Trying to fill a stadium

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

Note:  Yes, this is long.  It needs to be, though.  (Believe it or not, it could have been longer — I did some judicious editing.)  It can be read in stages if necessary, I suppose.  It’s one of the two longest posts I’ve made on this blog, along with my rundown of The Citadel’s brutal hoops history, which was made prior to basketball season.  After I made that post, the basketball team had one of its best campaigns ever.  If that’s the kind of karma attached to long essays, then the average attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium will approach 20,000 fans this season.

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In 2007 The Citadel went 7-4, its first winning season in a decade.  There was plenty to be optimistic about in 2008, especially since the major renovation work to Johnson Hagood Stadium had been completed in the off-season.  Lots of folks were expected to come out to see if the Bulldogs could maintain their success while enjoying the comforts of a stadium with actually decent restroom facilities.  Instead, the school averaged almost 1,500 fewer fans per game than it had in ’07 (and 2,000+ fewer than it had in 2006).  What happened?

Well, the answer to that is complicated.  I want to address some of the issues related to attendance, and attendance specifically at The Citadel’s home football games.

I want to start, though, by pointing out something that is obvious, but gets forgotten about sometimes when alums talk about attendance.  For a school of The Citadel’s size, its historical football attendance is great.  Not good, great.  Even in a disappointing year (last season the average attendance per home game was just 12,261), The Citadel had an attendance-to-undergrad ratio of 6 to 1.  Do you know how many schools out there (especially FCS schools) would kill for even a 2 to 1 ratio?  Schools with just 2,000 students and a small alumni base really shouldn’t be doing that well.  It says a lot for the school’s loyal alums and fans that the attendance is as good as it is.

Having said that, attendance has been better before, and needs to be better again.  Anyone who looked at the budget numbers presented in an article by Jeff Hartsell of The Post and Courier a few weeks ago can see the importance of having Johnson Hagood Stadium filled with fans.  If attendance doesn’t start to get better, Ed Conroy is going to have to start scheduling road games against every Big XII school, not just Texas and Missouri.  The money from football props up the entire department of athletics.

The key to increasing attendance, of course, is winning.  Win more games, get more fans.  It’s a simple concept.  The only thing you have to remember about it is that success on the field generally leads to more ticket sales in the following season; there tends to be a one-year lag.  Of course, that’s if you have just one good year at a time (like going a decade between winning seasons).  Putting together a string of successful campaigns usually (but not always) leads to a more permanent base of fans.

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When I opine about issues, I tend to illustrate my points in a statistical manner.  Numbers usually don’t lie, so I use them to back my point of view.  (Also, I use them because I’m a dork.)  Now, there are plenty of stats available when it comes to attendance, and I’m going to use some of them, but with a little bit of a caveat.  Let me explain what I mean.

The Citadel has had four modern-day directors of athletics — Eddie Teague, Walt Nadzak, Les Robinson, and the current AD, Larry Leckonby.  I have no way of knowing how each of them approached counting attendance at home games.  There are different ways to add up the numbers, and there is no guarantee that the way The Citadel’s numbers were counted was consistent over time.  It may be, for example, that sometimes season ticket holders were counted whether they were at the game or not, and it may be that sometimes they were only counted if they actually showed up.

I have occasionally wondered if other schools secretly counted the folks tailgating during the game, along with the teams, on-field personnel, the working (and non-working) press, concession stand employees, and mascots.  That’s not likely to be the case at The Citadel (and in the case of the non-game attending tailgaters, you’re talking about a not insignificant number.)

I have had multiple sources suggest to me that Larry Leckonby counts people who actually show up — no more, no less.  If that is the case, I applaud his philosophy.  I would count attendance the same way, although I would also count General, because he certainly deserves to be counted.

This uncertainty about published attendance figures was brought home to me one day while I was looking at the 2006 football media guide.  I spotted game writeups for the two playoff games in 1992, the win over North Carolina A&T and the loss to Youngstown State, each played at Johnson Hagood Stadium.

I attended both of those games.  I distinctly remember there were worries about the attendance, particularly for the first game against the Aggies, which took place on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day, while the cadets were on furlough.  The Citadel had to have at least 12,000 folks show up to A) not lose money (there was a guarantee to the NCAA involved) and B) show that it merited hosting another playoff game.

Well, everything came up roses for The Citadel.  Plenty of folks showed up on a beautiful November afternoon to watch the Bulldogs pummel the MEAC champs, 44-0.  The next day’s edition of The Post and Courier featured a column by Ken Burger in which he detailed the “drama” behind the scenes, as representatives from the NCAA seemingly kept putting up roadblocks to the Bulldogs’ chances of hosting another game, only to eventually be bullied into submission by a pushy Walt Nadzak.  Burger wrote:  “although Citadel officials cannot announce the official attendance until after an NCAA audit, crowd estimates are about 17,000 were on hand.”

I was one of those on hand, seated right next to The Man From Macon (my ears are still ringing from his delirious shouting), and that estimate of 17,000 sounds about right to me.  Even more fans attended the game the following week; I would say that slightly over 18,000 came to see that matchup.

Then I came across the box in the ’06 media guide, and there were the “official” attendance figures:  12,300 for the North Carolina A&T game; 13,021 for the Youngstown State game.  What?

The NCAA came up with those numbers, after an “audit”.  Both figures are laughable.  I’m fairly confident that 5,000 people didn’t sneak into each game for free.  At any rate, it’s just another example of how you have to be careful when evaluating historic attendance trends.

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While I wouldn’t want to bet my life on the complete accuracy of the numbers, I think evaluating them under certain parameters is instructive.  Also, I’ve got a theory on attendance that needs at least something solid behind it.  Anyway, here we go…

If you take the per-season home attendance average of the last four seasons, and then average those seasons together, you get a cumulative season average of 13,073.  That’s for 2005-2008.  If you then go back exactly twenty years, to the 1985-1988 seasons, you get a cumulative season average of 14,582.  That’s a difference of 1,509.  One reason I picked those years as a comparison is that the record on the field was very similar — 20-25 (2005-08), and 20-24-1 (1985-88).  It’s not an exact match, to be sure — the ’80s record includes Tom Moore’s last two campaigns and Charlie Taaffe’s first two seasons, while the last four years are the sum total of the Kevin Higgins era — but I think it’s a pretty good comparison.

If you go back to 1975-1978, the cumulative average for that four-year period is 16,584.  However, The Citadel in those four seasons had a slightly better record (22-22).  That period marked the transition from Bobby Ross to Art Baker.  Perhaps a better comparison to the two eras in the preceding paragraph would be the first four seasons under Ross, 1973-1976, when the Bulldogs were 19-25 overall.  Attendance in those seasons averaged out at 14,902.

So basically, from two and three decades ago until now, with similar teams, there appears to be a dropoff of between 1500-2000 fans.  You will find a lot of longtime Bulldog fans who will tell you that over the years the “base” has declined by just that amount (some will say even more, but I believe they’re thinking about stretches when the school had several successful seasons in a row).  1500-2000 fans is a big deal for a school of The Citadel’s size.  That would be like South Carolina or Clemson drawing 10,000+ fewer fans per year, and we’re talking about a longterm decline, not just a one- or two-season blip.

In comparing recent attendance to that of past seasons, I had to be careful and select similar, or at least remotely similar, circumstances, both on and off the field.  For instance, you can’t compare anything to 1989, when Hurricane Hugo disrupted not just the season, but the entire Charleston area, nor can you match “apples to apples” with 2004, the year following demolition of the West Stands, when the seating capacity of JHS was listed at 12,500.

2004 also featured the cancellation of a game against Charleston Southern (thanks to another hurricane threat), a season finale against Western Carolina that took place at the same time as a televised Clemson-South Carolina game, and a Thursday night “special” against Benedict that turned out to be an attendance disaster, with only 5,127 fans showing up.  (What I remember most about that Benedict game was “voice of the Bulldogs” Sam Evans beginning his public address announcements by saying, “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to what’s left of historic Johnson Hagood Stadium.”)

I also didn’t want to compare the recent attendance issues to periods of consecutive winning seasons, like 1979-81 and 1990-1992, or to the malaise of the late 1990s-early 2000s.

The key to the difference in the compared eras lies in the makeup of The Citadel’s base of supporters, which can be divided into two groups:  alums and their families, and those fans without an obvious connection to The Citadel.  I believe the eroding of the base has much more to do with the second group.

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First, however, I want to discuss the “alums” category, including some things on which not everyone may agree, and for which I can’t point to a specific statistic.  What I believe, though, is that by and large graduates of The Citadel are significantly less likely to be natural supporters of the school’s athletic teams than, say, alums of larger state schools.

Not only are there more students at larger schools, but a higher percentage of those students grow up rooting for that particular school.  Quite a few of them actually choose to go to school based on their lifelong support of its athletic teams.  Those students eventually graduate, and so there is a fairly sizable base of true-blue fans just from that group.

Nobody who is not on athletic scholarship chooses to go to The Citadel because of its varsity sports teams.  Because of this, I think that a smaller percentage of its students are destined to become lifelong devoted fans of college football, hoops, etc.  That’s true of most small schools, of course.  (I believe The Citadel has fewer sports fans among its students than even among other small schools, however — at least, that was my impression when I was in school.  That also applied to things tangentially related to sports.  Was there buzz on campus for Bull Durham or Hoosiers?  No.  Full Metal Jacket, yes, a thousand times yes.)

That makes the fact the athletic teams are supported as well as they are by the alumni all the more remarkable.  I think it has a lot to do with the natural camaraderie built up by four years in the corps of cadets.  Alums come back for the games, but they really come back to see each other, or just to be part of the experience that is The Citadel again, even for just a Saturday afternoon.  It’s a nice vibe, complete with the justly-celebrated tailgating scene (which may be too good a scene when it comes to trying to increase attendance inside the stadium).

One of the things I have noticed, though, is that there is a bit of a “doughnut hole”, if you will, among alums attending games.  Basically, when I go to games I see a lot of alums representing the over-50 crowd, and I see a fair number of young grads, but there is a gap between those two groups in the gameday support.  You don’t really see a lot of guys in their 30s and 40s, at least in comparison.  Some might disagree with me on that, but this has been my observation.  I could be wrong, of course.

Obviously those alums in their 30s and 40s are more likely to have school-age kids, and perhaps because of that, they don’t have as much free time (or discretionary income).  I would guess that’s not particularly unusual for a college alumni fan base.  That isn’t to say there aren’t a good number of kids at the games, because there are.  However, the lack of grads in that age group at football games is noticeable (at least to me).

