The Citadel’s “crossroads” moment — a review with commentary

Posted on October 13, 2024 by Sandlapper Spike

This post basically serves to review and comment on an article published in The Post and Courier on Saturday, October 12. The writer of the story is Andrew Miller, regular P+C beat writer for The Citadel’s football program.

I appreciated this article. I don’t necessarily agree with everything stated in the piece, though most of those points of contention emanate from people quoted in the story, not Miller himself. I do quibble with certain aspects of the article that I think needed to include alternative, on-record opinions. There was also one “factoid” in the piece which was monumentally misleading. I’ll address that later.

Having said that, I was glad to see the feature published. It brings up multiple issues facing The Citadel and its department of athletics, all of which richly deserve public scrutiny.

I would encourage anyone at all interested in The Citadel to read the article.

I’ll break down my commentary by each portion of the story (excluding the introductory section).

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The bottom line

The athletic department is projected to lose nearly $2 million this year…[Operating expenses] in the 2021-22 academic year amounted to $3.2 million. The projected operational budget for this year is expected to be $5.5 million, or an increase of 71 percent.

To make ends meet, the budget was cut by 10 percent with reductions in scholarships for the current season, according to an athletic department source.

“We’re having to cut expenses and scholarships,” the source said.

The football team’s operating budget, which does not include scholarships, was cut $200,000 to $1 million. It also lost the equivalent of 2½ scholarships.

The basketball team experienced a similar fate, another source said.

But according to Walters, there have been no budget or scholarship cuts.

The school is projected to spend $4.7 million on scholarships this year, having spent $4.1 million in 2022 and 2023, Walters said.

“The coaches have a budget, and they have to manage that budget, but we need to give them more tools to help them out,” Walters said.

Two different sources told Andrew Miller that the department of athletics is undergoing budget and scholarship cuts — but this was denied by Gen. Walters. That is more than a little curious.

—

Along those lines, there is something else worth noting that is not in the article.

If you go to the webpage for The Citadel’s Procurement Services Department, you will find a link to the school’s “Awards” site for procurement. This includes solicitations, sole sources, and the occasional emergency purchase.

It can be an interesting site to follow. Those perusing the page will see that The Citadel has a sole source justification for SoCon-mandated baseballs, for example, and will notice that the league also requires a specific vendor for video database and data analysis software.

The site also has a link to a sole source for a “Financial Consultant”. The advertisement for this sole source was posted on June 13 (expiring two weeks later). The school listed a potential contract amount of $250,000 (over the course of one year) for “a financial consultant to advise and assist in financial planning.”

That is a very generic description, but the person named as the sole source, Rick Kelly, is not generic at all. He is a former executive director of the S.C. Budget and Control Board, and later served as the Chief Financial Officer at the University of South Carolina. Kelly is an auditor by trade and has actually been hired as a consultant by The Citadel before (in July of 2020).

It is my understanding that Kelly recently completed an audit of The Citadel’s department of athletics, and that his findings are to be presented to the Board of Visitors in the near future — perhaps as soon as the BOV’s next scheduled meeting.

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Revenue sources

Walters hopes to renew a series of outdoor concerts at Johnson Hagood Stadium, which had been put on hold after complaints by local residents who feared the added traffic and noise.

Then there’s naming rights to the playing field and stadium that could bring in money.

Remember, The Citadel was not successful in its June appeal to the City of Charleston’s Board of Zoning Appeals for approval for the outdoor series. The school was defeated by a combination of NIMBY-ism and an unfriendly zoning board (the vote was 7-0 against The Citadel).

Of course, the board couldn’t outright tell the military college that any concerts at Johnson Hagood Stadium are off the table. Otherwise, other neighborhoods could presumably block similar events at venues all over the city (as The Citadel’s VP for communications noted in the linked article). However, it is reasonable to expect that the same people who opposed the concert series will continue to fight against any major events held at the stadium, so relying on that as a regular source of income might be a dicey proposition.

It seems to me that profiting off naming rights to the stadium would also be hard to accomplish. You can’t rename Johnson Hagood Stadium right now without violating the state’s Heritage Act (unless two-thirds of state lawmakers could be convinced to approve a name change; good luck with that).

Until or unless the Heritage Act is successfully challenged in court, I’m not sure what The Citadel can do. And even if that were to happen, it is possible potential candidates for naming rights (banks, grocery stores, etc.) would be hesitant to be the “replacement” name under those circumstances.

The NCAA settlement [the “House” case] and what it will mean for The Citadel has been one of the many reasons for the delay in finishing the east side stands at Johnson Hagood Stadium...But the pandemic and other delays, including funding for the $5 million project, have postponed construction.

Capaccio said he hopes to have the east side stands ready for the 2025 football season.

“We have more than $3 million on hand and more than enough pledges to cover the rest,” Walters said.

I would be very pleasantly surprised if the rebuilt East stands are ready by the time the 2025 football campaign rolls around. The first game of the season next year is a home game on August 30 against North Dakota State.

It would be nice if the stadium were ready when the Bison’s travelling supporters arrive in Charleston. I just find that timeline hard to believe, particularly given the history of the project. I will be happy if my skepticism is unfounded.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the phrase “many reasons for the delay” is doing a lot of work in that paragraph. There seems to be a lag of about a year in the overall approval process which cannot be easily explained by COVID-19, related construction issues, or general fundraising.

—

Moving on down

One of the biggest fears from alumni is that the administration and athletic department will grow weary of the constant losing and financial struggles and decide to drop down to Division II or even Division III, where no athletic scholarships are awarded, to save money and be more competitive…

Walters said there’s no plan to move down in classifications.

“Not on my watch,” he said. “We’re not going Division II.”

Here, at least, there appears to be near-unanimity on a topic, and I was glad to see it. Dropping down a division (or two) would be a terrible idea on a lot of levels, and also completely unnecessary.

Besides the likely exodus of donors mentioned in the story, Division III makes no sense from a geographic perspective. What schools would The Citadel even play? There are no D3 football schools in South Carolina. There are two in Georgia — Berry and LaGrange. The North Carolina institutions with D3 football programs are Brevard, Greensboro College, Guilford, Methodist, and North Carolina Wesleyan.

That obviously wouldn’t work for The Citadel.

As for Division II, I get the impression that more schools are trying to leave that tier than move to it. And here again, the list of local institutions in the division do not as a group “match up” with The Citadel from a historical or practical standpoint. (D2 football schools in South Carolina: Allen, Benedict, Erskine, Limestone, Newberry, North Greenville.)

In terms of dropping down, VMI actually did something similar (at least philosophically) at the beginning of the century when it left the SoCon to join the Big South. That move did not work out for the folks in Lexington, VA, and they were thrilled to be able to re-join the Southern Conference after a decade out in the cold.

