Fresno State - Help Out & Join the Cause

[portajohn 436]

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by portajohn

[smsu150 24]

I ran into a few Fresno fans at the NCAA tournament and I asked if there was any effort being made to save the program.  The feeling I got from these individuals was that nothing could be done.  Too bad, Steiner was doing a nice job.  There was clearly some potential there. 

[IronChef 1,071]

What is the budgeting error referenced in the tweet? I know the sport was costing more than expected, but men's tennis and women's lacrosse are also being dropped.

[TheOhioState 525]

I still have a Save Fresno Wrestling shirt somewhere.  Time to put it back on again.

 

[Drew87 349]

Unlike Stanford, I could see this actually being a budget issue.  I don’t get the impression the “State” system has the same coinage as the UC system.

[RichB 226]

On 5/20/2021 at 5:40 PM, TheOhioState said:

I still have a Save Fresno Wrestling shirt somewhere.  Time to put it back on again.

 

I still uave a save Syracuse Wrestling T shirt

[Idaho 1,319]

On 5/20/2021 at 11:04 AM, IronChef said:

What is the budgeting error referenced in the tweet? I know the sport was costing more than expected, but men's tennis and women's lacrosse are also being dropped.

Not sure if this is what they are referencing, but the difference between what the team brought in and what they spent was about 770k the first full season back. 

[Drake_Mallard 371]

1 hour ago, Idaho said:

Not sure if this is what they are referencing, but the difference between what the team brought in and what they spent was about 770k the first full season back. 

Wait, were they expecting to be making money? I didnt think thats how college athletics worked.... wouldnt the real question be, if 770k was over budget? Which is the case....

Edited May 25, 2021 by Drake_Mallard

[Idaho 1,319]

32 minutes ago, Drake_Mallard said:

Wait, were they expecting to be making money? I didnt think thats how college athletics worked.... wouldnt the real question be, if 770k was over budget? Which is the case....

It was one piece of a bigger picture of savings. 2.5 million annual savings by dropping the sports. In 2019 FSU  spent 1.12 million on wrestling and brought in 79k in ticket sales. I am not sure how much donors kicked in or what fundraising efforts were made. In other articles I read it stated a 770k loss. At the end of the day they were losing a lot of money which a school like FSU can't absorb. As for the budgeting error referenced in the tweet, I can only guess it was a massive error  in projections???

https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/college/mountain-west/fresno-state/article246504080.html

[Drake_Mallard 371]

5 minutes ago, Idaho said:

It was one piece of a bigger picture of savings. 2.5 million annual savings by dropping the sports. In 2019 FSU  spent 1.12 million on wrestling and brought in 79k in ticket sales. I am not sure how much donors kicked in or what fundraising efforts were made. In other articles I read it stated a 770k loss. At the end of the day they were losing a lot of money which a school like FSU can't absorb. As for the budgeting error referenced in the tweet, I can only guess it was a massive error  in projections???

https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/college/mountain-west/fresno-state/article246504080.html

I would guess so. There is no way they could have thought ticket sales alone would cover the sport.

[Idaho 1,319]

27 minutes ago, Drake_Mallard said:

I would guess so. There is no way they could have thought ticket sales alone would cover the sport.

Yeah I agree.... Although they were in the top 10 in attendance in D1 and had sold out many meets it wasn't going to pay the bills. I am not sure what they had in terms of donors or fundraising, but Fresno is no Stanford or Cal Poly for that matter. It's a shame - California has a large wrestling base and besides Bakersfield, FSU was the school a lot of kids actually could get into and afford. 

[TexRef 109]

13 hours ago, Idaho said:

Yeah I agree.... Although they were in the top 10 in attendance in D1 and had sold out many meets it wasn't going to pay the bills. I am not sure what they had in terms of donors or fundraising, but Fresno is no Stanford or Cal Poly for that matter. It's a shame - California has a large wrestling base and besides Bakersfield, FSU was the school a lot of kids actually could get into and afford. 

Plus FSU had a great staff! They also had a good variety on their schedule, although going across the country to VA Duals could have contributed to the problem. 