Okay, that’s my riff on alumni support.  Now I want to talk about the other potential game attendees, and why there aren’t as many of them as there used to be.  Here comes my theory.  (Drum roll.)

Television.

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Back in the good old days (which weren’t really all that great), the NCAA controlled regular-season college football broadcasting.  It had extremely restrictive rules on how often schools could appear on TV, and also limited the number of overall telecasts.  As late as 1978 there were a total of 58 college football games broadcast on TV during the regular season (13 of which were televised nationally).  Last season there were 58 televised games involving FBS and FCS schools just in the third week of October.

Change came as a result of a 1984 Supreme Court decision that ruled the NCAA’s way of doing things violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.  Schools (and conferences) were thus free to negotiate TV deals for themselves.  The decision also coincided with the rise of cable television, notably ESPN.  Suddenly there were outlets that needed programming, and schools and conferences that had programming to offer.  The world of college football hasn’t been the same since.

It used to be that if you lived in the Lowcountry and wanted to see some college football action, but you didn’t want to drive up I-26 to Columbia (or further up the road to Clemson/Athens/Atlanta), your one option was to head to Johnson Hagood Stadium to watch The Citadel.  The odds that you could watch one of the state’s major college teams on TV instead were not good.  Between 1969-1978, there were seven televised Clemson regular-season football games  (one national, six regional).  In that same period, South Carolina only appeared on TV during the regular season five times (all regional broadcasts; the Gamecocks did not have a nationally televised regular-season game until 1980).

Even after the Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates, South Carolina did not draw a lot of TV time; for example, in 1989, the Gamecocks appeared on television during the season just once (in a 45-0 loss at home to Clemson — ouch).  This was partly due to South Carolina still being an independent in football at the time.  Once the Gamecocks joined the SEC, appearances on the tube became a more regular occurrence.  Clemson was on TV more often during the 1980s, thanks to deals the ACC had with Raycom and ESPN, although the Tigers’ appearances on TV during the early part of the decade were mostly on tape-delay, due to Clemson being on probation.

Now, of course, you can see the Tigers and Gamecocks almost every week on TV, along with many other major college programs, at every time of day and night.  You can also see a select number of FCS teams in action, but not nearly as many, and mostly as part of regional telecasts.  The Southern Conference has a modest agreement with SportSouth to show eight league games all season (The Citadel will appear in just one of them).

The constant TV exposure for Clemson, South Carolina, and the rest of the FBS schools is great for them.  It promotes their programs, and increases their respective fan bases.  For schools like The Citadel, though, it can be a problem.  Trying to attract fans who aren’t naturally affiliated with the program means competing against a lot of other entities, especially in a city like Charleston.  The Citadel isn’t on TV enough itself to get the publicity benefits that accrue to the bigger schools, and then football fans have the option to watch those other schools on television.

As an example, let’s look at last season and what the folks selling tickets at The Citadel were up against for each home date:

  • The home opener (8/30) was a night game against Webber International.  Attendance was announced as 11,247.  Quite honestly, I think The Citadel was lucky to get that many fans for what was a de facto glorified scrimmage.  South Carolina had played on Thursday night, but Clemson played Alabama in primetime in a much-hyped affair (the lesson, as always:  don’t believe the hype).  Locally, the ticket office also had to compete against a bluegrass/BBQ festival held at Boone Hall Plantation.
  • The next game at JHS came against Princeton on 9/20.  13,120 fans attended that game, most of whom would be mystified by what went on at halftime.  This was an afternoon game.  South Carolina played Wofford at night in Columbia (that game was on PPV).  Clemson played an afternoon home game against South Carolina State.  Another game of interest in the region, Florida-Tennessee, was played that afternoon as well.  An extra local competitor was the Scottish Games and Highland Gathering, held at Boone Hall, which drew 6,000 people that Saturday.  I’m guessing bagpiper groupies were not sure which event to attend.
  • On 9/27, Western Carolina came to town for a 1pm showdown.  Clemson played Maryland that afternoon in a game televised by Raycom.  South Carolina had another PPV home night game, this time against UAB.  North Carolina played Miami at noon in the only other regional game of any consequence.  Attendance for this game was only 11,216, and I don’t think the presence in town of the MOJA Arts Festival had a whole lot to do with it.
  • Elon played at The Citadel on 10/11 in a game slightly impacted by rain (but more impacted by hideous SoCon officiating).  This day was a good example of how 21st-century college football TV choices are different from those in the ’70s and ’80s.  The Citadel hosted Elon at the same time as the all-important Texas-Oklahoma game (that ultimately wasn’t quite important enough for the Longhorns) AND a road game for South Carolina that was televised by Raycom.  Also on TV that day were Georgia-Tennessee and Notre Dame-North Carolina.  The City of Charleston also conspired against the ticket office with its Taste of Charleston weekend (although the main event was held on Sunday).  Total attendance:  12,582, on a Parents’ Day Weekend.  Oof.
  • Georgia Southern played at Johnson Hagood on 11/1, opposite the Coastal Carolina Fair and a host of locally interesting TV games:  Georgia-Florida, Tennessee-South Carolina, and Clemson-Boston College.  11,190 people made it to JHS.  Many of them probably wished Kevin Higgins had gone for two in overtime.
  • Homecoming (on 11/15) was held opposite South Carolina-Florida (on CBS) and Duke-Clemson (on Raycom).  14,213 fans watched The Citadel escape (thanks, Andre) with a win over a wretched UT-Chattanooga squad.

Another thing that wasn’t around in 1978 (or even 1988) is the Charleston Southern football program.  Heck, back then CSU wasn’t even CSU; it was Baptist College.  I’m not sure how much of an effect the Buccaneers’ home games have on Bulldog home games played the same day, to be honest.  They may not have much impact, but every potential ticket not sold counts, in a manner of speaking.  For the record, last season CSU and The Citadel played at home on the same day on 9/27 (CSU attendance:  2,541), 11/1 (3,213), and 11/15 (2,434).

In 2009, incidentally, CSU and The Citadel will again have three home games on the same day, the first three home dates on the Bulldogs’ schedule.  Clemson or South Carolina will play home games on each of The Citadel’s five home dates, although for none of them will both of those schools be at home.  Times for those USC/Clemson games won’t be known until later in the season because of television.  Those TV “windows” also mean that it’s impossible to guess what other national/regional games might have an impact on the schedule (other than Florida-Georgia, which is pencilled in for 3:30 pm on 10/31; The Citadel plays Samford at 1 pm that day).  Also, as far as special local interest events are concerned, this year’s Scottish Games will take place the week before The Citadel’s home opener, much to the relief of the bagpiper groupies.

Compare today’s options for local area sports fans to those of 1978.  South Carolina had no games televised that year.  Clemson had only two regular season games televised (despite an 11-1 season).  If one or both were on the road or playing a rather lame opponent at home, then your choices were usually limited to a sole TV game, often featuring teams of limited interest.  A big football fan might very well be inclined to watch the local team play VMI or Delaware or Marshall (all of which were on the home schedule that year).  He would probably bring his transistor radio along and listen to Bob Fulton or Jim Phillips (or perhaps Larry Munson, which might have been more fun) while watching The Citadel.

I think that’s a big deal.  It’s hard to get the casual fan to the stadium these days.  Now, once you get him to Johnson Hagood (or at least to the tailgating areas), then you stand a decent chance of keeping him.

Anyway, that’s my theory.  The non-affiliated fan who might have been a potential customer/convert twenty and thirty years ago has more sporting options on a gameday Saturday, because of television.  He is probably more inclined to become a fan of an FBS school if he wasn’t already, because it’s easier to follow those teams now even from a distance, because of television.  FCS schools like The Citadel don’t benefit from increased exposure because they simply aren’t on the tube nearly as often as the FBS schools.  They could make up lost ground if they were on at least as often, but they’re not, so they don’t.  It’s a triple whammy.

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So, what to do about it?

Well, that’s the million-dollar question.  The Citadel has hard-working, competent people whose very jobs involve trying to improve its numbers at the gate.  They know what they’re doing, and I’m not going to pretend to be as expert as they are on the subject.  Having said that, I have some opinions, some of them of the macro variety, some micro…

Obviously, I think it’s most important to cater to the local “outsider” to bring up the numbers.  At this particular time, though, it also wouldn’t hurt to redouble efforts with the alumni base, which has seen a decade of poor on-field results overseen by a series of coaches, and games played in an aging stadium with facilities that were, frankly, unacceptable.  Out-of-touch alums need to be introduced to the “new” Johnson Hagood Stadium, which is clean, has a cool video board, is wheelchair-accessible and family-friendly, has an electrical system that won’t fail when the french fry machines are turned on, etc.  Plus, the current coach is entering his fifth season.  Stability!

I think it’s important to emphasize what makes going to a football game at The Citadel unique and fun.  The essential uniqueness, of course, is the corps of cadets.  That’s what The Citadel has to offer that other schools don’t.  It is key that the corps be energized for those three hours on a Saturday afternoon or early evening.  I believe the administration needs to make it worth the cadets’ while (weekend/overnight privileges, that type of thing) to be a primary source of entertainment.

The corps needs to be at least semi-organized for providing its special brand of mayhem.  I actually like that the cadets have been moved to the East Stands; it makes them more visible (and, for the visiting team, noisier).  Now it’s time to accentuate their enthusiasm, preferably in as zany a fashion as possible.  All I ask is that “Hey Baby” gets dropped.  Please?

Speaking of music, the band needs to be more incorporated into the scene than it is now.  There needs to be some coordination between promotions and the band in terms of not just when music is played, but what is played.  Note to some alums:  quit asking them to play “Dixie”.  Those days are over.

My other comment about music is that (old fogey alert!) the pre-game rap/hip-hop/heavy metal routine at about 200 decibels is extremely grating and, to me, not in keeping with the general gameday experience at The Citadel.  I know the football players like to get wound up by listening to some of that stuff, but there is too much of it right now.  I’m not asking for the current mix to be replaced by Frank Sinatra tunes (although that would cool in a retro-hip way), but there needs to be a little balance.  Also, I can go to any game and listen to somebody abuse the sound system while playing the latest in headbanging drivel.  Games at The Citadel need to be (and should be) different.

In keeping with trying to impress potential new fans, it never hurts to accentuate the military aspects of the gameday experience.  Pre-game flyovers are always good.  Guys parachuting in with the game ball, halftime shows featuring various specialty outfits (military marching bands or drill units) — those things tend to go over well.

That reminds me — what happened to the Touchdown Cannon Crew?  Now there just seems to be a Touchdown Cannon Dude.  Where are the riflemen?  There is probably a story behind their absence.  One thing this brings to mind is that, whenever possible, it’s nice to keep some continuity in the school’s gameday traditions.  The Citadel is big on tradition, although you would never know it by looking at its football uniform history.