Now, there is a facet to this worth discussing. It is possible that in the future The Citadel’s athletics programs could be in a tier called “Division II” that would actually mostly resemble the current Division I. If there is a breakaway from the NCAA of 20-40 schools (the inevitable “Superleague”) for football and a slightly larger number of institutions for basketball (50-70, perhaps), then the eventual NCAA setup could look like this (at least for football):

  • Division I — P4 schools left out of the Superleague, the majority of G5 schools, maybe a few FCS institutions with historic success and decent revenue potential (the Montana and Dakota schools, for example)
  • Division II — The vast majority of FCS, plus a few G5 schools that still want to play football but would not be in an ideal financial position in the new order of college athletics

There wouldn’t be any problem with The Citadel being in that type of Division II. It would still likely play the same schools as before. It is just a question of nomenclature. There would also be an opportunity to play the “Division I” schools, as is the case now.

In that system, schools could compete in a revised D1 in basketball, baseball, and any other sport in which they wished to do so, and the remainder of their varsity teams would play in a D2 with fewer financial and infrastructure commitments.

That could wind up being just fine for a school like The Citadel.

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Transfer portal, NIL, and non-cadet athletes

I’m going to split this section, separating NIL from the other two listed issues.

—

As for NIL:

Some Citadel alumni are against NIL, but barring athletes from making deals with local businesses would be against the law.

“Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy,” [former Bulldogs quarterback and past BOV member Jack Douglas] said. “We can’t get out of our own way. We need to be more welcoming to people and businesses. The gates around the campus aren’t there to keep people out, it’s to keep the cadets in. We’re not taking advantage of some of the resources in Charleston, people and businesses that don’t really have a connection to the school but could be friendly to us and help us out.”

One of those alumni who might have a problem with NIL, however, is the school president. From the minutes of the Board of Visitors meeting on April 24, 2024:

[Walters] then discussed the impact of the current rules/laws on the Southern Conference (SoCon) and The Citadel. He stated there has been little impact to date for The Citadel with only a few athletes participating. Of those, only one currently receives monetary compensation. The others receive products for their endorsements.

He stated that although The Citadel, the SoCon, or the NCAA cannot prohibit an athlete from entering NIL contracts, The Citadel can and will develop a policy that will impose limitations on its student athletes. Among the limitations discussed:

  • Specific prohibitions on when and where student athletes can appear in advertisements for third parties.
  • Prohibit student athletes from appearing in NIL opportunities while wearing team jerseys.
  • Prohibit student athletes from endorsing tobacco, alcohol, illegal substances or activities, banned athletic substances, and gambling, including but not limited to sports betting.
  • Prohibit endorsement of products which compete with school sponsorship agreements or contracts.

It was also discussed prohibiting endorsement of products which conflict with The Citadel’s institutional values, but it was noted that such a rule would likely raise First Amendment concerns.

—

Personally, I think there is a distinction to be made between general NIL rights and a school-sponsored “collective”, which should be a non-starter at The Citadel.

It is one thing for cadets to work with local businesses, learning the value of networking, etc., or engaging in activities such as sports camps or individual instruction. I have no problem with that; nobody should. It would be like someone in the regimental band teaching local students how to play the bagpipes or the trumpet (and being compensated for it).

A school-sponsored collective implies pay-for-play, however, and that is not the route The Citadel needs to take going forward. Doing so would fly in the face of the school’s overall mission.

It won’t be the route most of The Citadel’s peers will take, either, and that matters in the long run when schools form alliances (or new conferences) as a reaction to the “modernization” of college athletics.

I know there are currently schools in the SoCon that are banking on collectives, and pay-for-play. In the short term, they’re going to have an advantage over The Citadel in certain sports (particularly basketball). That isn’t really something which is controllable.

In ten years, there is a decent chance that The Citadel is not in the same conference with a school like, say, East Tennessee State. That won’t matter, though, if The Citadel is still aligned with VMI and Furman and other schools which could be construed as having a similar reputation (a hard-to-define combination of history, prestige, and cachet).

And yes, I realize that some of those “similar reputation” institutions are currently putting a lot of money into certain sports (like hoops). I’m thinking about what the outlook will be in 10-to-20 years, not 3-to-5.

—

Now about the transfer portal and non-cadet athletes:

Many of the old guard don’t want the Bulldogs to recruit and sign transfers. The vast majority of transfers signing with The Citadel recently have been graduate students. A handful of undergraduate day students have also transferred into the school.

The balance between cadet-athletes and non-cadet athletes has been a point of contention with some alumni…

…Walters said there are no caps or limits to the number of transfers each team can have.

“We have to give our coaches every opportunity to be competitive,” Walters said. “I’m sure most of the alumni would prefer to have all cadets on our teams, but they also want to win. We had 10 knobs on the basketball team last year and only a couple came back. I can’t hamstring Coach Conroy and have him sign 10 new freshmen every year. He wouldn’t be able to build a program.”

The current basketball roster includes a half-dozen transfers.

Attracting graduate students has been an issue as well. While many graduates want to take advantage of the school’s business program, The Citadel provides just $950 a month to graduate transfers for expenses.

“No one can live in Charleston on $900 a month,” [Citadel Football Association president Robbie Briggs] said. “You can’t pay rent and eat on that. Charleston is expensive. It would take a minimum of $2,000 in my opinion to live in Charleston.”

Ironically, it costs less for the school to sign a non-cadet transfer than to bring a freshman on campus. Freshmen student-athletes cost the school about $10,000 more a year than other undergraduates or graduate transfers due to providing uniforms and equipment.

—

First, I sincerely hope that coaches are not under any pressure to bring in non-cadets rather than freshmen in order to save money. I would consider any attempt to implement such a policy to be worthy of dismissal.

As to expenses for living in Charleston, I think the problem there is partly with the SoCon. In an appearance on an ETSU-affiliated podcast last December, East Tennessee State AD Richard Sander said this:

“The SoCon is the only conference in the country that limits cost of attendance. So we can only provide 28 student-athletes cost of attendance…we’re limited as to the [league’s] cap…that’s $2000.00. Well, our [actual] cost of attendance at ETSU is $6900.00.

We [ETSU], Chattanooga, a couple of other places [want to change that], but I’ll be honest, the private schools don’t want to change that. They think it’s a competitive advantage for us because our cost of attendance is high compared to theirs.

When we’re recruiting against, pick somebody in basketball…Western Kentucky or College of Charleston, they’re giving [players] total cost of attendance and we think in that kind of situation we think [the league rules] are creating a real difficult situation for us.”

