Winston-Salem State Division I Withdrawal Talking Points

In case you haven’t seen Winston-Salem State University’s official comments on halting it’s Division I athletic transition, you can get the info here, here and here. In total, a masterful job by the WSSU department of marketing and communications in giving folks a chance to hear straight talk about a tough decision.

But the thing that people should focus on about WSSU plans to return to the CIAA are the statistics regarding fundraising. Of note:

Each year, the athletic program has had to rely on non-athletic funds for support.  These deficits were funded by diverting resources away from pressing academic needs. To make the program budget work the salaries of assistant coaches have been and continue to be paid from State funds, a practice which must be discontinued by State law…

We do not own the stadium or the coliseum where our revenue sports play their games. This is a real disadvantage. As a result, we must pay the City of Winston-Salem for the use of its facilities and we only receive a small portion of the revenue that is generated from gate receipts and parking, and we derive no revenue from food concessions. Even if we owned the stadium, we do not believe we would break even given the current debt service of nearly $500,000 a year that we would have to assume….

Private giving to the athletic program is not sufficient to sustain it at the costlier Division I level. The program has never raised more than $250,000 in any fiscal year.

Since the university is too PC to tell the truth, allow me. WSSU could have done significantly more to engage the public, but ultimately, the public let down WSSU and the Ram athletic program.

You, the members of the public, didn’t pack the house for football and basketball games. You didn’t give enough money to the program to sustain the athletic budget. You weren’t willing to put money where so many of your mouths were. It doesn’t matter what the leadership does and does not do. They operate from your funds. Whether you like the chancellor, like the coaches, like the record or not means nothing.

You paid for a move back to the CIAA by paying little to nothing at all.

So if you are upset that Winston-Salem State is going back to the CIAA, which isn’t such a bad place to be in the first place, check your bank balance before you check the leadership of the institution.

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