Another thing to emphasize when trying to recruit new fans is the affordability aspect of going to games at Johnson Hagood.  In the current economy, in particular, this has to be a plus.

If you want to have decent seats at South Carolina games, for example, you have to give a lot of money to the Gamecock Club just to have the option of buying season tickets.  Then you have to pay a “premium” on those same seats.  Then after finally getting to buy the tickets the sucker customer needs to buy an expensive parking pass just to be able to park near Williams-Brice Stadium.  When you include travel costs, concessions, etc., soon (to paraphrase Everett Dirksen) you’re talking about real money.  All that for USC games, and we’re not talking about the USC that wins Rose Bowls, but the USC that has never played in a major bowl.  38-35!  Enough said.

Another thing to emphasize, or improve, is to make the games “kid-friendly”.  There are plenty of kids at games, but there needs to be a lot more.  Ticket promotions, giveaways with children in mind, the whole nine yards.  Some of this is already happening, which is good.  Another idea would be to have a specific organization just for youngsters — the Junior Bulldog Club, say.  Members could get perks, like being able to go out onto the field with the players before the game for the coin toss or some other type of ceremony, not unlike what you see at international and domestic European soccer matches.  After all, indoctrination should occur early in life.

Speaking of kid-friendly, one of the best things The Citadel has done in recent years is re-establish the live mascot program.  General and his good buddy Boo are kid magnets, as is their cartoon friend Spike.  I’ve actually heard a few gnarly old codgers grumble about Spike (some of the gnarliest codgers aren’t that old, either).  Those people are morons.  Mascots, in general, aren’t really meant to entertain somebody who is busy trying to figure out where he put his flask.  They’re largely there to keep children entertained while their father is screaming at the coach for running the ball on third-and-ten.  Just keep that in mind.

Finally, I have to say something about the cheerleading program.  Larry Leckonby needs to take a hard look at that issue and make some decisions.  It’s a part of the gameday experience that is currently a complete disaster.  Whether we outfit the cheerleaders in camo and go the gung-ho route, or revert to the days of importing them from other schools (probably not feasible), or simply not have cheerleaders at all, something needs to be done.  The current situation is not good at all.  The lack of enthusiasm for the program from the corps of cadets (and from the cheerleaders themselves) is disturbing.

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In conclusion, I do think attendance should improve this season, barring something unusual happening.  The home schedule is much more interesting, with games against instate schools Presbyterian, Furman, and Wofford, along with a visit from Appalachian State.  The best way of increasing attendance going forward, of course, was best expressed by former Bulldog assistant coach Al Davis:  “Just win, baby.”  Since you can’t always count on wins, though, you have to do all the “little things” to try to fill a stadium.  Here is hoping that Johnson Hagood will be packed with fans this season and beyond.

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The Citadel’s 2009-10 basketball “guarantee” games

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

It’s the first of July, so naturally I’m going to briefly blog about college basketball…

About a month ago Jeff Hartsell wrote an article in The Post and Courier detailing The Citadel’s budget for its department of athletics.  Among other things, he mentioned:

The two guarantee games The Citadel’s football team played at Clemson and Florida last season certainly helped with the 2009 bottom line, boosting football revenues to $1.5 million…

…By NCAA rule, the football team — the department’s largest revenue-producing program — is allowed to play only 11 games next season (the Bulldogs played 12 in 2009). Only five of those games will be at home, and only one will be a big-money guarantee game, at North Carolina on Sept. 5. There’s also a road game at Princeton that will require a $59,000 airplane flight (a bus ride was deemed too long).

All of that adds up to about $420,000 less in football revenue next year than in 2009, money that has to be made up elsewhere.

Where? The Citadel’s basketball team will play three guarantee games next year, boosting basketball revenue by more than $275,000…

Since that was written, I had wondered about those basketball guarantee games.  I know that The Citadel was still looking for at least one guarantee game as late as mid-June (and is possibly still looking for one, I suppose).  Well, on Wednesday morning Ed Conroy sent a Twitter message that read:

Schedule for next year coming together, possible trips to Texas & Missouri. It should be a very challenging but exciting schedule.

Edit (8/5):  it may be that the reference to Texas is actually about a game against Texas A&M (not UT-Austin).  The game against the Aggies has been confirmed by that school.

Edit (8/30):  Instead of Missouri, The Citadel will be playing Missouri State.  The Bulldogs are also playing West Virginia.

So those may be two of the three games (assuming there are only three).  I don’t know if a game against Clemson or South Carolina would be considered a “guarantee” game, but assuming the Bulldogs play one or the other of those schools, which is fairly typical for The Citadel in any given year, and also assuming that the expected home game against Michigan State comes to pass (part of a three-for-one deal, I believe), then The Citadel will indeed have a very challenging slate of non-conference games.

It’s not official yet, of course.  As it happens, The Citadel has never played Texas or Missouri in hoops (I’m not sure the Bulldogs have faced either school in any athletic competition, actually).  The Citadel is 1-4 alltime against current Big XII schools, with the lone victory a 62-61 decision over Texas A&M in 1971.  The Bulldogs lost three games to Nebraska in the early 1990s, and also dropped a much-closer-than-expected game to Kansas in 1987 (74-71).

That win over Texas A&M is one of two for Bulldog basketball squads against Lone Star State opponents, having also defeated Southwestern University in 2003.  The Citadel has also played Rice twice (1972 and 1973), losing both times, so all told the Bulldogs are 2-2 against teams from Texas.  As far as I can tell, The Citadel has never played a basketball game against a school from the state of Missouri.

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When tradition is less than permanent: The Citadel’s football uniforms

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

It’s June, so that means it’s a perfect time for me to blog about one aspect of The Citadel’s football program that has always annoyed me — namely, the uniforms.  For a school as tradition-laden as The Citadel, you would think that the football uniforms would have remained largely unchanged over time.  You would be very, very wrong to think that, though.

Now, why should anyone care about how football uniforms look?  I’ll tell you why.  It is all-important to success on the gridiron.  I have personal knowledge of this.

Many, many years ago, I began my star-crossed athletic career by participating in my hometown’s Pee Wee football program.  I was assigned to a team which I will not name, so as to protect the innocent.  The coach took one look at me — very tall for my age, and even skinnier for my age — and decided that I would make an ideal left tackle.  He also elected not to play a tight end on my side of the field, so I was what pigskin cognoscenti call the “weakside tackle”.

During games, opponents would often overload my side of the field and race into the backfield, tackling the ballcarrier for a loss despite my heroic efforts.  The coach would then blame me for the failure of his game plan, which he thought brilliant, never seeming to understand that running a delayed handoff on every play was not necessarily the way to go.

However, the biggest mistake he made came when selecting the jerseys for our team.  We received orange jerseys with black numerals on them, very plain indeed.  I was given a jersey with the number “2” (certainly a fine number for an offensive tackle).  The reason?  I was the second player in line.

After being washed, the jerseys turned a orangery-pinkish color, gradually turning even pinker as the season progressed.  The iron-on numerals were also of poor quality.  My numeral started falling apart by the second half of the first game, with the bottom part of the number almost completely gone by the third game.  By the time the season was over the number “2” had essentially turned into the punctuation mark “?”.  (Wearing the “?” was probably appropriate, since most of the time I was not really sure what the coach expected me to do.  He was the Ray Handley of Pee Wee coaches.)

It is almost needless to say, but without the pride and confidence instilled by wearing quality jerseys the team struggled and barely finished above .500 for the season.

The folowing year’s campaign was completely different.  The new coach was much better, as he actually knew what he was doing.  We ran a sound offense featuring two tight ends (I was the “blocking” TE; in retrospect it is a bit puzzling that we always ran the ball to the other side).  We also had four players on our team who eventually played college football, which helped.  However, none of that was as important as the improvement in the quality of our jerseys.

They were black, of good material, with significantly superior iron-on numerals (which were white).  Even better, they had “hoop” stripes on the upper sleeves, with red in the middle bordered by white.  Very classy.  I should also mention that no one on the team had to wear a “kicker” number.  Everyone had a number “50” or above.  I was number “86”.  Hines Ward would have approved.

The team powered through the regular season undefeated, and in the title game whipped a pack of green-shirted hoodlums to win the city championship.   I have always credited the uniforms for providing much-needed confidence and an “edge”.  Without them, perfection would never have happened.

—

The Citadel has gone through so many helmet design changes that the guy at The Helmet Project can’t keep up with them all.  He very politely states on his website that “The Citadel has a large and interesting helmet history”.  Interesting is one word for it…

Another helmet devotee, who runs a fine blog called The Helmet Archive, has drawn more of the old helmet designs used by the Bulldogs over time.  I would encourage anyone halfway interested in this topic to peruse this link [edit: now disabled], which shows most of the helmet designs worn by the Bulldogs since 1960.  The Helmet Archive also has a link to a photo page that shows many of the helmets/uniforms The Citadel has had over the last 50 years.  It’s good stuff (the pictures, that is; the uniforms, not so much).

Generally speaking, when it comes to most of the designs, I have two basic complaints about The Citadel’s uniforms, besides the fact they’ve changed too many times:

1)  The helmet logo is usually either too detailed or just looks stupid (sometimes both)
2)  The jersey (and on at least one occasion the helmet) often doesn’t have the “The” in “The Citadel” on it

I find that second issue particularly grating.  Look, if the name of the school is going to be on the front of the jersey, that’s fine — but get the name of the school right.  The lettering needs to be just large enough to be read by someone watching the game on TV (that’s right, TV; I’ll get to that in a minute) and the name should read “THE CITADEL”.  This has not always been the case in the past, and it isn’t the case in the present, either, as can be seen with this shot of the current jersey.  Is it too much to ask that the correct name of the college be used?   I hope not.

The photo of the current jersey also illustrates the problem with the lettering not being clearly legible.  This shows up more in the away uniforms, as the light blue color of the lettering doesn’t show well on white (especially on a sunny day).  Again, it doesn’t look that good on television, either, and it needs to “pop” on TV (the same is true for the helmet logo).  I would make the lettering a little larger, put a thin navy border around the letters to further distinguish them (“shading”), and obviously it should read “THE CITADEL”.

Another aspect of the jersey/pants that I would like to see changed is the current striping on the pants/shoulder area (the “side panels”).  That really needs to go.  I realize that it’s a Nike thing, so getting rid of it is probably easier said than done, but it’s just not a good look.

At least we no longer have the chevrons.  I would like to thank the person who decided to get rid of Ellis Johnson’s chevrons.  No coach at The Citadel seemed to put more thought into uniform design than Johnson.  Despite this (or maybe because of it), his teams played in what I consider the worst of The Citadel’s modern-day togs.