It is possible the SoCon’s CoA rule might be working against The Citadel. I could be wrong about this interpretation, to be sure, but I don’t think the military college is one of the schools blocking a potential increase in the limit.

Briggs is absolutely correct about trying to live in Charleston on $950 per month, and that certainly has had a deleterious effect on the recruitment of certain athletes. We’ve all heard the stories.

—

Having said that, I am one of the alums who would greatly prefer that almost all (if not all) of our athletes are in the corps of cadets, or are recent graduates from the corps. There are arguments on both sides about this, of course, but I come back to a couple of things.

– “I’m sure most of the alumni would prefer to have all cadets on our teams, but they also want to win.” — Gen. Walters

Well, yes, but when is the last time a transfer-heavy squad at The Citadel was legitimately successful? I’ll wait on your answer. It will be a long wait.

The fact is that we have allowed our coaches to supplement their rosters with large numbers of transfers in recent years, and in no situation has it resulted in a significant increase in winning. Sometimes, it seems to have boomeranged in the opposite direction.

Also, while I understand the point about the problem of cycling through rosters due to freshman attrition, that has always been an issue at The Citadel, long before the transfer portal existed. I might add that the constant one-year “rental” of graduate students hasn’t done anything for continuity (or general competitiveness) either.

– There is another rationale involved here. For whom do the varsity teams at The Citadel primarily exist as a benefit? Well, the players themselves, obviously.

They also exist for the alumni and other supporters, including those in the local community. And they exist, most importantly, for the corps of cadets. I think it is natural and right for the corps to be able to cheer for a team that consists mostly (if not entirely) of fellow cadets.

This isn’t just about a pie-in-the-sky notion of utopia, either. There is also a financial consideration, after all. As Miller pointed out in his article:

Each cadet pays around $3,000 a year in student athletic fees, among the highest in the country. That comes out to approximately $6.4 million, the largest source of revenue for the athletic department.

If cadets are going to front the plurality of the funds which support varsity athletics, it seems to me that those teams should represent them in something close to totality. That means the players should mostly be cadets, too.

—

Some alumni have also bristled at the sight of long hair and facial hair among some graduate transfers.

“There are a lot of older alumni that believe this place was some kind of nirvana back in the day, and it’s just not true,” Walters said. “We had graduate students playing sports back when I was here in the 1970s, and we had guys with hair flowing out of the backs of their helmets when I was here. People don’t remember that, but I do.”

I wish Andrew Miller had quoted an alumnus with a strong opinion about the issue at hand. I would have liked him to interview one of those who had “bristled”. I think that would have been appropriate, and would have also avoided Walters’ comment coming off as a bit of a ‘strawman’ construct (which clearly wasn’t the intent).

Walters’ quote interested me, though, because I could not recall graduate students playing football in the 1975-78 time frame when he was at The Citadel (he’s a 1979 grad). I’m not old enough to know for sure, though, so I will defer to Walters on this.

To be fair, Walters didn’t specifically refer to grad students in football, but rather he just made a comment about “guys with hair flowing out of the backs of their helmets”.

From perusing the 1978 football media guide, which featured the team that played during Walters’ senior year, I can see how that might have occasionally been the case. Kenny Caldwell is on the cover with Art Baker, and Caldwell’s hair is a little longer than what you would see today at The Citadel.

It was a 1970s thing, I guess. The photos of the coaching staff are instructive as well; offensive coordinator Rick Gilstrap had a lot of lettuce, and running backs coach Mike O’Cain sported a world-class moustache.

However, I don’t think the hairstyles of the 1970s, groovy as they might have been, are really applicable to today. I expect varsity athletes to conform to the current standards of the corps, regardless of status.

That means relatively short hair and no beards or moustaches. The Citadel is a military college. The players that represent it (and the corps of cadets) need to look like they belong, whether on the field, court, track, road, mat, course, range, or diamond.

Also, while a lot of the issues mentioned in the article are hard problems to solve, this isn’t one of them. Just tell the guys to get a shave and a haircut. The world won’t end, and it won’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

—

Texas A&M model

Oh, boy…

It was during the annual summer talking season in the early 2000s when [Ellis Johnson], the former football coach, brought up the idea of The Citadel adopting a Texas A&M model where the school would open its campus to more non-cadets.

The idea was met with a resounding silence.

As well it should have. However, there is (unfortunately) more:

Up until 1964, Texas A&M required all students to be members in the Corps of Cadets. That year, school president James Earl Rudder opened up the school to women and Blacks for the first time. A year later, membership in the corps became voluntary.

Today, Texas A&M is the second-largest university in the nation with more than 72,000 students. Of those, 2,500 —including 300 women — are cadets.

The idea of allowing non-cadets into The Citadel isn’t even that new. Red Parker, the Bulldogs head coach from 1966-72, was a proponent of letting in non-cadets.

“You have to remember this was in the middle of the Vietnam war and the military wasn’t that popular back then,” said [Charlie Baker], who played linebacker for Parker in the early 1970s. “People think we’d lose our identity as a military school, but we wouldn’t. Look at what Texas A&M has done. They still have a Corps of Cadets, and the school is doing great.”

Texas A&M last year had a $17.2 billion endowment.

I’ll get to the most disingenuous sentence in that quote in a few paragraphs.

However, first let me say this. I have great respect for both Ellis Johnson (who played at The Citadel and also served as its head football coach) and Charlie Baker (another former player who has done great things for The Citadel, and who bleeds light blue).

And they’re both incredibly wrong about this.

—

Why do people think The Citadel would lose its identity as a military college? Well, because it would.

Do most people today think of Texas A&M as a military school? Of course not. The only time that even comes up in general discourse is when sports fans at other schools make fun of the Yell Leaders.

The Citadel, on the other hand, is chiefly identified as a military college. If you marginalize that essential component, it ceases to be The Citadel, both in the minds of the overwhelming majority of its alumni and among the public at large. It becomes Palmetto A&M, an entity with no history and no justification for having one.

It could be argued the best thing the State of South Carolina has going for it from a higher education standpoint is that (despite the best efforts of some of its leaders over the years) it has produced among its colleges and universities a unique, undeniably successful institution on the banks of the Ashley.

The Citadel has incredible value in its current form. It might be better positioned for the new era of university education than 95% of its fellow schools in this country — and that might be an underestimation.

Colleges and universities are desperately trying to differentiate themselves in order to attract a limited number of future students. It is not an easy thing to do.

However, that isn’t a problem for The Citadel. You can’t get the experience of being a cadet in an online format. You have to be there. You have to feel the no-see-ums. You have to accept a difficult challenge and ultimately pass a test of will, and you have to pass that test in the presence (and with the assistance) of others.

