Fudōtokuna: $chertz to $LU

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Look, this all sucks. I'm as gutted as any of you and absolutely as much a fan of ISU as anyone else here.

But I genuinely can't believe anyone is surprised by this, especially if the reports that have come out today and the past few weeks are true. I'm struggling to be even too mad about this. I don't love how it was handled exactly, but those are pretty minor nitpicks. These are all things the school, program, administrators, and people calling the shots need to fix.

We have a lame duck president, no replacement hired, fired the AD that brought Schertz here, still don't have a replacement. Not that it's the same sport but the baseball fiasco had to shine a pretty bright light on how serious ISU is towards really committing time and resources to compete at the top level.

We were paying him next to nothing up until now, even by Valley standards. Our "historic offer" wouldn't even make him the highest paid coach in the Valley or even be half of what SLU was offering if rumors are to be believed.

Say we did convince him to stay. Say he was fine giving up over $1 million per year to be the third highest paid coach in the Valley. Then we still need to find $700,000-$1,000,000 in NIL funds to keep the team together...at a discount. Again if reports are true, our NIL budget was $90,000 this season.

"We have great fan support, you won't find that anywhere else!!!" Do we?!?!?! SLU had a terrible season, we had a great one, and we managed to average 500 more fans per game. We didn't cross the 5,000 fan mark until the 7th game of the season. "Oh we had more fans before that, they just don't properly track attendance." I don't disagree...but then we can't even track attendance correctly!

"Ugh I heard that SLU even hired a realtor to help Schertz look for a home" YEAH, that's what competent organizations do.

Can this still be a solid program? Absolutely. Can we rebound from this and compete? Hell yes. But dang, we gotta do a little soul searching here as an organization and see how deeply unserious we are right now when it comes to basketball in 2024.
 

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I think you have a lot of pertinent points, but I don't know if the term "deeply unserious" is appropriate. I feel like a lot of this could possibly have been addressed with some foresight, but this whole NIL and open, revolving door portal deal is a continuously evolving fiasco for many but the most financially connected schools out there. Money immediately available and a chance at financially life changing positions for coaches AND players are hard things to walk away from. ABSOLUTELY SUCKS, but I get it on some levels.
 
I don't understand why people are having the difficulty grasping this isn't about him leaving as much as it is about the way he has acted behind the scenes.

After he was caught moonlighting with Sonny Warbucks, all he should have done is gone to the powers that be that he has been leading on and say "Hey, you're aware that I'm leaving. I got an offer too good to refuse. Start working on your search in the background while I finish out the season."

We would have had a drastically different last couple weeks since most of it was filled with donors rallying the base to overturn every couch cushion they could to appease the list of demands he gave the administration and donors he spoke with. Moreover, because the last couple of weeks wouldn't have been everyone chasing down every last donor and dollar, they wouldn't have felt a certain type of way when he kicked them all in the nuts officially yesterday. Finally, because of that, he would have gotten his flowers and ridden off into the proverbial sunset.

If you don't believe the last paragraph that happened, you are calling the folks that have supplied him and all of our starting players vehicles a liar. You are calling several prominent Sycamore athletics alumni liars. You are calling several Sycamore administrators liars. It's up to you what you wish to believe but again, this all could have been avoided OR greatly minimized if someone would have just had the fucking marbles to shoot people straight behind the scenes.
 
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IMHO, most kids in the portal within the last 2 years were kids looking for more PT at different schools or looking to move UP a level. Also IMHO, now, you got kids who are secure in their PT already with NIL deals just leaving to chase a bigger buck somewhere else in some cases.
 

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Jason Svoboda said:
I don't understand why people are having the difficulty grasping this isn't about him leaving as much as it is about the way he has acted behind the scenes.

After he was caught moonlighting with the Sonny Warbucks, all he should have done is gone to the powers that be that he has been leading on and say "Hey, you're aware that I'm leaving. I got an offer too good to refuse. Start working on your search in the background while I finish out the season."

We would have had a drastically different last couple weeks since most of it was filled with donors rallying the base to overturn every couch cushion they could to appease the list of demands he gave the administration and donors he spoke with. Moreover, because the last couple of weeks wouldn't have been everyone chasing down every last donor and dollar, they wouldn't have felt a certain type of way when he kicked them all in the nuts officially yesterday. Finally, because of that, he would have gotten his flowers and ridden off into the proverbial sunset.

If you don't believe the last paragraph that happened, you are calling the folks that have supplied him and all of our start players a liar. You are calling several prominent Sycamore athletics alumni liars. You are calling several Sycamore administrators liars. It's up to you what you wish to believe but again, this all could have been avoided OR greatly minimized if someone would have just had the fucking marbles to shoot people straight behind the scenes.
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Oh I 100% believe all of that without a doubt. Not calling any of them liars and I believe that completely. And I agree, it absolutely wasn't handled well.