Not only did they feature chevrons on the shoulder pads (I should note that he wasn’t the first Bulldog coach to have them), but in his third year as head coach (2003), the team would wear the most abysmal of all of the Bulldogs’ helmet designs, which is really saying something.   Between the “gray shell” helmets and the chevrons, this was the nadir of The Citadel’s football uniform history.

The helmet featured a color that is not one of The Citadel’s primary (or even secondary) athletic standards.  Johnson didn’t like the way the blue helmet looked on blue jerseys, and stated that the gray shell exemplified the “storied history of the long gray line”.  Whatever.  The fact is that it clashed badly with the jersey; the logo borrowed from the New York Giants’ 1980s-1990s design (which wasn’t so hot to start with); and it naturally said “CITADEL” instead of “THE CITADEL”.  Just awful.  The Bulldogs actually kept that basic design for four seasons, too.  It is no surprise that The Citadel didn’t have much on-field success during this era.

Not that the gray shell look was the only poor helmet design; far from it.  Look at that photo link again.  Pick which decal of a bulldog is funnier — is it the one from 1964, 1967, or 1971?  Tom Moore’s coaching tenure featured a helmet design that just said, in text, “The Dogs”.  Robert Hill deserved better.  I don’t mind the helmets that just had numbers, although I see no particular reason to emulate Alabama (or Georgia Southern, for that matter).

The successful teams of the Charlie Taaffe regime had a script “The Citadel” decal in the style of one of the school’s marks of that time, a theme not unlike the current helmet design.  One of the more interesting (and better) logos was the “Star of the West” design employed during the late 1970s.  You can see this logo in a very cool picture found by the above-mentioned Helmet Archive site.  The problem with going back to that look is that A) trying to explain the “Star of the West” thing to people could be trying, and B) everyone would think we were imitating the Dallas Cowboys.

(Also notice in that picture the striping on the jersey and the pants.  Is that navy — or black?)

I don’t have a big problem with the current helmet design, but it’s not easy to see in person or on television.  I think it’s important to look good on TV, and if we’re going to have “TV numbers” on the shoulders and names on the backs of the jerseys (which I assume is also for recruiting), then we need to have a decal that shows well in HD.  I’m not a designer — I’m just a crabby individual who knows what he doesn’t like — but I would suggest that simple is best.

Some variation of the block “C” would, I believe, be the best way to go, with an appropriate border color to make sure it was easily visible.  It’s been used in the past on white-shelled helmets, but I think blue helmets are the best bet.  Put a white block “C” with a navy “shaded” border, and a stripe across the top (three stripes, actually — white surrounding navy), and you may have something.  It wouldn’t hurt to experiment with a few other color options.

Speaking of color options…

I came across a gallery of photos taken by Life magazine of the 1955 football game between The Citadel and Presbyterian (which was homecoming that year), a contest won by the Bulldogs 14-13.  This was apparently part of a feature on Mark Clark, who appears in most of the non-football photos (and several of the football ones, too), giving off a “John Wayne” vibe in each and every picture.  Google has archived thousands of the old Life photos; these pictures are part of that collection.  I’ll link a few of them, but with a couple of notes.

Check out the colors of the uniforms worn by the Bulldogs in these pictures:  this one, and this one.  Note the red stripes on the helmets (and jersey sleeves) and the darker blue of the jerseys!  At first I thought that perhaps the photo had been mislabeled, and that it was in fact PC’s players running onto the field.  Then again, why would our coaches and bagpipers be lined up watching them?  The following black-and-white shots indicate that they are definitely the Bulldogs, however:  here (photo op for the general), here (nice bow tie), here, and here.

I’m still a little confused by some of these photos.  In the preceding paragraph, take a look at the first two pictures that are linked, and compare them to the third one.  Do you suppose they made them run out on the field twice for the photographer or something?  Or was one of them before the game, and the other at halftime?  Then there is this picture.  It’s black-and-white, but compared to the other B&W shots, don’t the uniforms look darker?  (You have to love that scoreboard, though.)

[Edit: a few of the Life photos have been disabled.]

It could be that some of these are practice (or pre-game) pictures and the others are game photos; in fact, it’s likely, given the wardrobe change for John Sauer.  Regardless, they’re fascinating photographs.

Anyway, that’s enough on uniforms for one post.  To sum up:  simple is best, get the name of the school right, and don’t screw up the colors.  That’s all.

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Any chance left for a regional bid?

Posted on May 23, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

That was a tough loss.  Not a whole lot else to say about it…

This was not a good year for The Citadel in terms of officiating when playing Elon, either.  The football game was an atrocity, of course, featuring a set of calls so bad that  presumably even the conference powers-that-be were embarrassed.  Then in hoops there was the mysterious shotclock situation at their place.  Last night the Bulldogs got hurt by a much-disputed balk call that resulted in two runs.  Memo to the SoCon:  you owe The Citadel more than one next year against the Phoenix.

—

Okay, first let me say that I don’t think the Bulldogs are getting in a regional, and I don’t think they have much of a shot at getting in a regional. However, it’s not completely out of the question. First, there are four teams still out there that could “steal” a bid, and obviously Bulldog fans want all of them to lose.

Texas Tech can still win the Big XII if it wins Saturday night and Sunday.  On Sunday there will be three other title games of consequence. Connecticut is in the Big East title game (against Dan McDonnell and Louisville), Southern Mississippi hosts Rice in the C-USA championship, and Louisiana-Monroe plays MTSU in the Sun Belt final. Supporters of The Citadel want TT, UConn, USM, and ULM to all go down to defeat.

It is true, I suppose, that Southern Mississippi has an outside shot at an at-large bid, but ultimately I think the committee will look at its mediocre resume and determine that the Golden Eagles have a chance to earn a bid by winning at home.  Win and they’re in; lose and they’re out.

[Edited on Sunday morning:  Texas Tech lost Saturday night to Texas A&M, 11-4, so the Red Raiders’ season is over.  That’s one less team that could steal a bid.]

—

After analyzing the contenders and pretenders, I’ve decided that there are 60 spots locked up out of the 64. That includes automatic bids. It isn’t as clear-cut as the hoops tourney usually is, but I’ve identified 15 teams that have a case for grabbing one of those four spots left. There are a few other teams I don’t think are in the mix, but I’ll list them too.

Here are the locks (in my opinion):

ACC: Virginia, Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Miami (FL), Boston College
SEC: LSU, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Arkansas
Big XII: Texas, Missouri, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Kansas
Pac-10: Arizona State, Washington State, Oregon State
Big East: Louisville
SoCon: Elon, Georgia Southern
Southland: Texas State, Sam Houston State
Big West: UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly
Mountain West: TCU, Utah, San Diego State
C-USA: Rice, East Carolina
Sun Belt: Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky
Patriot: Army
MEAC:  Bethune-Cookman
Big South: Coastal Carolina
Ivy: Dartmouth
CAA: Georgia State
WCC: Gonzaga
MAC: Kent State
MAAC: Marist
NEC: Monmouth
Summit: Oral Roberts
OVC: Tennessee Tech
Atlantic 10: Xavier
Big 10: Indiana, Ohio State, Minnesota
MVC: Wichita State
Champions of the following leagues: America East, Atlantic Sun, Horizon, SWAC, and the WAC.

—

That leaves 15 teams fighting for 4 spots (and there may not be 4, of course; odds are there won’t be): Oklahoma State, Baylor, Dallas Baptist, George Mason, Notre Dame, Western Carolina, Hawaii, San Diego, Rhode Island, Missouri State, Tulane, Eastern Illinois, Duke, Illinois, The Citadel

Those teams are listed in current RPI order, and yes, the Bulldogs are last among them (RPI as of Sunday at 77).

Also hoping, but it’s a distant hope, because I think these teams are out of luck: Stanford, Arizona, UC-Riverside, UCSB, BYU, New Mexico, Troy, Southeastern Louisiana, Auburn, Kentucky

—

George Mason has a nice record and RPI, and is probably going to get in the field. Baylor was terrible down the stretch but has a really good RPI. Oklahoma State didn’t make the Big XII tourney (9-16 conference record) but has a high RPI.

Duke would be the eighth team out of the ACC. Illinois would be the fourth team out of the Big 10. Neither have good RPIs, but both have quality wins (especially Duke). Notre Dame would be the second team out of the Big East, and I could see a “northern” at-large bid being awarded (UConn may be playing for ND’s spot).

Dallas Baptist is a mystery team, an independent with an RPI in the top 40. Missouri State finished first in the regular season in the MVC. I think Hawaii is done after losing Saturday night to Fresno State in a tourney elimination game (the WAC tourney is being played in Honolulu; I’m guessing the WAC will now be a one-bid league). Tulane would be the third team out of C-USA (if Southern Miss doesn’t steal a bid) but doesn’t have a whole lot else to offer, a situation not dissimilar to that of Rhode Island.

San Diego has a poor overall record and didn’t fare well against the RPI top 100 (8-17). Western Carolina has a better record than USD, but only went 11-19 against the top 100. Eastern Illinois has a nice record but didn’t play anybody. The Citadel is 7-4 against the top 50, 15-12 against the top 100 (both marks comparing favorably to most of the bubble teams), but has a low RPI and several bad losses.

So there you have it.  The Citadel is one of the 15.  Depending on the bids that are “stolen” tomorrow, the Bulldogs have about a 1-in-4 chance of getting in, in my opinion.  It’s not much, but it’s better than a 0-for-4 chance.

Also, one caveat:  the committee almost always has one or two what-were-they-thinking selections, so if a “lock” doesn’t make the field, or some team I haven’t even mentioned does, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

The selection show is Monday at 12:30 pm ET, on ESPN.

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SoCon tourney “flip” is a flop

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

Well, I’m disappointed The Citadel lost its tourney opener today to Appalachian State, obviously, but what I wanted to write about doesn’t have much to do with today’s game, but rather the conference tournament as a whole.  It’s a topic that features the SoCon, but it could apply to any conference tournament.  This is going to take a bit of explaining, also, so please bear with me while I outline what I think is a serious flaw in the conference tournament format.

The Southern Conference tournament has two distinct four-team pools (at least, they should be distinct).  One team from each of those pools survives to play on Sunday in a single-game championship.  In other words, it’s possible for a team to go undefeated in its pool, and play a one-loss team for the title, lose the title game, and thus finish with just one loss but no championship.  This is done for television (SportSouth will televise the title game on Sunday).