Not only am I diametrically opposed to reducing The Citadel’s value as an alumnus, but I also resent the suggestion as a citizen of the state. Why diminish something so beneficial for no real advantage (and a lot of obvious pitfalls)?

—

Ellis Johnson also said this:

“Seventy percent of Citadel graduates don’t go into the military,” Johnson said. “They go start businesses, they become entrepreneurs, they go into politics, and they are good, productive citizens. What’s wrong with producing good people and good citizens? Sometimes I think the school caters to that 30 percent of the alumni base a little too much.”

I didn’t understand this comment, on two levels. First, I don’t really think the school caters to its veteran alums more than its other graduates. I’ve never noticed that myself.

More to the point, though, is the idea that the veteran alums are those most against the gradual dissipation of the corps of cadets as the school’s focus. I don’t think that is true at all.

I haven’t done a survey or anything, but I know plenty of non-veterans who are dead-set against turning the school into Palmetto A&M. I’m one of them.

I’m not even sure that a higher percentage of veterans than non-vets are against that concept. I would suspect that there is uniformity in the opposition, regardless of background.

—

This might be a digression, but I think it is a necessary one. The line in the article that I found particularly misleading was this one:

Texas A&M last year had a $17.2 billion endowment.

In the context of the story, that brief statement tends to imply that Texas A&M began admitting non-cadets and things have gone fantastically well ever since, including an amazing endowment which surely is directly related to the school’s change of mission.

The truth is that there cannot possibly be anything more unrelated than Texas A&M’s endowment and the status of its Corps of Cadets. It might be the most unrelated thing in the history of unrelatedness.

The actual reason Texas A&M has a large endowment is a 19th-century provision established in the Texas Constitution that created something known as the Permanent University Fund (PUF):

In 1876, the Texas Constitution set aside land in West Texas to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M systems of higher education. Today, that land – encompassing 2.1 million acres – is leased to oil and gas companies whose wells generate revenue that flows into the PUF. Land also is leased for grazing, wind farms and other revenue-generating activities.

The Texas A&M system receives one-third of the annual proceeds of the PUF, while the University of Texas system gets the other two-thirds (and thus UT’s endowment is even more monstrous than TAMU’s).

Texas A&M’s share of the PUF return in 2023 totaled slightly over $410 million. That’s for one year. It will get more money this year, and even more cash next year, and presumably every year after that as long as the wells don’t completely run dry.

The provision that set up TAMU (and UT) for all that moolah was enacted 88 years before the school began admitting non-cadets.

The reference to Texas A&M’s endowment should not have been in the article.

The Citadel doesn’t need to be like Texas A&M, and it couldn’t be like Texas A&M even if everyone wanted that outcome. And most people don’t anyway.

—

Earlier this week, there was another piece in The Post and Courier about The Citadel’s future in athletics, this one in the form of a column by Scott Hamilton that was centered around the upcoming search for a new director of athletics. I wanted to highlight one part of it:

Some initial thoughts are if The Citadel might consider moving down a level. Should dropping to Division II – or perhaps even Division III – be on the table?

“No, they just need to know exactly who they are and what their mission is,” said Rob Yowell, president of Arizona-based Gemini Sports. “And that’s (to be) more like West Point, Annapolis and Air Force. Not Coastal Carolina, Liberty and Louisiana-Monroe.”

Yowell, whose firm runs major events such as the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Phoenix Open and the Fiesta Bowl, is spot-on. Having an identity would simplify things so much. The service academies embrace who they are, just as traditional Group of 5 schools realize they’re not competing on and off the field with the likes of Alabama and Ohio State.

It is nice to read something as perceptive as that from an outsider — in this case, a Duke graduate who lives in Phoenix. Wonders will never cease.

I will say that The Citadel does share some things in common with Coastal Carolina and ULM, so it isn’t an “exact opposite” comparison when it comes to those two schools (and coincidentally, the AD at Louisiana-Monroe is John Hartwell, a graduate of The Citadel).

—

“There are a lot of older alumni that believe this place was some kind of nirvana back in the day, and it’s just not true,” Walters said.

Walters is 100% correct about that. I can sympathize with him as he tries to navigate the school through a lot of choppy water, trying to justify various decisions to alumni, a few of whom think it is still 1950, or who wish it were still 1950.

In terms of sports, this is a very trying time for the military college. I believe that the current climate in college athletics is the worst it could be from The Citadel’s perspective since the Sanity Code was enacted in 1948.

Of course, we all know what happened then. The Citadel became one of the famed “Sinful Seven”, and the Sanity Code was eventually revoked.

It didn’t come without controversy, however. For one thing, an attempt was made to expel those seven schools from the NCAA in 1950 — not put them in probation, mind you (probation as we know it today didn’t exist) — but throw them out of the association entirely.

And more than half of the schools in the NCAA voted to expel The Citadel, and the other six schools.

That’s right. Of the 203 delegates, 111 of them cast a ballot to toss out The Citadel and company. The president of the NCAA actually announced that the motion had passed — and then he was reminded that a two-thirds super-majority was needed, and that the motion had thus failed by 25 votes.

That failure essentially ended the long-term viability of the Sanity Code (though it wasn’t formally repealed until the following year).

I think about that occasionally. It is a reminder that things are always going to be a bit testy for The Citadel when it comes to its place in college sports. More than half of its fellow NCAA members once voted to throw the school out of the club.

It is also not strictly coincidental that The Citadel struggled mightily in varsity athletics in the years following the original enactment of the Sanity Code (there were admittedly other reasons too).

From 1948 through 1954, the Bulldogs’ football program had a record of 21-44-1, with no winning seasons in those seven years. In basketball it was even worse. From 1949 through 1956, the hoopsters were 28-135.

Does that sound vaguely familiar?

Things changed, though. The climate around college athletics eventually turned a bit (not too much) in The Citadel’s favor. By the late 1950s, backed by a new school president who didn’t like to lose, and playing in a conference with schools much more on its level than in the previous 20 years, The Citadel started winning consistently in almost all sports.

That can happen again. It will require patience, though. I just hope the folks running the institution (and the alumni and other supporters) maintain that patience.

I want to win, too. I just don’t want to throw away what makes The Citadel great in the process.

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The Citadel: Status of the Football Program

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

Judging from some posts at TCISN over the last few weeks (and from some non-message board discussions I have heard), there is sentiment in some circles that it’s time to make a coaching change at The Citadel.  This is, in my opinion, definitely a minority viewpoint, but it’s out there.

It’s a position that reached its zenith in popularity following the offensive debacle against Georgia Southern, and I have to say it would be hard to blame anyone for having a knee-jerk reaction after sitting through that game.  It was embarrassing.  The improved performance against Elon last Saturday seems to have muted some of the “we need a new coach” talk, though.