In a small way, I'm kind of glad it happened that way though. Like, I'm clearly not happy it went down like that...but also it definitely kicked things in to gear in terms of changing mindsets around the organization and community and showed what we CAN be capable of. I think this shows as well that if we want to compete at a decent level...that kind of chasing donors and dollars, making changes, opening up university funds, getting media appearances...this kind of stuff needs to be happening year round and not just when we find success and get scared they may be leaving.
 
CoachShipp said:
Question: The mayor posted on Twitter alluding to transferring some of the funds raised to NIL...is this, in fact, doable? 🤞

https://twitter.com/x/status/1776646244036735340
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I'd think yes and no. I'm not 100% sure if the Foundation can give directly to the NIL fund (although I'd think there is some workaround where they could). I guess it depends exactly what their relationship to the university is. But they also could say "Hello Mr. Community Person, while we at the Foundation appreciate your offer, we just can't accept your $20,000 donation. However, if you cho0se to give that elsewhere *wink wink Crossroad* we would absolutely encourage that."
 
CoachShipp said:
Question: The mayor posted on Twitter alluding to transferring some of the funds raised to NIL...is this, in fact, doable? 🤞

https://twitter.com/x/status/1776646244036735340
Click to expand...

No, that's not how it works.

Coaching salaries are handled by the school. NIL funding is handled by Crossroad of Champions. Crossroad of Champions is a third-party organization that operates independently of the school. One is tax deductible and one is not.

Now, could people that made commitments to the coaching salary pool instead divert to Crossroad of Champions? Sure. Will they? Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on how in their feelings they are right now and if they need the tax write off.

Donors were approached to make multi-year financial commitments (ie $XX,XXX over Y years) to Indiana State and that would go towards the aforementioned rejected contract extension. If they are trying to raise the salary floor, then we'll still need a portion of those donors to stick with those financial commitments they made.

It is imperative that we raise our salary floor or this will be a perpetual theme any time a coach has success. Ultimately the salary and benefits package needs to get to the point where they are likely to only move for a significant salary or prestige jump. At $370k, they are leaving every time.
 

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isubird33 said:
I'd think yes and no. I'm not 100% sure if the Foundation can give directly to the NIL fund (although I'd think there is some workaround where they could). I guess it depends exactly what their relationship to the university is. But they also could say "Hello Mr. Community Person, while we at the Foundation appreciate your offer, we just can't accept your $20,000 donation. However, if you cho0se to give that elsewhere *wink wink Crossroad* we would absolutely encourage that."
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"And Mr. Donor please note if you do it isn't tax deductible like it is with us....."
 
isubird33 said:
I don't think it would be an IRS issue. Heck NIL funds can be set up to have a 501(c)(3) wing as well so donations can be deductible. That gets...more legally grey but still legal as of now.
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The IRS has gotten involved and shut down/removed 501c3 status from numerous NIL collectives over the last 12-18 months.
 
Hooper said:
"And Mr. Donor please note if you do it isn't tax deductible like it is with us....."
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Correct, that's definitely a hang up, but still is possible.

I will say that numerous other NIL collectives have set up a 501(c)(3) aspect to their funds so you can still get the deduction...unfortunately we don't.
 

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Jason Svoboda said:
They are not long for this world.

taxnews.ey.com

IRS GLAM asserts that many nonprofit organizations that develop NIL collectives for student-athletes are not tax exempt

taxnews.ey.com
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I agree. But also as you know, with comments coming out of the NCAA and bigger programs, we are probably getting close to a point where schools can direct/fund NIL themselves.

That being said, the attitude of "we're gonna do this as long as possible until someone tells us to stop" seems preferable to "well they're probably going to outlaw this eventually so let's hold off.

Regardless of all that though, I think the spirit of what the mayor is saying is...
"Look, we've shown we can raise money. We can raise enough money to get a decent coach on this next search and probably not use all the committed money. If people are smart about where they are sending that money...we can still be competitive."

I will say it's the same thing you hear across college sports even at big time programs. You have coaches saying "Look thanks for donating to the athletic department, but we have all the money we can handle. We need this money to go to the NIL fund instead...we can only build a new locker room so many times."
 
Appreciate the info, fellas. I took it/was hoping the Mayor was basically saying "let's get some of these folks who've made a financial commitment to push those funds to the NIL".

Those of us CoC nickel and dimers need some big boy help in the $$$$ department.
 
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