Now, we’ve all seen this one-game-for-all-the-marbles deal before.  The College World Series did this for over a decade, and nobody really liked the idea of a team in a double-elimination tournament not winning the title despite only losing one game, especially when there were no other undefeated teams.  It happened occasionally, too (Texas did not lose until it fell to one-loss Wichita State in the 1989 final, in only the second year of the single-game championship format; the very next year one-loss Georgia beat previously undefeated Oklahoma State for the crown).

The NCAA has now changed to a best-of-three series for the title, which I think everyone likes.  The current setup is exactly what the college baseball championship should be.  However, what I want to emphasize is that even in its imperfect single-game state, the College World Series bracket was not set up the way the Southern Conference bracket is this year.

Essentially, the league is “flipping” two teams in the bracket for Saturday’s play.  This concept can be confusing, so much so that the conference initially released a bracket .pdf that was incorrect.  It’s now been fixed, and you can see it here.  Jeff Hartsell of The Post and Courier describes the “flipping” of the bracket:

There are two four-team brackets — Cid, App State, Davidson and GSU in one, and Elon, Furman, C of C and WCU in the other. On day three (Saturday), however, the bracket is flipped, with the 2-0 team from each bracket sent to the other.
If The Cid, for example, wins its first two games in bracket one, it will be off Friday and sent to bracket two for its third game on Saturday. This keeps one team from playing another three times in the tournament. It also means two teams from the same bracket could meet in the finals.

The next-to-last sentence explains the rationale for the “flip” — but the last sentence exposes the problem with it.  Let me give an example:

Let’s say that Appalachian State follows up its win over The Citadel by beating Georgia Southern, and then (after the flip) beats Elon on Saturday in the early afternoon game to advance to the championship game on Sunday.  The Mountaineers would be undefeated, and would have beaten the top three seeds in the tourney.  However, what happens if the opponent in the title game on Sunday were to be The Citadel or Georgia Southern?  That would mean that Appalachian State would have to beat one of those teams twice without losing to win the championship.

In other words, say in that scenario Georgia Southern beats Appy.  They would both have one loss (to each other) but GSU would be the champs and the Mountaineers would be out of luck.  Avoiding a potential third game between the two schools by employing the “flip” would thus prove detrimental to the Mountaineers.

The difference between flipping and not flipping the teams is this:  if you have a one-loss team and an undefeated team, and they come from completely separate pools, then at least you could make the argument that the one-loss team came from a stronger pool, so it winning the title against an undefeated team from the other pool isn’t quite as unfair.  You really don’t even have to make that argument; the fact that the two pools are distinct from one another makes things at least somewhat equitable (in theory).  You certainly don’t have to worry about a situation where two teams beat each other, but one gets an edge because it lost in a double-elimination situation before a one-shot title game.

Flipping teams like this isn’t a bad idea for a true double-elimination tournament.  In fact, in that situation it’s probably a good thing.  When there is already an inherent flaw in a format, however, trying to get even cuter with the bracketing just serves to exponentially increase the chances of having an unjust resolution to the tournament.

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The SoCon baseball tourney moves to Greenville

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

It’s SoCon baseball tourney time, live from Riley Park in beautiful downtown Charl…

Oh.  They moved the tournament this year.

That’s right.  After 19 consecutive years in Charleston, the powers that be in the Southern Conference wilted from the non-stop complaints of a select few and moved the tournament (for at least one year) to Greenville, where it will be held at Fluor Field.  (The tourney returns to Riley Park next year.)

The tournament regularly made money (!) when it was held in Charleston.  Don’t expect it to do so in Greenville, where it will lack the kind of community support that has made it successful in the Holy City.  Of course, the conference doesn’t realy need the money.  Wait, what’s that you say?  The economic climate in the country has hit the SoCon hard?  The league is cutting costs, including not holding media days for football and basketball?  It’s going to reduce the number of teams that qualify for conference tournaments in sports like women’s soccer, men’s soccer, women’s tennis, men’s tennis, volleyball, and softball?  It’s going to force conference baseball series next year to be held over two days rather than three, with Saturday doubleheaders, to save on travel expenses?  It’s going to do all those things and then cut off its nose to spite its face by moving its baseball tourney just to please a small group of whiners?

Yes, it is.  (The league is also not printing media guides next year, although that strikes me as a good permanent move, what with being able to publish the guides online.  It would be nice if the conference updated its historical records information in hoops and baseball, which hasn’t been done in several years.)

The complaints came over a perceived home field advantage for The Citadel (and for the College of Charleston to a lesser extent).  The loudest of the voices was that of UNC Greensboro coach Mike Gaski, who campaigned to move the tournament for about a decade, or not too long after his 1998 squad had been defeated by The Citadel in the tournament championship game.  That was UNCG’s first year in the league after having lots of success in the Big South.  Gaski’s crew had won the regular season in the SoCon by a half-game over The Citadel, and by one game over Western Carolina, in a very tight three-way race.  Then the tournament rolled around.  The Spartans had actually swept the Bulldogs in Charleston earlier that season, but when the games really mattered, The Citadel prevailed twice over UNCG by a combined score of 21-1.

There really should not have been much to complain about — 21-1 strikes me as being rather decisive — but that was just the start of the drumbeat for moving the tourney.  The thing is, though, UNCG hasn’t won the league regular season title since then.  The Spartans did make it to the tourney title game in 2001, as the 5 seed, when they lost to (of course) The Citadel, which probably rankled Gaski even more.

As everyone knows, home field advantage in baseball isn’t nearly as important as it is in football or basketball.  There is no comparison between The Citadel playing tournament games at Riley Park and UT-Chattanooga getting to host the SoCon men’s hoops tourney on its home court.  That is borne out by the numbers.  While UTC has won the basketball tournament both times it has hosted it, I think some people would be surprised if they took a look at the baseball tournament history since the SoCon set up shop in Charleston.  There have been 19 tournaments held in Chucktown, and here is the breakdown over that time span:

The Citadel — 5 regular season titles, 7 tournament titles
College of Charleston — 3 regular season titles, 1 tournament title
Western Carolina — 3 regular season titles, 4 tournament titles
Georgia Southern — 5 regular season titles, 3 tournament titles
Elon — 2 regular season titles, 1 tournament title
UNC Greensboro — 1 regular season title, 0 tournament titles
Furman — 0 regular season titles, 2 tournament titles
Wofford — 0 regular season titles, 1 tournament title

The Citadel is +2 overall in 19 years of hosting the event (in terms of tourney versus regular season titles).  Meanwhile, the other local school reputed to have at least something of an edge by the tournament being held in Charleston, the CofC, is -2.  So much for a huge local advantage.

After Gaski and UNCG, the school with the most fans critical of the tournament being held in Charleston is probably Western Carolina — but the Catamounts have had their fair share of success there, and are +1.  Really, it’s Georgia Southern that logically would have the biggest complaint (-2), but its fans don’t seem to have had nearly as much of an issue with the tournament being held in the port city (it’s not an inconvenient location for them, for one thing).

The school that appears to have had the biggest benefit to playing in Charleston, as far as tourney vs. regular season success goes, is Furman, with no league regular season titles but two tourney titles since 1990.  Thus, the conference in its infinite wisdom is moving the tournament so the Paladins can be the host team…

You know what this is really about?  It’s about programs not being as successful as they once were, and not getting in the NCAA tournament, and looking for an excuse.  Western Carolina dominated the league in the mid-to-late 1980s, winning five straight tournament titles from 1985-89, all of which were held either in Cullowhee, Boone, or Asheville.  In those five years, WCU also happened to win the league regular season (or division) title four times.  The Catamounts also won a division title in 1984, but didn’t win the tournament that season.

UNC Greensboro won the Big South in 1994 and 1997, winning that conference’s tournament title both years as well.  It entered the Southern Conference following the ’97 campaign.

Western Carolina fans remember the glory days of winning the league every year.  The Catamounts have generally still been competitive, and among the better teams in the league, but they don’t win the conference title every year, and that is reflected in WCU’s tournament results.  The same can be said for UNCG, which has usually been good, but hasn’t enjoyed as much success as it had in the Big South immediately prior to joining the SoCon.

Unfortunately for Gaski and the Spartans, the year the tournament finally moves to Greenville has coincided with that of one of his worst squads, and UNCG has not qualified for this year’s tournament.  I suspect the coach finds that particularly galling.

I hope that Greenville does a decent job hosting the event.  I think it’s safe to assume that there will be a tarp at Fluor Field.  As some of us remember, that wasn’t the case when the tournament was held in Asheville.  The league can’t afford to repeat the 1989 debacle, which just screamed “Mickey Mouse conference” (and which led directly to the tournament moving to Charleston).

I suppose any of the eight teams in the tournament could win it, but I would rank them like this:

Elon — clearly the best team in the league; NCAA lock
Georgia Southern, The Citadel, Western Carolina, College of Charleston — all think they can win the tourney
Appalachian State, Davidson — dangerous, but probably not dangerous enough to win the tournament
Furman — happy to be the host

The latest projections from Baseball America, SEBaseball.com, etc., suggest that as many as three teams from the SoCon can make the NCAAs.  I am a little dubious about that.  Elon is definitely in, but if the Phoenix win the league tournament I don’t know what other team, if any, will join them as a regional participant.  That will depend on how the other teams fare in Greenville.  My best guess is that Georgia Southern is best positioned to get a bid from among the other schools.  I think The Citadel and the College of Charleston have to win the tournament (that’s probably a given for the CofC at this point), and that Western Carolina may have to at least reach the championship game.

The seedings were thus very important for the contenders, and the short straw was drawn by WCU and the CofC.  Not only do those two squads have to play each other in the first round, but the winner likely has to face Elon in the next game.  Georgia Southern’s second-place league finish means that the Eagles avoid all three of those teams until at least Friday (the same is true for The Citadel).  That said, this tournament has a history of early-round upsets, and neither Appalachian State nor Davidson are easy outs.  Even Furman has to be given a puncher’s chance.

As for The Citadel, I would like the Bulldogs’ chances a lot more if the relief pitching were a little better.  Drew Mahaffey is a quality closer, but the setup corps has left a lot to be desired.  Fred Jordan only appears to have faith in one other reliever, Raymond Copenhaver, but Copenhaver has had his ups and downs this year.

Of course, one solution to the problem with the relief pitching is to have the starters all throw complete games, similar to what happened in 2004 (when The Citadel had a tournament-record five complete games, two by Jonathan Ellis).  If a particular starter is effective, then Jordan is likely to leave him in the game as long as he possibly can.

The Bulldogs appear to be playing better defensively, and the offense is close to its peak level entering the tournament, which is good.  If the bottom of the order can be at least somewhat productive, The Citadel should score a lot of runs, because batters 1-6 have been getting the job done.