[Idaho 1,319]

3 hours ago, TexRef said:

Plus FSU had a great staff! They also had a good variety on their schedule, although going across the country to VA Duals could have contributed to the problem. 

Yes they had a great staff! They had done a great job in a short time there.  They did have a pretty extensive schedule as well. Steiner did a great job with Parco in a short time. 

[Swayz 152]

How about add wrestling at DII Fresno Pacific?  They went from NAIA to DII...maybe then they would jump up to DI eventually.  Plus it would double the amount of DII programs in CA, OR, WA, ID, NV, and UT combined! 

[IronChef 1,071]

Your last statement makes your first extremely unlikely. 

[potentiallydangerous 412]

Eastern Bloc communism supports wrestling, Western Bloc communism opposes it. The coup of November, 2020 sealed the fate of individual sports in America. 

[Le duke 386]

Eastern Bloc communism supports wrestling, Western Bloc communism opposes it. The coup of November, 2020 sealed the fate of individual sports in America. 

Go away.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[1032004 1,406]

Well this won't help - https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/college/mountain-west/fresno-state/article251965443.html

[Sheerstress 168]

On 5/25/2021 at 5:12 PM, Drake_Mallard said:

I would guess so. There is no way they could have thought ticket sales alone would cover the sport.

 

https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/marek-warszawski/article246582023.html

[JasonBryant 2,058]

Fresno Bee continually overlooking the contractual deal with the SaveMart Center that prevents programs from actually benefitting from gate receipts. 

[IronChef 1,071]

This is not great. Silva looks extremely bad here. Seems like Steiner mostly should have reported more stuff to his bosses (kind of a JRob situation). Colon mainly facilitated the loan that was against NCAA rules but I’m having trouble getting worked up over helping a guy be able to register for classes.

https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/college/mountain-west/fresno-state/article251994658.html

Some of the online reaction to this article from the wrestling community is a bit disappointing as they gloss over some serious allegations to get mad at the school for discontinuing the program.

[JasonBryant 2,058]

1 hour ago, IronChef said:

This is not great. Silva looks extremely bad here. Seems like Steiner mostly should have reported more stuff to his bosses (kind of a JRob situation). Colon mainly facilitated the loan that was against NCAA rules but I’m having trouble getting worked up over helping a guy be able to register for classes.

https://www.fresnobee.com/sports/college/mountain-west/fresno-state/article251994658.html

Some of the online reaction to this article from the wrestling community is a bit disappointing as they gloss over some serious allegations to get mad at the school for discontinuing the program.

I've filed numerous FOIA requests this past year (since the ODU drop especially). When schools don't want information to be available, they will put up roadblock after roadblock until they're served with a lawsuit for it. The fact all this is coming out now (with the party situation already resolved and Silva not coaching there anymore), this bit of information was specifically dropped to the Fresno Bee for the purpose of showing cause to fire Steiner, since he's still on their books for another couple of years, even with no team. 

From the Fresno State website regarding public records requests (http://www.fresnostate.edu/adminserv/division/about/ca-public-rec-act-req.html)

The request has to be specific. My requests for ODU were "sent back" because I wasn't specific enough. it wasn't until I had to spell out each individual email address, subject and date range and specific key words would they even consider it, and they drug that out as long as they could. East Tennessee State denied my requests on two DIFFERENT grounds, so to see the Fresno Bee come up with such damaging information on the big bag wrestling program doesn't pass the smell test to me. 

In my opinion, someone with knowledge of this situation and HOW to get the paperwork put a bug in the Fresno Bee's ear, and boom, they get a public shaming of a coaching staff, validation for terminating the program and now, a cause they can get rid of Steiner's salary. This is ahead of any campaigns being formulated to save the program by making the administration look bad for their piss poor management of their entire school - and yes, that does include the President who brought back wrestling, as much of a fan of the sport that he was. 

