Ray, I don’t know why winning is imperative for you to continue to be a fan. If you’re really that big of a fan, don’t you go to the games to cheer for your team regardless of the outcome? And furthermore, don’t you also support the “non revenue” generating teams? By the way, we’ll never generate any revenue from any sport. During my tenure at EMU, I managed to make it to at least one competition of every sport except for cross country (hard to watch) and tennis (I have no idea where they play). Win or lose, I was at almost every Women’s soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball game. I even watched gymnastics, swimming and diving, and water polo on occasion….and I have no idea about those sports.

We also sent, last year, TJ Lang to the NFL. He’s playing for the Green Bay Packers, protecting Aaron Rodger’s backside. He has started a few games and has had his mug on the tele on Monday Night Football on a few occasions. Who cares if we win…or make money….it’s just a game.

Ray, I have also witnessed what you have, however, our competitors like Central and Western and yes even Grand Valley have put millions of dollars more into sports than EMU. Our facilities still won’t match what they have even with the new the new practice facility. Eastern has the smallest sports budget in the MAC with the most sports. Hopefully with Susan Martin as President things may change. She knows that the culture has to change, that the University has to reduce the number of sports and increase the budget for the what we call the revenue sports at EMU. However, she has to pick her battles and this is not the time to fight this one. What is more important now, is getting the University through the next couple of years without damaging the core mission, which is academics. The State of Michigan will most likely cut 20% from all higher ed. institutions next year. I do agree with you about our current athletic director, the use of Lloyd Carr to hire our football coach and the type of coach EMU should hire. You are right on in that respect. But don’t give up the ship. We need guys like you! The worst thing that can happen is that a few good people will do nothing! E-mail the President, build a relationship with her. See what happens.

While it is upsetting and frustrating that EMU Athletics is not where it once was or where it should be currently, there is no reason for you to turn your back on the teams now. As far as allowing the students the opportunity to pack the arenas and stadiums, students get in FREE, there are giveaways/promotions at every game, raffles for tuition, computers, parking passes and gift cards at least once a year. The men’s basketball team is 5-3 and the women’s team is 7-2, they are playing good exciting basketball this year and as much as attendance depends on them playing well, their playing well also depends on students showing up. Think about it, would you be more pumped up to play with 200 people in the stands or 2000? I attend every home game and hope that the rest of the student body will consider coming out to create a better environment for our teams.

There is no doubt that Eastern has had some bad leadership both in presidents and athletic directors. Dave Diles was one of the worst athletic directors we had. He hired Woodruff as a head football coach and he single handily destroyed the football program. Mr. Diles if I am not mistaken, was also responsible for hiring Boone as the head basketball coach, and he destroyed our basketball program.
Turning now to presidents of the university. Mr. Shelton all by himself probably did more damage to the alumni funding of Eastern, by changing the nickname from Hurons to Eagles. Eighty percent of the alumni at the time, and two Huron chiefs, all supported keeping the nickname. In his wisdom, Shelton said we have to be politically correct and change the nickname. And so it was done.
Now, if you are wondering were this fits in to the discussion, I know dozens of alumni who immediately cut off any donation that they normally gave to the university. They have continued to with hold support. Do you realize the amount with held is probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, all due to a stupid administrator, and that’s just from the people that I know.
I am a 1965 grad who has also through the years supported our teams, but I have not given to the university because of the nickname change.
Let’s not kid ourselves here, everyone should know that winning teams bring fans, that brings money, it may even increase enrollment, which would also increase funding.
I truly hope Eastern’s football and basketball programs move and stay in the win column.

I was on the original logo study committee. There was very little polling of the alumni on the Huron question. More importantly the Native American waiver students on campus, all 64 of them, did not seem to have much of an opinion either way. As far as I’m concerned the Huron Issue is dead. It was exactly that, a nick name, mostly for athletics. I did not go to Huron University, but rather Eastern. The University has gone through and is still going through a period where it is trying to be everything to everyone, especially in the area of athletics, and of course political correctness. I’m sad to say that perhaps the only thing to rein in all of this will be the continued collapse of the state’s economy. Next fiscal year will force some drastic cuts at all 15 institutions of higher education. Athletics will be forced to take significant cuts, just like academics. Sports, academic departments and programs will be lost. Get ready! There are some rough days ahead that may shake our confidence.

In response to Oldnormal – Do you mean to tell me that if the University of Michigan or Michigan State all of a sudden, on the advice of their respective boards of regents said they were going to change their respective nicknames that everyone would just yawn and say that it will be okay? There would be such howling and screaming from both their student body and their alumni that it would be heard across the state of Michigan. You would see attendance at their games fall off and the same goes for alumni donations.
Maybe I’m a sentimentalist, and I am very loyal to things that I was a part of, I just don’t understand people that are not. Maybe they didn’t have any fun with the organizations or schools or clubs or whatever they belonged to in life, but I did, and that’s why to me traditions and the upholding of those traditions count when it comes to being loyal. You have something that you can grab hold of and say, “Go Hurons Beat Central”!

I’m just saying that this Huron thing has to end someday. Taking away your support from Eastern only does one thing: hurts current students and athletes. The administrators and regents who where part of that era and made that stupid decision are gone. Who’s listening? Do you really think that in this politically and economically challenged atmosphere the administrators at Eastern are planning to bring back the Huron name and logo. This would cost a couple of million dollars. As far as donations are concerned the University has had a couple years of record donations and they have $30 million already collected from the silent part of the capital campaign that’s about to go public.