I favor Elon to win the tournament, but I am hoping the Bulldogs can have a special week.  I would also find it a bit amusing if The Citadel wins the tournament in a year when it’s not held in Charleston.

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Error on the official scorer

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

On May 8, Howie Kendrick hit a home run off Gil Meche in a 4-1 Angels victory over the Royals — only, he really didn’t hit a homer.  Rather, he circled the bases on a poor fielding play by Kansas City right fielder Jose Guillen, a play that should have been ruled a four-base error.  You can see the play here.  (The Royals have appealed the ruling.)

This is just another example of the long trend in official scoring (at seemingly all levels) to avoid giving errors whenever possible.  It’s most noticeable at the major league level, but you see it in the minors and in college games as well.  A couple of weeks ago I was watching a game between Davidson and The Citadel.  Davidson’s shortstop failed to make two plays that should have been ruled errors, but both were ruled hits by the scorer.  Those were two of the seven hits the Bulldogs had.  There are a number of good hitters in The Citadel’s lineup, but it’s certainly easier to maintain high batting averages when the home scorer is overly generous.

It wasn’t always like this.  Years ago scorers seemingly didn’t hesitate to give errors.  Rabbit Maranville was the best defensive shortstop of his day; it’s one of the main reasons he’s in the Hall of Fame.  Maranville also committed 711 errors in his career (the most by a player whose entire career was played in the 20th century; Bill Dahlen, another outstanding defender, had 1080).

Of course, conditions have improved over time for defenders, which naturally has reduced errors.  Players in Maranville’s day didn’t have the modern gloves of today, and also played on less-than-perfect playing fields.  The original Comiskey Park, for example, was built on a city garbage dump.   Pieces of garbage would regularly rise to the surface.  Luke Appling once tripped over a piece of protruding metal near second base; the grounds crew came out and dug up the rest of a copper tea kettle.

You don’t have to worry about things like that when you play on artificial turf, and/or in domes.  When the Twins moved to Minnesota, they played home games outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium, and in those years never had a team season fielding percentage higher than .980 — but since moving to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, the team has never had a fielding percentage lower than .980 over a season.

As a result, great defensive players have committed fewer and fewer errors as time has gone by, with or without the help of friendly scoring decisions.  Luis Aparicio (who played from 1956 to 1973) had 366 errors in his career.  Ozzie Smith (1978-1996) committed 281 errors as a major leaguer.  Omar Vizquel has been in the majors since 1989.  In 100+ more games than Smith, he has only committed 183 errors.

The amount of money now in the game at the major league level has certainly had an impact on scoring decisions; I suspect that a lot of official scorers would deny that, but there is an importance to statistics in this era of baseball that wasn’t there 50 years ago.  I think it’s a key reason errors aren’t given more often.  Along those lines, another consideration for a scorer is to trying to offend the fewest number of players.

For instance, on the Howie Kendrick “homer” not giving an error is great for Kendrick, and probably doesn’t hurt Guillen’s feelings (even if he later said he should have been charged with an error).  The only player negatively affected from a statistical perspective is Meche.  Two happy players versus one not-so-happy player.  It’s an easy call for a scorer, especially when the batter is on the home team.

Of course, there are other things that come into play…

Many years ago I was scoring a minor league game.  During the game there was a pickoff at first base; the runner completely fell asleep, as he wasn’t even trying to steal a base.  He made no move to second (or first, for that matter) until the ball was in the first baseman’s glove.  The first baseman and shortstop (who was covering second base) completely botched the rundown, though, and the baserunner wound up at second.  It’s the kind of play you aren’t surprised to see in the low minors, to be honest.

Now, I didn’t believe in making things too difficult for myself, but I had no option but to rule a pickoff and then an error allowing the runner to take second base (given to the shortstop, in this case).  If the runner had been on the move to second, I could have awarded him a stolen base; heck, if he had been leaning that way I may have done so.  That’s not the easiest play in the scorebook to illustrate.  I wrote a short note in the margin for the folks at Howe Sportsdata, outlining what had happened.

After the game I was about to fax the scoresheet to Howe when the telephone rang.  It was the manager of the club for which I was scoring.  He had noticed the “E” flash up on the board and wanted to know what the ruling was (the runner was one of his players).  I explained it to him, and he then argued with me for about five minutes.  He wasn’t nasty about it, but he was very assertive.  I told him I would consider his argument (he wanted the player credited with a steal).

After I hung up, the assistant GM came over to me and told me that the front office had a pre-existing agreement with the manager that any “questionable” scoring decisions were his call, and to change it to what he wanted…

The player got a steal.  Perhaps that steal was noted from above by the powers-that-be (“hey, this kid’s aggressive”) and eventually led to a promotion.  Somehow, I doubt it.  Of course, the shortstop was presumably happy not to be charged with an error.  The pitcher and catcher were charged with allowing a steal, which was ludicrous, of course, but you can’t fight city hall.

I think about that night almost every time I see a error that is scored a hit.  It’s just another reason why basing a player’s defensive value on fielding percentage is myopic.

—

Postscript:   On Thursday, Major League Baseball reversed the official scorer’s ruling on the Kendrick-Guillen play, taking the homer away from Kendrick and charging Guillen with a four-base error.  This was an excellent decision by the MLB panel making the call (and apparently a fairly easy one; all five members of the panel voted to overturn the original ruling).

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Counting pitches

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

On Friday night, Wes Wrenn started a key Southern Conference baseball game for The Citadel, at home against Georgia Southern.  Getting off to a good start in a conference series is important, and Wrenn delivered for the Bulldogs, hurling 8 innings of 2-run ball.  The Citadel won the game 6-2 and went on to win the series, two games to one.

In those eight innings, Wes Wrenn threw 143 pitches.

That is a lot of pitches, so many that a longtime poster on a message board for devotees of Bulldogs sports took notice.  I didn’t watch the game, so I have no real idea what kind of stuff Wes Wrenn had late, whether he was tiring, or showed signs of tiring (apparently not).  Sometimes a pitcher has had enough after about 70 pitches, and sometimes a pitcher is in a groove and can go a lot longer without significant risk.

I will say that the tone of the game story published by the school seemed to me to be a touch defensive when reporting the subject:

“Wrenn, who was strong from start to finish, threw 143 pitches in the game as he fanned the last two batters he faced.”

Somebody wanted to make a point of getting ahead of the argument, didn’t they?

It’s the second time this season a Bulldog pitcher has thrown more than 130 pitches in a game.  T.J. Clarkson threw 134 at South Carolina.  I was at that game.  He looked better late than he did early (at the time I wondered if he had trouble getting loose for that game; after the fifth inning he looked really good).  I still thought it was a lot to ask of a freshman with little starting experience (at least in college).  As it turns out, it was a very unusual performance.  Clarkson threw more pitches in a midweek in-season game for The Citadel than any pitcher has since at least 2002.  Other pitchers have thrown more pitches in a game, but all those games came in Southern Conference regular season or tournament play, or in an NCAA regional.

I don’t pretend to know it all when it comes to this subject.  I was never a pitcher on any level, and I’m not a doctor or a physical therapist.  I’m not a pitching coach or a scout.  I just watch games like everybody else.  What I do know, though, is there is a lot of evidence that overuse of pitchers usually leads to injuries in the long run.  Of course, it’s also true that pitchers get hurt all the time no matter how they are used (or abused).

One thing I am hesitant to do, honestly, is compare college hurlers’ workloads to those of major leaguers, if only because college pitchers get seven days off between starts (usually) as opposed to the four or five days off a major league pitcher gets.  This might make a difference.  (Another potential difference is the variance in competition.)  The starts that always worry me are the 120+ pitching performances on short rest during tournaments/regionals, not to mention the “drag the starter from two days ago/yesterday into the game in relief in an elimination game” situation.

I can’t be an expert on the subject from a medical or “baseball man” point of view, but what I can do is look at numbers.  What I decided to do was take a look back as far as I could at the recent history of pitcher usage at The Citadel and see where Wrenn’s outing on Friday night compared.

First, here is a list of game-by-game pitch counts for The Citadel’s starting pitchers this season…

Wes Wrenn — 99, 99, 95, 80, 107, 110, 103, 123, 129, 143
Asher Wojciechowski –103, 31, 125, 124,  115, 91, 121, 98, 111, 124
Matt Crim — 95, 97, 99, 81, 48, 116, 106, 102, 85, 107
Matt Talley — 110,66, 63*, 112,  69, 93, 66
T.J. Clarkson — 67, 90,94, 134
Matt Reifsnider — 98

[I put a “*” by Matt Talley’s start against Charleston Southern on March 25 (in which he pitched well), because I wanted to note that he also appeared in relief three days before, on March 22, against Western Carolina, throwing 59 pitches in 2 2/3 innings.  I believe this is the only “short rest” start for a Bulldog pitcher this season.  He followed up his victory over CSU with a solid effort against South Carolina six days later, also getting the win in that game.]

After compiling that list, I then went to Boyd Nation‘s invaluable site to check out his PAP logs over the past few seasons.  PAP stands for “Pitcher Abuse Points” and is a system Nation uses to see how overworked certain pitchers/staffs are.  A few years ago Nation got into a bit of a controversy with Ray Tanner that spilled onto local Columbia, S.C. radio and a few other media outlets (here is a reprint of an article originally published in The State, the local newspaper in Columbia).  It’s a delicate subject.  Tanner appears to have adjusted his thinking on pitch counts, after issues arose over his handling of pitcher Arik Hempy (as noted in an article reprinted here).

What is interesting (and perhaps reassuring) is that over the past three seasons, The Citadel has less PAP than about 90% of the schools in Division I baseball.  It’s a very good record over the 2006-2008 time period.  Only six times in those three years did a Bulldog pitcher throw 121 or more pitches in a game, and in none of those games did a pitcher throw more than 132 pitches.  Last season only one pitcher threw 120+ pitches in a game for The Citadel.

However, in 2004 and 2005 there were more sizable pitch-count starts.  In 2005, there were five starts in the 121-132 pitch range, and two over 132.  In 2004 there was only one start in the 121-132 pitch range, but six over 132.

If you go back a little further, though (as far back as online statistics are available), the trend is reversed again.  Only one Bulldog pitcher threw more than 121 pitches in 2002 and 2003 combined.

