sells merchandise itself at the team stores at Rhodes Arena and the Rubber Bowl. Those ventures earned UA $168,000 in 2006.
Although the football team loses millions of dollars, it recoups plenty through "buy games," which are road games the university plays against bigger schools for a large paycheck.
The going rate is about $600,000 that a large school, such as the University of Michigan, will pay an institution from a mid-major conference, such as Akron, to travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., for just one game.
With travel expenses rarely reaching higher than $80,000, this can become somewhat of a welfare system to the smaller schools. Akron will play two such away games next season: at Ohio State and Connecticut.
These revenue enhancing methods are nice, but the truth is, UA's athletic budget sits at $16 million - which is in the lowest third of the teams in the MAC.
Rhoades believes the new stadium can help boost revenue, and thus, increase the budget from which he can draw.
"We have to increase the amount of revenue we generate," Rhoades said. "That is our focus."
Baseball
The Buchtelite's Josh Volchko profiled Akron's new three hitter, Doug McNulty.
The team got rained out today against Cleveland State. They will play Buffalo this weekend.
Golf
The Buchtelite's Jeff Thomas wrote about Brad Wright, who quietly has become the anchor of the Zips' successful season and perhaps the MAC's best golfer.
The Zips will host the FirstEnergy Intercollegiate this weekend at Firestone Country Club.
Miscellaneous, Pt. II
Do you remember our epic debate about Paul Rodgers versus Freddie Mercury as Queen's lead singer?
I read something on the Internet that proves me right.
Golf
Akron resoundingly beat conference rivals Miami and Kent State by 21 strokes in a tri-match this week.
Colin Clemente was the medalist with scores of 69 and 72 at Windmill Lakes Golf Club and Firestone Country Club, respectively.
This should be a huge confidence boost heading into the MAC Tournament in two weeks. This weekend, the Zips will try to win their own First Energy Intercollegiate.
Baseball
Charlie Frye and Joshua Cribbs will throw out the ceremonial first pitches before tonight's Akron-Kent State game at Canal Park, which begins at 6 p.m. and will benefit Akron Children's Hospital.
Football
J.D. Brookhart has a problem.
A really, really good one.
He has about five running backs who would merit carries on a decent Mid-American Conference team.
Last year, that would have come in handy after first and second stringers Dennis Kennedy and Alex Allen suffered injuries.
"You better be three-deep minimum at tailback or you're in trouble," Brookhart said.
Along with a healthy Kennedy and Allen, the coaches can call upon Andre Walker, who has had a fantastic spring, Joe McDaniel, who looked pretty solid today, and Joe Tuzze, a capable bruiser.
That's not to mention Bryan Williams and Aaris Reed, who could earn carries during the summer.
When I asked Brookhart about Williams, he let out a good chuckle. He knows he has a great problem on his hands.
Notes:
Chris Jacquemain looked pretty good today. He threw some nice passes and led the team to the 4-yard line during the 10 minute scrimmage that concluded practice. Truthfully, it's the first time Jacquemain has impressed me all spring.
Brookhart called a holding penalty on the defense that kept that drive going in the red zone. Quipped big Nate Robinson: "Take that guy off the payroll!" Actually, big Nate is still big. He's just not as enormous around the waist. It looks like the guy really shaped up.
Carlton Jackson captained the final drive of the day, which ended in a fumbled snap or some sort of confusion about the handoff.
Athletic director Mack Rhoades was in attendance. I tried to pick his brain a little about conferences and such, seeing as how it's not a very well kept secret that Akron is unhappy with the MAC.
Rhoades was at Texas-El Paso when the university moved from the WAC to Conference USA. He said there are seven categories a conference looks for when choosing a new team (In parenthesis, I'll comment on how I think Akron fares): community support (poor), athletic success (below average), facilities (good, soon to be excellent with a new stadium and renovations to Rhodes Arena), TV market (decent, if you count Cleveland), geography (good, if we're talking about the Big East), athletes' academics (better than you would think) and transportation access (excellent with two airports within an hour).
So it's not really all about having a football powerhouse or 30,000 fans at every game. Mainly, you want a well-rounded institution. My concern is, how will Akron improve in community support? Rhoades said he's been working on that until 10 p.m. each night. While he was at UTEP, football attendance jumped from 15,000 to 47,000 in five years. His plan at Akron is to start a grassroots campaign, sending staffers out to the community and using a telemarketing company to make calls. The new slogan for this season is "Roo Town." I haven't seen any posters yet, but it seems like a good idea.
The team will practice without pads tomorrow. Every team must have three helmet-only practices out of the 15. It is one of the NCAA's silly rules about spring football. Since Brookhart has an ultimate frisbee game planned for tomorrow, I'm not bothering to show up.
Saturday is much different. At 11 a.m., the team will conclude the spring season with a 100-play scrimmage. Although it's outdoors, the event is closed to the public. Brookhart hopes to figure out the quarterback and offensive line position battles during the scrimmage.
Golf
The Buchtelite's Jeff Thomas talked to coach Tom Porten about the team's historic string of success.
The team hopes to win its first-ever home event at Firestone Country Club and Windmill Lakes Golf Course on Sunday.
Baseball
The Buchtelite's Josh Volchko discussed the team's upcoming gauntlet of MAC East teams with coach Pat Bangtson.
The most prominent of these games is the matchup against Kent State Tuesday at Canal Park. Proceeds will go to Akron Children's Hospital.
Golf
Never in the 50-year history of the program have the Zips won three events until this season.
Akron bested 13 other schools to win the Wolf Run Intercollegiate in Zionsville, Ind.
Brad Wright won medalist honors at eight-over par.
The Zips have two more tuneups before the MAC Championship on May 2.
Football
The Buchtelite's Adam Ferrise went in-depth about how Akron's offense will change this year.
It's definitely worth reading.
Also read Morgan's story about the spring game. It has some quotes I didn't throw on the blog.
Miscellaneous
In the final installment of a three-part series about life as a UA athlete, the Buchtelite's Vincent Dorsey writes about how Zips cope with the end of a career.
It's another worthwhile read.
Football
J.D. Brookhart talked in-depth about what he has seen so far in the spring on GoZips.com.
The ABJ's David Lee Morgan wrote a very compelling feature on Viktor Rajek, the receiver-turned-defensive lineman from Slovenia. It would be a huge boost if Rajek earned minutes next year.
Golf
I just read that a Zips golfer has won MAC Golfer of the Week in each of the season's first four tournaments.
The team is heading to Zionsville, Ind., this weekend for a duel with Wolf Run Golf Course, the 15th hardest track in the nation.
That may be true, but the Zips must be tested just playing their home course, Firestone Country Club, from the tips, especially if they're practicing in the summer right before the WGC event.
Men's soccer
Akron opened its spring exhibition season with a 0-0 tie against Cincinnati in blustry weather Thursday.
The GoZips.com article provides a good idea what the starting lineup might look like in the fall.
Golf
The MAC named Akron's Blake Sattler as its Golfer of the Week after the senior won medalist at the McLaughlin Tournament in New York.
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