That said, I seriously doubt there is going to be a coaching change after this season. Actually, I would be really, really surprised if Kevin Higgins weren’t retained.

Higgins is currently under contract through the 2013 football season.  In this economic climate, there aren’t many schools that are prepared to let a coach go with three years left on his deal, and The Citadel doesn’t have a history of doing that, anyway.  Just the opposite, in fact.  The Citadel has honored the full contracts of “lame-duck” coaches like Don Powers in football and Randy Nesbit in basketball, just to name two.

Another thing to consider is that after last season, his second straight losing campaign (and fourth in five years), Higgins decided to completely scrap his spread offense and move to the triple option.  That doesn’t strike me as the move of a man worried about job security, because he had to know when he made that decision that the 2010 season was probably going to be difficult.  Maybe he didn’t think it was going to be as difficult as it has turned out, perhaps, but he knew the potential pitfalls.

I don’t know, but I would guess that before deciding to employ a new offense Higgins had a chat with AD Larry Leckonby about the move, just to make sure his position was safe for at least a couple of years.  That also was likely the message Leckonby delivered to prospective assistant coaching candidates (Higgins brought in seven new assistants).

Tommy Laurendine, for example, was in a presumably “safe” job at his alma mater, Lenoir-Rhyne.  I doubt he would have taken the job at The Citadel if he thought there was a chance that it would only be for one year.  The same is true for Josh Conklin and Bob Bodine, among others.

Assuming Higgins is back for at least one more season, then, where does the program stand in relation to historical norms?  Is keeping a coach with his overall and league record a good idea, regardless of contract status?  What factors besides on-field performance need to be considered?

—

First, let’s look at some numbers (keep in mind that at the time of this post, The Citadel has yet to play its final game of the 2010 season, which is at Samford).

Kevin Higgins is 26-40 overall, 14-30 in the Southern Conference.  He has been the Bulldogs’ head coach for six full seasons.

Twenty-three men have served as head coach of The Citadel.  Eight of them coached prior to the school joining the Southern Conference.  Tatum Gressette is the transitional coach in this respect, with the last four years of his eight-year tenure marking the first four SoCon campaigns for The Citadel.

Counting Gressette, then, let’s take a look at how Higgins compares to those fifteen coaches who competed in the Southern Conference.

— Overall record:  Higgins ranks 10th out of 15 in winning percentage

— SoCon record:  Higgins ranks 8th out of 15 in winning percentage

There is more to this than just those placements, though.  Higgins may only be 10th alltime in overall winning percentage, but of the five coaches behind him, three of them were his immediate predecessors at The Citadel.  The other two, Quinn Decker and John McMillan, were the first two coaches at The Citadel following the program’s post-World War II restart.

As for the SoCon record, Higgins has a better conference winning percentage than Ellis Johnson and John Zernhelt (but not Don Powers, interestingly), and also has a better mark than Tom Moore, along with John Rowland, Gressette, Decker, and McMillan.

Starting with John Sauer, who only coached at The Citadel for two seasons, every coach who was at The Citadel between 1955 to 2000 has a better league record than Higgins, except Moore.  That includes Eddie Teague, who succeeded Sauer as head coach, and three men then-AD Teague later hired (Red Parker, Bobby Ross, and Art Baker).  Moore’s successor, Charlie Taaffe, also has a better SoCon record than Higgins.

Comparing Higgins’ SoCon record to the Gressette/Rowland/Decker/McMillan group is probably pointless, though.  For example, Gressette was 4-14 in league play over four seasons, but seven of his fourteen conference losses were to schools currently in the ACC or SEC.

Decker was 8-25-1 in conference action, which included playing either South Carolina or Clemson every season — as conference games.  (His 1950 squad was 2-3 in the league; one of the two wins came against the Gamecocks, at Johnson Hagood Stadium.)

That doesn’t even take into account the difficulties Decker (and later McMillan) had in trying to bring the program back up to the level it had been prior to the war.  It must have been hard, for the first nine seasons following the program’s return were losing campaigns.  Neither Decker nor McMillan ever had a winning season at The Citadel.

—

One thing to consider when evaluating a coach’s record at The Citadel would be, simply, how successful has the school been historically in football?  What should expectations be?

The Citadel has basically been a .500 program through most of its history.  At the time it joined the Southern Conference, the school’s overall football record was 115-112-24.  It had never had more than four consecutive winning seasons, or more than three straight losing campaigns.

The ten years leading up to league membership were fairly typical:  7-3, 3-6-1, 6-3-1, 4-5-1, 4-5-2, 5-4-1, 4-5, 3-5-1, 3-5-1, 4-3-1.  Even after joining the SoCon, the overall records (as opposed to conference play) continued in a similar vein.

As I mentioned, though, in the post-WWII era the football program at The Citadel struggled.  That included league play, despite the move of many of the SoCon’s bigger schools to a new confederation called the Atlantic Coast Conference.  Things finally changed with the arrival, not of a coach, but of a general.  Mark Clark wasn’t interested in losing.

After a bit of a false start with Sauer (probably best remembered at The Citadel for bringing in a young hotshot of an assistant named Al Davis), Clark’s hiring of Teague finally got the football program on a winning track.  In its nineteenth season of league play, The Citadel would finally finish with a winning record in conference action.  That was in 1957.

That’s right, it took nineteen seasons for The Citadel to have a winning league record after joining the Southern Conference.  Think about that.

Four years later, the school would win its first SoCon title.

—

Earlier I stated that The Citadel has “basically been a .500 program”, but of course the actual overall record is 454-518-32.  What I meant, though, is that for most of its history the school’s football program really puttered along at about a .500 clip, with two exceptions.

The first is that nine-year period following World War II.  The Citadel was 27-54-1 during that stretch.  The football program is 64 games under .500 alltime, and 27 of those 64 games can be accounted for in that near-decade of losing.

That’s arguably not the worst run in the history of the program, however (particularly if you account for the fact the program had been briefly dormant).  The longest stretch of consistent losing The Citadel has ever had has been a 13-year period where the cumulative record of the team is 50-93, 43 games under .500, with eleven losing campaigns and only one winning season in that timespan.  That includes an ugly 29-70 mark in SoCon play in those thirteen seasons.

Those thirteen years?  You guessed it.  They are the last thirteen years.  The current era is in the discussion for being the low point for the program, at least in terms of on-field competitiveness.

—

Was there one event, a specific turning point, that led to the football program’s slide?  I think so.  Some people might claim it to be the dismissal of Charlie Taaffe, but that wasn’t the tipping point.  No, the die was actually cast on November 23, 1999, two days before Thanksgiving that year.