I was a bit puzzled at first when I looked at the PAP stats.  What was the deal in 2004 and 2005?  I looked at the box scores for every game over those two seasons.  I came to the conclusion that the numbers in 2005 were a little bit of an outlier.  2004 is a completely different story, and I’m going to get to that.  The 2005 games of 120+ pitches were as follows:

3/11 Ryan Owens 135 pitches (lost 2-1 to UNCG; complete game)
4/2  Ryan Owens 120 pitches (7 innings in 21-5 victory over Wofford) [estimated pitch count]
4/3  Ken Egleton 127 pitches (complete game victory over Wofford)
4/23 Justin Smith 133 pitches (7 1/3 innings in 10-6 victory over Charleston Southern)
4/29 Ryan Owens 122 pitches (6 innings in a 9-7 loss to Davidson)
4/30 Justin Smith 126 pitches (7 innings in a 4-3 victory over Davidson)
5/13 Ryan Owens 120 pitches (7 2/3 innings in a 9-3 victory over Furman) [estimated pitch count]

[The boxscores of most games these days list the number of pitches thrown by each pitcher, but sometimes that information is left out, and for whatever reason it happened more often in 2005 than in any other year since 2002.  For games lacking pitch counts, a “pitch count calculator” is used.]

All seven of those games were started by veteran pitchers.  The 4/3 game would mark the only time in Ken Egleton’s career at The Citadel where he would throw more than 121 pitches in a game.  This surprised me, because Egleton pitched a lot of innings while a Bulldog, but as it happens he regularly threw 100-120 pitches per game while never exceeding that general pitch count (with the exception of that Wofford game).

Owens and Smith were dependable workhorses for the most part (Smith in particular was noted for having a “rubber arm”, I seem to recall).  Owens’ 135-pitch effort against UNCG was a dominant performance in a loss; he pitched well the following week in a six-inning performance against Elon in which he threw 100 pitches.  After his 133-pitch outing against CSU, Smith took the hill a week later and pitched very well against Davidson, getting a no-decision (the Bulldogs would win the game with a run in the ninth).  After that two-game stretch, Smith would have an indifferent 6-inning effort against East Tennessee State and a decent 5-inning start versus Furman.

2004?  Well, 2004 was all about Jonathan Ellis.

Ellis threw 136 1/3 innings that season, by some distance the most innings ever pitched in one season by a Bulldog pitcher.  He threw nine complete games in eighteen starts.  As mentioned above, there were six 133+ pitching performances that season by Bulldog starters.  Five of those were by Ellis (Chip Cannon had the other).  Look at those five games:

4/9 142 pitches (complete game victory over the College of Charleston)
5/20 136 pitches (complete game victory over UNC-Greensboro)
5/26 134 pitches (complete game victory over East Tennessee State)
5/29 136 pitches (complete game victory over Western Carolina)
6/5 153 pitches (complete game victory over Coastal Carolina)

That’s right.  On five days rest after a 136-pitch effort against UNCG, Ellis threw 134 pitches in The Citadel’s opening-round game in the Southern Conference tournament.  The Bulldogs would later have to fight through the loser’s bracket of the tournament, and eventually faced Western Carolina, needing two wins over the Catamounts.  Fred Jordan started Ellis on just two days’ rest, and Ellis responded with an outstanding 136-pitch effort, with The Citadel winning the game.  (Justin Smith would start and win the next day’s game, as the Bulldogs won the tournament; Ellis would be the tourney MVP.)

Then Ellis would pitch one week later in yet another elimination game, in the NCAA regional, against Coastal Carolina.  I sat in the stands that day in Columbia (and let me tell you, it was hot) and watched him throw 153 pitches to send the Chanticleers home.  It would be the last game of Ellis’ college career.

So in terms of “pitcher abuse” over the last eight seasons at The Citadel, Jonathan Ellis would stand to be the poster boy.  Yet, he is now in AAA ball in the San Diego Padres’ organization, with what seems like a reasonable chance at making the major leagues, and his pro career seems mostly unaffected by his large workload in college.

Incidentally, I think you can make a good argument that Ellis’ 2004 season was the most valuable pitching performance in the history of Bulldog baseball.  Not the most dominant, necessarily, or the “greatest”, but the most valuable.  He pitched a ton of quality innings, obviously, and also won the had-to-win game in the SoCon tourney, as well as the regional eliminator against Coastal Carolina.

What does it all mean?  I don’t know, other than I hope Wes Wrenn can beat Samford on Friday night without having to increase his pitch count total for a fifth consecutive game.  You wonder at what point Wrenn might run out of gas (disregarding injury potential for a moment).  However, two years ago Wrenn threw 104 2/3 innings (he threw 87 last season).  He is probably capable of handling that workload.

Asher Wojciechowski needs to avoid those innings where he loses control and starts walking people.  If he does that, he won’t have to throw 125 pitches per outing.

Most importantly, the guys in the bullpen need to demonstrate to Fred Jordan that he can count on them in big games, and doesn’t have to leave the starters in as long as possible to secure a victory.  I think that’s the real  issue for this year’s team.  The high pitch totals by the starters, in my opinion, can be attributed in part to the problems in middle relief.  Not committing errors that prolong innings is also a factor.

We’ll be watching (and, I suppose, counting).

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Undefeated in Carolina Stadium

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Bulldog baseball team enjoyed its first visit to the brand-new Carolina Stadium, winning 5-3 in 11 occasionally dramatic innings, and cementing a season sweep of the Gamecocks.  Admittedly, it’s only two games, but this is the first time The Citadel has beaten South Carolina on the diamond twice in one season since 1961, although it should be pointed out that the two schools didn’t meet twice annually during most of the 1960s, and for a few years in the 1970s.

(The Citadel also won its first basketball game against the College of Charleston at Carolina First Arena, so these debuts at “Carolina ______”  stadia are going rather well.)

At the end of this post you can see some pictures of the new park I took during the game, from a bunch of different angles, somehow forgetting to take photos of the concourse and the concession areas until the batteries in my camera died.  I’m also not the most skilled of photographers, so they aren’t the best pictures in history.  It’s a nice stadium, definitely SEC-caliber.  Some observations about the park, and the game:

  • There was a sign noting that, in an effort to be eco-friendly, one half of the scoreboard was lit using a hydrogen fuel cell.  Why only half, I have no idea.
  • Speaking of the board, I noticed that the “Carolina Stadium” lettering was not lit.  I assume that either it wasn’t working, or more likely that the folks at USC are still looking to sell naming rights to the stadium, and didn’t want to pay for custom-designed lighting that will only be temporarily used.
  • There is a grass area down the first base line near the right field wall called the “Bi-Lo Berm”.  I have to wonder how long Bi-Lo will continue to sponsor the berm, given that the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month.
  • The field itself looked fantastic, which was very impressive, particularly given the weather over the past few days.  I give the groundskeeper an A.
  • The parking situation is abysmal.  I’m just waiting for the first pedestrian fatality (it will probably happen after a game, after darkness).   If anything, it’s worse than it was at Sarge Frye Field, which is really saying something.  For someone like me, who would be inclined to go to USC games every now and then just to watch good baseball, it’s a reason not to go.
  • The stadium holds 9,000.  The announced crowd last night was 6,923, which is a nice crowd for a weekday game, although to be honest I didn’t think the park was at 75% capacity.  I thought it was more like 60%-65%.  The Citadel brought a fair amount of people, which wasn’t that big a surprise.
  • Having a true freshman throw 134 pitches in a game is normally asking a lot, but I can’t really fault Fred Jordan in this case, given the actual performance by T.J. Clarkson.  Clarkson didn’t exactly run out of gas, either, as he retired the last nine batters he faced.  I wondered if he had a little trouble getting loose in the early going, but he ended the game on a roll.
  • Drew Mahaffey pitched in both games this season against South Carolina.  In those two games, he faced 12 batters, retiring all 12, with 8 strikeouts (6 swinging), a foul out, a tapper back to the pitcher, and two routine fly outs.  In the first game, he entered the contest with runners on second and third and no outs.  Neither scored.
  • In two games this season against the Gamecocks, Bryan Altman had an OBP of .818, with seven hits (including a homer) , two walks, two runs batted in, and four runs scored.
  • This is a pretty good USC team, but it’s not as good as some more recent editions.  I think part of this is due to its lineup not having a true scares-you-every-time-he’s-at-bat kind of player.  Past Gamecock teams have usually had a couple of those guys.

I haven’t posted much about the baseball team.  One reason for that is I’ve been a little busy.  The other is that I was going to wait a little into the season so I could get a handle on this year’s club.  The thing is, though, that the Bulldogs have played 35 games and I still don’t have a real good handle on the team.  They have a .600 winning percentage in league play, and a .600 winning percentage out of conference  — and yet I really can’t say the Bulldogs are a consistent outfit.  Here are some of my thoughts on the team (some of which could be wildly off the mark, to be sure):

  • The lineup, from 1-6, is excellent.  Those six guys can all hit, and with some pop.  The two freshmen have both acquitted themselves very well.  I worry a little about two lefties at the 4-5 spots, where a late-game LOOGY could come into play, but that’s a minor quibble.  William Ladd is currently batting .351 (824 OPS), and looks to have locked down the seventh spot in the lineup (nice outfield assist in last night’s game, too).  That leaves the designated hitter (for games Richard Jones catches) and shortstop as question marks in the batting order.  The DH spot will likely be something of a revolving door, based on matchups, which is fine (although Sid Fallaw has received the majority of the opportunities so far).  Shortstop is another matter.
  • The Bulldogs have been erratic defensively, which makes it all the more important to have an everyday shortstop.  That would have been Kyle Jordan, of course, but you just can’t have a player with a 367 OPS as a regular.  His terrible season-long slump has been a major problem.  I’m not sold on Altman as a regular shortstop.  Johnny Dangerfield hasn’t been bad, but his bat isn’t quite big enough to make up for the defensive deficiencies in the middle infield when Altman moves over.
  • The pitching has been mediocre, even though The Citadel does lead the Southern Conference in ERA, thanks to A)  its home park, and B) the incredible lack of quality pitching in the league this year (SoCon ERA, as a conference:  6.35).  Mahaffey has been outstanding in the closer role.  The starting pitching hasn’t been that good, but it generally hasn’t been terrible, either.  The midweek starters haven’t been bad at all.  What the Bulldogs don’t have is an ace.  The middle relief/setup men have been poor.

The Citadel, right now, strikes me as a team you wouldn’t want to face in the Southern Conference tournament, but a team probably not consistent enough to win the entire tournament.  However, I can see that changing for the better.  If Raymond Copenhaver (and/or someone else) can shore things up in the 7th-8th innings, and get the game to Mahaffey, the Bulldogs have plenty of starting pitchers capable of a solid 6-inning effort.  In post-season play, having four (or five) of those kinds of pitchers will work to The Citadel’s advantage; that’s the type of depth you need to win a conference tourney.