Fresno State hasn't been squeaky clean with its money sports, yet, I bet you dollars to donuts, if there was an investigation around the basketball program or football program, all those FOIA requests the Fresno Bee got would have been held up or stalled out or unavailable for one reason or another. I don't want to fully put my tin foil conspiracy hat on, but this doesn't see the papers if Steiner wasn't still under contract. To me, this reeks of a calculated hit to "put pressure" on the administration to "do the right thing" and relieve Troy of his duties. 

I hope he lawyers up, because this is character assassination. Just my two cents from my gut reaction when I first read this series of hit pieces. 

I'm considering filing an FOIA with Fresno State to see if I can find out where the communication between the university and the Fresno Bee was. Thing is, I don't think anyone there is stupid enough to have used their school email address to drop the information to the papers. Could be a waste of time. 

[1032004 1,406]

7 hours ago, JasonBryant said:

I've filed numerous FOIA requests this past year (since the ODU drop especially). When schools don't want information to be available, they will put up roadblock after roadblock until they're served with a lawsuit for it. The fact all this is coming out now (with the party situation already resolved and Silva not coaching there anymore), this bit of information was specifically dropped to the Fresno Bee for the purpose of showing cause to fire Steiner, since he's still on their books for another couple of years, even with no team. 

From the Fresno State website regarding public records requests (http://www.fresnostate.edu/adminserv/division/about/ca-public-rec-act-req.html)

The request has to be specific. My requests for ODU were "sent back" because I wasn't specific enough. it wasn't until I had to spell out each individual email address, subject and date range and specific key words would they even consider it, and they drug that out as long as they could. East Tennessee State denied my requests on two DIFFERENT grounds, so to see the Fresno Bee come up with such damaging information on the big bag wrestling program doesn't pass the smell test to me. 

In my opinion, someone with knowledge of this situation and HOW to get the paperwork put a bug in the Fresno Bee's ear, and boom, they get a public shaming of a coaching staff, validation for terminating the program and now, a cause they can get rid of Steiner's salary. This is ahead of any campaigns being formulated to save the program by making the administration look bad for their piss poor management of their entire school - and yes, that does include the President who brought back wrestling, as much of a fan of the sport that he was. 

Fresno State hasn't been squeaky clean with its money sports, yet, I bet you dollars to donuts, if there was an investigation around the basketball program or football program, all those FOIA requests the Fresno Bee got would have been held up or stalled out or unavailable for one reason or another. I don't want to fully put my tin foil conspiracy hat on, but this doesn't see the papers if Steiner wasn't still under contract. To me, this reeks of a calculated hit to "put pressure" on the administration to "do the right thing" and relieve Troy of his duties. 

I hope he lawyers up, because this is character assassination. Just my two cents from my gut reaction when I first read this series of hit pieces. 

I'm considering filing an FOIA with Fresno State to see if I can find out where the communication between the university and the Fresno Bee was. Thing is, I don't think anyone there is stupid enough to have used their school email address to drop the information to the papers. Could be a waste of time. 

Do you think they only hired those lawyers or whatever to do the “investigation” recently? I have to imagine they probably paid them close to what Steiner was owed (maybe a topic for a FOIA request :-) ) right?  Maybe even more if they charged as much as FloKaren.

[JasonBryant 2,058]

That’s a good question - the access to that contract could be protected by attorney-client privilege. Worth looking into.

[Idaho 1,319]

1 hour ago, 1032004 said:

Do you think they only hired those lawyers or whatever to do the “investigation” recently? I have to imagine they probably paid them close to what Steiner was owed (maybe a topic for a FOIA request :-) ) right?  Maybe even more if they charged as much as FloKaren.

 

44 minutes ago, JasonBryant said:

That’s a good question - the access to that contract could be protected by attorney-client privilege. Worth looking into.

Wasn't it reported initially that FSU would be honoring the coaches contracts when the program was dropped?  

Seems odd that they wrestled last season, the coaches were coaching 3 months ago and now all the sudden this is an issue, when FSU was aware of this for quite sometime. The stripper party was known for a long time. Not defending Silva's alleged actions, however it seems that FSU is really, really  bad at investigations...or....?