Don Powers’ team had gone 2-9 that season (after a 5-6 campaign the year before). Powers was essentially a caretaker-type coach, a fill-in for Taaffe, but after four years it was clearly time for fresh blood.  Walt Nadzak made the decision to reassign Powers — and then was overruled by the school president, Major General John Grinalds.

I linked Jeff Hartsell’s article about this move above; here it is again.  It’s worth linking twice, because I think Grinalds’ decision, “honorable” as he thought it was, started the ball rolling downhill for the football program, and not in a good way.  Sure, it was just one year.  Sometimes, though, that one year matters.  This was one of those times.

Timing is everything in life, and that includes college athletics.  In 1999 Nadzak was faced with a football program with a deteriorating on-field performance and a decrepit stadium.  He also had to contend with issues over which he had little to no control, from the proliferation of college sports (especially football) on cable television to women at The Citadel.

Nadzak knew he needed a new stadium, and he also knew that with it he needed a competitive team.  He didn’t get either (although the stadium would come eventually). In a column written the following week, Ken Burger all but predicted that Grinalds’ move would signal the end of Nadzak’s tenure at The Citadel.  He was correct.

Asked if he expects the Bulldogs to have a better season next year, Grinalds said, “Yes, we do.'”

The team went 2-9 for a second straight season…

—

I would suspect (although I can’t say for sure) that the dead-in-the-water aspect to the program had an impact on fundraising, perhaps including the ability of the school to raise money for the new stadium.  Things went slowly, too slowly, as the world around the school kept moving faster and faster.

If you run in place, you don’t go anywhere.  The Citadel needed a decent team to continue to draw fans, particularly because the stadium was becoming more and more of a problem, whether it was archaeologists digging up gravesites underneath the stadium for reburial, or the fact that you couldn’t turn on the stadium lights and the french fry machines at the same time because it would short out the electrical system, or having so many bricks fall off the facade that eventually they were all removed for safety reasons.

Now the school finally has a quality stadium, and it’s a first-rate facility.  What it doesn’t have is a drawing card, a team good enough to bring in new fans (and revive interest from old fans).

Ellis Johnson tried to overcome the program’s malaise in part by featuring transfers and hideous uniforms, and it didn’t work.  After three seasons, he was ready to become an FBS defensive coordinator again.  John Zernhelt lasted one year, and then moved on, taking big money from the New York Jets. (Hard to blame him.)

—

In the ten years prior to Kevin Higgins taking over as coach, The Citadel had an overall record of 36-74.  That’s actually a worse record by percentage than the nine-year period following World War II I referenced earlier.  In addition, the school had not had a winning record in conference play since 1992, the year The Citadel won its second (and last) league title.

That’s a lot to overcome.  Higgins got off to a good start, but soon found that one year does not establish a trend, or even momentum.

Can he get over the hump?  Normally when a coach has his record after six seasons, he doesn’t get an opportunity to find out.  However, I think the evidence suggests that Higgins had a higher mountain to climb than most, and that patience may in fact be warranted.

—

There is an elephant in the room, however.  I’m talking about home attendance.

The Citadel now has a great facility, and (other than the on-field results) a very good atmosphere for home games, including the cadets, tailgating, etc…and attendance is declining at an alarming rate.

Average attendance at Johnson Hagood since 1997:

1997 — 12,173

1998 — 13,291

1999 — 14,543

2000 — 14,342

2001 — 15,687

2002 — 15,582

2003 — 16,759

2004 — 8,359 (the year of “half a stadium” and thus an aberration)

2005 — 11,674

2006 — 14,599

2007 — 13,757

2008 — 12,261

2009 — 13,029

2010 — 11,445

Ouch.  Ouch for the last seven years, really, but particularly for this season.

I wrote extensively about attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium in July of last year. That post includes my theory on how television impacts attendance at The Citadel’s home games, among other things.

The Citadel cannot afford to have its home attendance continue to erode.  It’s not the only school to have concerns in that area, as anyone who has watched ACC games can attest.   Ultimately, though, attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium has to get better.

While baseball is the most successful sport at The Citadel, and basketball is the sport with the most potential for growth, football always has been and remains the bell cow for the department of athletics.  It drives the entire department, and also has a significant impact on the school as a whole.  Sagging attendance is a major problem, one that should concern everyone.

—

Even if The Citadel has a breakthrough year on the field next season, I would be surprised if there is a dramatic improvement in home attendance.  There is often a one-year lag between on-field/on-court success and attendance gains.

Because of that, if the team were to turn the corner, and the triple option to start cranking out games like, say, Navy’s offense did against East Carolina last week, I don’t expect attendance to make a big jump in 2011 (although the home schedule should help, as Furman, Wofford, and VMI are all expected on the JHS slate of games).  The 2012 season is when you would see dividends from a positive 2011 campaign.

—

Basically, I’m fine with Kevin Higgins getting another year.   I haven’t been completely happy with his tenure at The Citadel, even excepting the wins and losses; there have been issues from the unimportant (my continued frustration with the uniforms) to the all-important (the Rice/Starks episode, which was much, much worse than multiple 0-11 seasons would ever be).

He seems to be popular with the administration, which is good.  I thought it was interesting that the Alumni Association made him an “Honorary Life Member”; that news came after consecutive games in which his team didn’t score.  I did wonder if someone was trying to make a statement to certain unhappy alums, but I suppose it was just coincidental.

After next season, though, I think Larry Leckonby has to make a move if things don’t work out.  At that time Higgins will still have two years remaining on his contract, but if the team does poorly Leckonby won’t be able to afford keeping him.  He can’t make the mistake that was made over a decade ago.

That’s the bottom line, even at The Citadel.

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Thoughts on The Citadel and transfers

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

When I write about The Citadel and transfers, I want to first distinguish between basic types.  One of them is the three-year transfer.  It’s a little bit unusual, but not rare, for someone to spend his or her freshman year at another school, and then transfer into The Citadel.

Now, the “system” at The Citadel is designed for a four-year student.  In other words, the typical member of the corps of cadets spends four years at the school, and those four years have very specific benchmarks.  However, it is possible (and not particularly difficult) for a student to transfer in and spend three years in the corps, and have essentially the same experience as a four-year student.  Basically, the sophomore/junior years are combined.

I don’t know anyone associated with The Citadel who has a problem with a three-year transfer athlete representing the school.  I certainly don’t.  It doesn’t happen often, to be sure.  Recently Kenny Manigault, who played high school basketball in the Charleston area for Pinewood Prep, announced he was transferring from Wichita State to The Citadel. Manigault will have three years of athletic eligibility, and will presumably be spending (at least) three years in the corps of cadets.