First, though, The Citadel has to make sure it qualifies for the SoCon tournament, which means it has to finish as one of the top eight teams in the league.  The Bulldogs are well on their way to making it, but there are still 15 conference games left, starting Friday at UNC-Greensboro.  UNCG is currently 2-11 in the league, in last place, and will be desperate to win the series and climb out of the cellar.

It would be ironic if the Spartans ultimately do not qualify for the conference tournament, since UNCG coach Mike Gaski campaigned for many years to move the league tourney out of Charleston, claiming it was an unfair advantage to the two Charleston schools.  The conference brass finally buckled under his criticism (among that of others), and moved the tournament for this season to Greenville.  Now there is a decent chance the Spartans won’t even make the field.

Pictures from last night:

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Port and Jordan

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

In the last four baseball seasons, The Citadel’s conference record by year is as follows:  14-16, 15-12, 12-15, 12-15.  That is not exactly what Bulldog fans have come to expect from the baseball program, which has historically been the school’s strongest varsity sport.  On the other hand, what should be expected?  I decided to check some numbers in an attempt to answer that question.  I concentrated on the team’s play since 1965, Chal Port’s first year as head coach.

One thing I want to make clear is that this discussion has nothing to do with the current Bulldog squad, which as of this writing is 9-9 overall, 5-4 in the Southern Conference.  This is more about the program’s history, and the current edition of the baseball Bulldogs is just beginning to make its own mark in the historical record.

One of the difficult things in trying to compare and contrast baseball teams of the past is that there have been a lot of variables over the years — in the scheduling, in the makeup of the Southern Conference, in how the conference determines its champion, even in the equipment used.  I made some decisions on how best to make comparisons.  The biggest decision I made was to concentrate solely on league play.

Nowadays the Bulldogs play a lot more games than they did 30 years ago.  In 1975, for example, Chal Port won his second conference title with an 11-3 league record.  His overall record that season was 21-9.  Twenty years later, in 1995, Fred Jordan won his first regular season SoCon title with a conference mark of 19-5, 39-21 overall.  The Bulldogs played exactly twice as many games in 1995 as they did in 1975, and almost twice as many league contests.

Comparing by league record is hard enough, what with more games and more/different schools in the league, but it’s almost impossible to make observations based on the non-conference slate, not only because of the number of games but because of the level of the competition.  Since 1994 The Citadel has played only three games against non-Division I opponents — a game against North Florida in 1995 (in a tournament hosted by UNF), and two games against Presbyterian in 1998 (scheduled after The Citadel won the league tournament in order to prevent an 18-day layoff prior to regional play).

The lack of non-Division I games is due to a SoCon edict handed out following the 1993 season.  For the 1994 season, the conference found itself in a situation in which it didn’t want to be, namely as a “play-in” conference.  The NCAA tournament was a 48-team affair at the time, and in 1994 there were 30 automatic bids.  However, the NCAA mandated that 24 berths for the tournament were to be at-large, which meant there were 6 auto bids too many.  As a result, the 12 lowest-rated conferences from the 1993 season each had to qualify for a regional by winning a best-of-three series against one of the other low-rated leagues.

If that sounds like the NCAA basketball tournament’s “play-in” game, it’s because that’s exactly what it was, times six.  The Southern Conference was one of the 12 leagues that had to play an extra round just to get in the main tournament, and the champion was drawn to face the winner of the Ohio Valley Conference.  The Citadel won the league tournament that year and beat Middle Tennessee State, 2 games to 1, in Charleston to advance to the regional held at Clemson.

To prevent this from happening again, the league determined that its schools should play a Division I-only schedule to improve the league’s power rating.  This was a marginally risky short-term strategy (what if the league had lost an overwhelming number of those extra D-1 games?)  but proved a benefit to the conference in the long run.  However, it meant that the days of The Citadel playing the likes of Hiram or Gannon were over.

As mentioned earlier, comparing eras by conference play is no picnic either.  In 1965, league schools included West Virginia, George Washington, William & Mary, Richmond, VMI, and Virginia Tech.  None of those schools are still in the SoCon.  You also have schools like East Carolina, East Tennessee State, and Marshall, which have come and gone, Davidson (which left and then came back), and schools making their debuts in the league in the 1970s (Western Carolina and Appalachian State), 1990s (Georgia Southern, UNC-Greensboro, and the College of Charleston), and 2000s (Elon and Samford, the latter beginning conference play this season).  UT-Chattanooga competed in the sport for six league seasons before the school dropped baseball following the 1982 campaign.  The conference has had as few as seven and as many as eleven baseball schools over the past 45 years.

Let’s look at Chal Port’s career SoCon record.   Port coached for 27 years and finished with an overall league mark of 253-156-1 (.618).  Port won seven conference titles and one tournament title (it should be noted that the conference did not have a tournament until 1984; five of Port’s league titles came prior to that season).  Port had a stretch of 10 consecutive winning conference records, with that run preceded by three winning records and a 7-7 season, so he actually had 14 straight non-losing seasons in SoCon action.  Overall, Chal Port had 18 winning SoCon seasons, 7 losing seasons, and 2 at .500 in the league.  Port had a winning record in conference play in exactly two-thirds of his seasons as head coach.

Incidentally, Port’s record in the conference after his first seventeen seasons was 143-98-1 (.593), with 12 winning seasons, four losing seasons, and one at .500 in SoCon play, with three league championships.  I mention this because Fred Jordan completed his seventeenth season as head coach last year.  Jordan entered this season with a record of 285-166 (.632)  in league play, with 13 winning seasons and four losing campaigns, and with four regular season titles and six tournament championships.

Jordan, like Port, also had a stretch of 10 consecutive winning seasons in conference play (from 1995 through 2004).  The problem, from the perspective of the program’s current status, is that since 2005, he has had just one winning league season, in 2006 (when the team was 15-12).  In the last four years Jordan’s conference record is only 53-58 (48%).  Did Chal Port ever have a stretch like that?

Well, yes.  After Port’s earlier-mentioned 10-year run of success, which lasted from 1975 through 1984, he had five conference seasons that went like this:  8-10, 9-9, 6-12, 12-6, 8-9.  Overall record during that five-year period:  43-47 (48%).  You may see a pattern developing.  You would be right…

Both Port and Jordan won four regular season titles during their respective 10-year winning streaks.  During those runs, Port won 73% of his league games.  Jordan won 72% of his.

The similarities in the two coaches’ records are striking.  Of course, it’s not that simple.  After those five relatively mediocre seasons noted above, Port finished his career with a run of 29 wins in 32 league games, with two regular season titles, a tournament crown, and a completely unfathomable trip to Omaha.  It’s that finish that people understandably tend to remember, even more so than the terrific teams he fielded during a good chunk of the 1970s and early 1980s.

It’s difficult for Jordan to compete with those memories, particularly since the conference has in recent years seen an influx of schools that take their baseball seriously (Georgia Southern, College of Charleston, UNC-Greensboro, and Elon).  The competition within the league is arguably tougher than it was two decades ago.

That’s not to take away anything from Port’s record, which is lauded with good reason, and in fact is probably even more impressive than a lot of people realize.  Port had to make numerous on-field adjustments during his tenure, including the change from wooden to aluminum bats, and the conference moving to divisional play (and then dropping the divisions), among other things.  Then there were the off-field adjustments, which included integration, and the fact that going to a military school wasn’t exactly the cool thing to do in the early-to-mid-1970s (not that it’s ever been the really cool thing to do).   Consider what the baseball program accomplished, especially when compared to The Citadel’s football and hoops programs of that decade:

From 1971-1979, the football team was coached by Red Parker, Bobby Ross, and Art Baker.  Ross in particular is known as having been an outstanding coach, with major success at multiple levels of the sport.  The football team had four winning seasons overall in those nine years, with no league titles and a conference mark of 26-29 (47.2%).  SoCon finishes:  3rd, 4th, 7th, 5th, 4th, 6th, 3rd, 5th, 3rd.

Tangent alert:  Ross was really good at putting together a coaching staff.  For example, his 1973 coaching staff included Frank Beamer, Ralph Friedgen, Jimmye Laycock, Cal McCombs, Charlie Rizzo, and Rusty Hamilton, along with none other than Chal Port (who doubled as an assistant football coach during his first decade at The Citadel; Port had been a fine football and baseball player for North Carolina in the early 1950s).  The team itself also had some future coaches, like David Sollazzo and Ellis Johnson.  Despite all that coaching talent, in 1973 The Citadel was 3-8 overall, 1-6 in the conference.

The basketball team was coached from 1971-79 by Dick Campbell, George Hill, and Les Robinson.  Robinson would later prove his worth as a coach with an oustanding rebuilding job at East Tennessee State, but during this period the hoops program had just two winning seasons, bookends on seven straight losing campaigns, and had an overall conference record of 43-69 (38.4%).  Conference finishes:  4th, 5th, 4th, 6th, 7th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 3rd.

Meanwhile, from 1971-1979 Port went 85-43 (66.4%) in conference play, with three championships, nine winning seasons overall, and eight winning seasons in the league (and the other was a .500 season).  His SoCon finishes during that time:  1st, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 1st.  He finished in the upper half of the league all nine years.

He wasn’t done yet, either.  He had his best teams up to that time in 1982 and 1983, with the ’82 squad finishing 40-8.  At that point another power arose in the Southern Conference, as Western Carolina hired Jack Leggett to upgrade its already promising program.  The Catamounts would win five straight league titles, a stretch dovetailing almost exactly with a gradual decline in The Citadel’s fortunes on the diamond.

Port outlasted WCU’s run and (even more impressively) Hurricane Hugo, however, and orchestrated a season that won’t soon be forgotten, plus a very nice coda (the ’91 campaign).  That’s quite a legacy, one augmented by Port’s well-deserved reputation as a jokemeister and storyteller.

Jordan should be credited with maintaining the high standard of the program throughout much of his time as head coach, as the numbers rather clearly demonstrate that he has done so.  What he needs now is a “second wind”.  Port got his after a real-life gust of wind, Hurricane Hugo, blew through Charleston.  Then, rather amusingly (and appropriately), he capped a season for the ages by beating a team called the Hurricanes to reach the College World Series, giving a then up-and-coming Miami sportswriter named Dan Le Batard enough material for several columns in the process.

Jordan doesn’t need another hurricane (let’s hope not, anyway) to re-establish momentum.  He doesn’t even need to start making appearances on Le Batard’s radio show.  He just needs better pitching and defense (don’t sleep on the need for better defense).  He’s had championship-caliber pitching and defense in the past, and I see no reason to believe he can’t get the program to that championship level again.

I certainly hope so, anyway.  I would like to make another regional trip, preferably sooner rather than later…

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