In response to Oldnormal – I agree with you the Huron thing is over. I was just trying to point out some of the grievous decisions that have been made in the last twenty years or so, and that Eastern cannot afford to keep making one stupid decision after another. We are under a microscope, from the state legislators, the governor, and the general public, and if our alumni are going to take pride in what Eastern does – it has to be right and it has to be correct in the decisions made by the board of regents and the administrators.

In response to Ray Setlock’s original article I do applaud you, Ray. Nice to hear from you again. I worked with Ray at the Echo in the mid 80’s and was Sports Editor before Ray. I will tell you that we saw some of the best sports that the MAC had to offer but that is gone and we have to keep the faith. As I sat home and watched Eastern stay with a U of M football team for the first half I was proud. It was only a half and Michigan is in a rebuilding year but still this was a great thing to see. In the past, Michigan would have never hosted Eastern, as Michigan State what happened when they hosted Central in the 80’s. We need to continue giving support to our teams. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to go to many events but I continue to follow the University through the internet and any other avenue available. I was there when we had to pay for tickets for both football and basketball. I had two sets of season tickets for both sports and only missed games when I wasn’t on campus. Free tickets for students and we can’t get more than 5,0000 to a game. Eastern almost had to drop a division in athletics in the early 80’s because of poor attendance and reoords. It can happen again – don’t let it. I graduated a Huron and will always be one but I am an Eastern Alumni more than that. My office proudly shows off it’s green and white. I am always available to brag about the school that I graduated from and will always be. Just ask me. I wish the athletic department and administration good luck in the comming seasons and semester. Congratulations to the graduating seniors and let’s go Eastern.

Well all of the above opinions are valid. Isn’t it odd that the non-revenue sports, track, gymnastics, swimming, even baseball and to some extent women’s basketball have done very well. But the 2 main sports, football and basketball, have not done well. And that is where all the money goes, football has 85 scholarships.
And why do we schedule, Vanderbilt, Virginia, and even Ohio State all away next year in football? when you know those are 3 losses for sure.
I hear Michigan St is coming here next year to play the men in basketball, may we get our first sellout ever at the convocation center? Wouldn’t that be nice.

EMU grad,
Eastern schedules those games because of revenue. The Ohio State game will bring in $400,000 to $600, 000, and the others will probably bring $250,000 each approximately. As you can see that is approximately $1,000,000 for our athletic programs.
I’ve said before on other blogs that if Eastern had a winning football program, and charged just $10.00 a ticket you might see 25,000 fans in the stadium, and that would mean $250,000 for each home game. That’s why it is very important to have a successful program.
Fans want to see winners. Regardless of a school being our alma mater, if it’s losing, people won’t come.

As an alumn and football season ticket holder, I am as frustrated as anyone watching CMU attain the heights they have while EMU continues to drool at the bottom – while there are many factors I am simply chalking this up to poor decisions when it comes to coaching.

I agree that once we brought in Lloyd Carr into the process it was a done deal we were gonna get English – to the point we discarded other viable candidates. It does seem we enjoyed the U-M spotlight a bit too much (I was at the press conference as it was basically a U-M conference with Carr, the AD (Martin) and other ex players – but what has that gotten us? 0-12! We built a season around a coach – and that is good for exactly 12 months! Now, he is not new and has to WIN! If CMU can win, we can win. Forget facilities – its about COACHING and recruiting – recruiting is easier when u win! CMU is on a roll and they will ride this for years and everytime they lose a coach they get another good coach in place… yet EMU cannot get ONE decent coach?

English and his staff had ZERO head coaching experience and it showed via poor game management time after time. Will he get the job done? As the wise man said “We’ll See!”

As far as basketball, the Ramsey experiment should be over! He had the most talented EMU team in at least a decade and could barely make it to .500 and the MAC was down this year. EMU should have won 23 games with the talent he had! Next year, we will regress to 10-21 and being .500 will be considered the glory days. And the fact he attacked a fan last year and was suspended but not fired indicates he is being protected by the AD!

The MAC used to be called the cradle of coaches – but EMU is the graveyard of coaches as our football and mens basketball coaches arrive, leave and are never heard from again!

Dear Carl,
Boy you have really gotten me fired-up. I agree with everything you have said, and what could be a good sign or bad, for the football team, English has hired five new assistant coaches. Two, in the last week or so. You also mentioned CMU quite a bit, which reminded me of last year’s game with them. I watched it on the tube and it looked as if our players were waiting to be blocked, or waiting to be tackled. We looked totally unprepared. It was after that game that I wondered if Eastern had made the right decision in hiring English. I also wonder if coaches, when they are hired by Eastern, if they realize the importance of beating schools like Central and Western. It has to be in the back of any recruit’s head, if he is from Michigan, that Eastern loses to both of them, I want to go with the winners.
As far as Mr. Ramsey is concerned, I agree whole heartedly. Five years of barely .500 is not what Eastern should be aspiring to. What is really scary for next year, I cannot find one recruit listed on any recruiting service that is being actively recruited by Eastern. Signing day is only two weeks away and we have no recruits! My only question to you Carl, is when you mentioned that there were other choices out there when English was hired, who were they?