Another athlete who will be transferring in to The Citadel is Blane Woodfin, who originally committed to Air Force, but was not admitted to the AFA (reportedly because of a physical problem).  Woodfin attended Montana State last year but did not play football, and will thus apparently have four years of athletic eligibility remaining at The Citadel, not three.

These are not transfers likely to cause any cantankerous old alum heartburn, even though Manigault called Chuck Driesell “real laid back”, which is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone call Driesell laid back.  The Citadel as an institution, as Manigault and Woodfin will soon learn (if they don’t know already), is certainly not laid back…

—

However, there is another type of transfer that has been popping up more and more at The Citadel in recent years, the “fifth-year” transfer.

This started in football, where a player can transfer from an FBS school to an FCS school and play immediately.  The “trailblazer” in this category for The Citadel was Jeff Klein, a quarterback who transferred from Auburn and played one year for The Citadel (2002).

He was followed the next season by former Clemson QB Willie Simmons and ex-Duke defensive back Anthony Roberts.  Those three players played for The Citadel under former coach (and alum) Ellis Johnson.  In recent years, Kevin Higgins has had two fifth-year transfers — his son, wideout Tim Higgins (who originally played for Florida), and tight end B.J. Phillips (North Carolina).

All of these guys graduated from their original schools and played one year as graduate students for The Citadel, except for Phillips (who had two years of athletic eligibility in football remaining after graduating from UNC).

As students in The Citadel Graduate College, none of these players were members of the corps of cadets (indeed, it’s possible none of them even attended classes with cadets, as graduate classes at The Citadel are held at night).

Reports vary on how seriously these graduate student athletes attempted to bond with their teammates, tried to understand/appreciate what cadets go through, etc.  My general impression, which could be wrong, is that Simmons and the younger Higgins made an effort to try and “jell” with the team and school; Klein, not so much.  Phillips, of course, still has one year left on the football team.

These one-year-only players were not a factor in basketball at The Citadel because there was no lower classification within Division I for them to transfer to without penalty (in other words, no FBS/FCS distinction).  At least, they weren’t a factor until last year, when Joe Wolfinger transferred to The Citadel after graduating from Washington.

Wolfinger had his degree and one year of athletic eligibility in basketball remaining, and he used that year to play basketball at The Citadel, thanks to a technicality.  As this article explained:

Wolfinger will be a fifth-year senior next season and is apparently eligible to play immediately at The Citadel because he has graduated from UW and will enter a Master’s program at The Citadel that is not offered at Washington.

Wolfinger is gone, and so is Ed Conroy, but Chuck Driesell has decided to bring in his own tall transfer for this upcoming season:

Mike Dejworek, a 6-11 center from Belmont University, will play one season for the Bulldogs as a graduate student, new coach Chuck Driesell confirmed…

…Dejworek, a native of Ulm, Germany, sat out last season with a shoulder injury after playing three years for Belmont. In 2008-09, he played in 24 games and started one for a 20-13 Belmont team, averaging 1.7 points and 1.6 rebounds. He was a reserve on a Belmont team that made the NCAA tournament his sophomore season.

I presume that, like Wolfinger, Dejworek will be enterering a Master’s degree program at The Citadel that is not offered by Belmont.

—

There are plenty of alums who are less than crazy about athletes competing on varsity teams without ever being part of the corps of cadets.  Ken Burger, then the sports editor of The Post and Courier, wrote about this as far back as 2003:

…the school’s old guard is very vocal about this troublesome trend. They say these young men never spent a single day at The Citadel and don’t deserve the privilege of wearing the school’s uniform. Even its football uniform…

…Over the next three months we will find out how this experiment works out for [Ellis] Johnson’s program and The Citadel. And, there will be plenty of people watching and judging from the sidelines…

…While it’s easy to say the old school should stick to the old ways, there’s another side of this controversy that can’t be ignored.

The Citadel’s military counterpart, VMI, recently left the SoCon and downgraded to the Big South Conference because the Keydets could no longer compete…

Ah, yes, the old “we just can’t compete” crutch.  Poor, pitiful puppies; how can our coaches ever win?

—

First, the obvious.  Charlie Taaffe won a Southern Conference title in football without any non-cadet help.  He beat South Carolina and Arkansas and Army and Navy, and all of his players were in the corps of cadets.

Brief tangent:  Just for clarification, Taaffe did occasionally have some fifth-year guys who had already graduated and had an extra year of eligibility remaining after redshirting, but all of them had spent four years in the corps.  That is a completely different situation than the fifth-year ‘program’ I’m discussing in this post, of course.

Eddie Teague won a SoCon title back in the day, too, with members of the corps of cadets.  It’s not easy (after all, The Citadel has just those two league titles in football), but it can be done.

Meanwhile, the fifth-year recruits have not exactly led to dramatic success on the gridiron.  Klein set lots of passing records in 2002, but the team went 3-9.  With Simmons at quarterback (and Roberts in the defensive backfield)  in 2003, the Bulldogs improved to 6-6.  Tim Higgins’ one season at The Citadel came in 2007, the only season since 1997 in which the Bulldogs have finished with a winning record (7-4).

In hoops, Wolfinger did not prove to be a difference-maker last year, as The Citadel went 16-16, a season that followed a 20-13 campaign.  Wolfinger got progressively less playing time as the year went on, as he turned out not to be a particularly good fit for The Citadel’s style of play.

There is another aspect to this, the “recruited over” concern.  If you are a promising high school football player and you are considering The Citadel, should you be worried about the possibility that down the road, when it’s finally time for you to become a regular, the coach will suddenly bring in some graduate student to take your position?  Being recruited over is something normally associated with players at big-time college basketball programs, not The Citadel.

—

Those are the on-field results and issues.   What about the off-the-field repercussions?

— The essence of The Citadel, the part that differentiates it from other schools, is the corps of cadets.  Our athletic teams are supposed to represent the students at the military college.  What statement is the school making when it elects to offer opportunities to varsity athletes who have never been a part of the military environment?

— For that matter, the athletic teams represent the alumni as well.  Am I supposed to identify with varsity athletes who did not go through the same experiences that I did?

— If I have misgivings as an alumnus about identifying with these athletes, just imagine how the current members of the corps of cadets must feel.

— There is also the public perception.  Many outsiders are impressed that The Citadel can compete at all with the inherent disadvantages of being a military school.  When you bring in players from outside that environment, do you know what the general public calls them?  Ringers. (So do some alums.)

At that point The Citadel becomes “just another school” in the minds of some people.  Is that something that the powers-that-be at The Citadel want?

I might add that the perception issue is magnified when the player plays a high-profile position (like quarterback) in football.  In basketball, there aren’t that many players, so almost any player is highly visible.

—

Having said all that, I don’t blame any of the individual coaches for bringing in graduate students.  Coaches are trying to win.  Winning is not easy to do at The Citadel, so it’s not surprising that coaches try to work the system as much as possible.

Coaches also tend to have a narrower focus; it’s hard to expect Chuck Driesell, for example, to consider how a graduate student playing basketball may affect the school, in terms of the big picture.   Driesell is just trying to find a big man who can rebound.

The administration has the responsibility of telling the coaches to focus solely on recruiting players who will be part of the corps of cadets.  It appears that, for whatever reason(s), the current administration does not share the concerns that have been expressed by some alums.

Maybe the thinking from General Rosa and company is that one or two exceptions don’t really matter.  I don’t know.  It’s also possible that the school wants to have occasional graduate student varsity athletes, in an effort to promote the Graduate College.

I tend to doubt that having an occasional hoopster or football player in the graduate school is going to raise the profile of the CGC, although I couldn’t blame the school for trying every avenue to promote it.  The CGC is an opportunity for The Citadel to make money, which the school needs to do.

Over the past few years, the military college has gradually become simply a state school, as opposed to a state-supported school.  That’s because the State of South Carolina continues to cut back on funding for higher education (in general, the state legislature believes higher education should end after the third grade).

[Sorry for the political jibe, but honestly, our state’s lack of commitment to education is embarrassing.]

—

In closing, one thing I want to emphasize is that I don’t have anything against the players who enter the school as graduate students.  They are taking advantage of a great opportunity, as well they should.  I wish them well, and I hope they are successful in class and on the field of play.  I will be rooting for them, as I do anyone who represents my alma mater.

I just wish the administration would revisit the current policy.  I strongly believe that varsity athletes at The Citadel should all come from the corps of cadets.  I know my opinion doesn’t really matter, but I also know that I’m not the only person who feels this way about transfers and varsity athletics.

—

Yes, I’m ready for football season…

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Taking names, and talking names

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel 84, Georgia Southern 75.

I enjoyed watching this game.  I wish John Brown had made both of his last-second free throws, so The Citadel could have won by double digits, but considering the team has already won more games in this campaign than it did all of last season, it’s all good.

Speaking of John “Abolitionist of the Glass” Brown, where did he come from?  He started the season opener, played nine minutes, then played a total of five minutes until last Saturday, when he suddenly started the game against Bethune-Cookman and contributed solid defense and rebounding over 20 minutes.  Last night he came off the bench and snatched 11 boards in 26 minutes.  Brown is a long-armed 6’4″ redshirt freshman from Savannah who Jeff Hartsell had tipped on his blog during the preseason as a possible contributor, but I was not prepared for his productivity (and it was rather obvious that Georgia Southern wasn’t either).  If he turns out to be a rebounding maven who can play some D, which last night certainly appeared to be the case, Brown will fill a much-needed role for the Bulldogs.

Besides Brown’s performance, The Citadel got 38 combined points from the  two-headed post monster of Demetrius Nelson and Bryan Streeter, who combined to shoot 12-18 from the floor and also got to the line a gratifying 22 times (Streeter needs to shoot better than 50% from the stripe, though).  The Citadel never trailed after making a nice run at the end of the half, this despite a mediocre night from beyond the arc (6-19) and shooting only 43% from the field, all while playing at a much faster than normal pace (84 possessions, although part of that was due to the end-game fouling by GSU).

Defensively The Citadel held the Eagles to 41% shooting from the field, 29% from three-land, and outrebounded Georgia Southern by five.  The Bulldogs also committed one fewer turnover than GSU.

Also, I’m guessing that Ed Conroy had a chat with Austin Dahn after the game that went something like this:  “Austin, when we’re up nine with 1:11 to play and have the ball in the frontcourt, and there are 30 seconds left on the shotclock, do me a favor and don’t take a three-pointer, even if you’re open.”   I could be wrong, but I suspect that conversation happened.  I sincerely hope that conversation happened, anyway…

The Citadel’s two conference victories this season have come against teams that in four games last year outscored the Bulldogs by an average of 23 points per game, including two 30-point losses.

—

The Stephen Curry circus comes to town on Saturday.  It’s been almost 50 years since the Southern Conference had a star of Curry’s magnitude in the league.  Back then, it was Jerry West.  McAlister Field House was jammed to the rafters with people when The Citadel hosted West Virginia and its star, and I suspect that close to a full house (if not an actual sellout) will be on hand for Davidson and its main man.  Obviously if The Citadel were to somehow beat Davidson it would be one of the bigger wins in school history.  It’s hard to see that happening.  I think Davidson has a good chance of going 20-0 in the league for a second year in a row.

20-0 in the league would presumably mean that even a SoCon tourney stumble would not keep Davidson out of the NCAAs, but Wildcat fans should not count on an at-large bid being a given.  The last SoCon team to get an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament was North Carolina State, in 1950.

—

Okay, I want to wrap up this post with one of my biggest pet peeves.  This is the first time I’m mentioning it on this blog, but you better believe that it won’t be the last.  Here is my plea to Larry Leckonby, all the coaches at The Citadel, General Rosa, anyone and everyone who has some say-so on matters pertaining to Bulldog athletics:

Get the name of the school right on the uniforms, for God’s sake!

If you look at the game notes for basketball, you will see a little blurb inserted by the good folks in the athletic media relations office that reads:

“DON’T FORGET THE … THE
We ask that when referring to the Bulldogs, please use The Citadel. We are The Military College of South Carolina,
but we are referred to as The Citadel. The the is part of our name. Thank you.”

I would like to personally thank whoever it was that put that in the notes.  I just wish whoever it was would remind our coaches and other administrators that the school is called The Citadel, because some of them seem unaware of it.

The Citadel, for such a tradition-laden place, has gone through a lot of uniform changes in a lot of its sports over the years.  (The football helmet design has been changed so often, it’s a joke — although the current design is one billion times better than the Ellis Johnson-era gray helmet disaster.)

Right now we are sporting football uniforms that say “Citadel” on the front instead of “The Citadel”, and basketball uniforms that say “Citadel” on the front instead of “The Citadel”.  Is it too much to ask that we get the name of the school right on our own jerseys?  Every time I see the ESPN “Bottom Line” sportsticker, it says “Citadel” on it, and I am momentarily annoyed with the network…and then I remember my own alma mater can’t get it right on its athletic uniforms, and I get even more annoyed with the school.

Fix this, and fix it now.  It drives me crazy.  I know that I’m not alone in complaining about it, either.

(And if anybody in the department needs some advice on a decent and at least semi-permanent football helmet design, drop me a line.  I have a couple of ideas.)

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