Terps Sports

There are two new initiatives that I think are being deployed for the first time here -- one the "friends of" or team related fundraising groups are being attempted to morph into a bit more of an exclusive group. Second, the Athletic Dept as a whole is trying to get away from attaching benefits to certain donations. Most other charities raise money using a philanthropic approach, not selling some kind of benefit. Attaching donations to benefits was very short sighted and, as we all learned the "benefits" may eventually lose value and hence reduce our ability to fundraise.

So Anderson is modeling our AD after the Special Olympics. Now everything is starting to make sense.

It was discussed in the President's Commission findings. Every school does it but not to the tenth degree that we do it, and in fact Terpoints are somewhat relatively new. The schools that raise the big time money, that have billions in endowment money, aren't raising it by giving out the right to purchase 4 or 6 season football tickets.

I'm guessing the top level does not include a BBQ at Edsall's house paid for by him and his wife or a nice golf tourney at Lowes Island or Woodmont. Mr. public relations certainly can't handle that type of atmosphere.

So, for my donation last year I got a giant middle finger and this year I'm offered the chance to renew for more than twice the money at less than half the benefits offered the season prior. Screw that.

LOLOLOLOL.

I won't even mention the Ivy Leagues, Ivy caliber, or even private schools. But large State U's like ourselves, with far less national championships in basketball or football have endowments and fundraising success multiples of ours. I give Univ of Illinois as an example -- $1.3 billion. Pittsburgh -- $ 2 billion.

our endowment was $672 million as of 2010. I bet there aren't 5 BCS schools with a lower figure than us.

Again, every other school does it. If we can't then we need to right size the program. Just giving out benefits to get people to donate only offers short term solutions and masks the overall problem. Eventually those benefits will stop being valuable and we'll be left with too many obligations with little fan base (oh hello).

Am so sick of that argument. There are tons of major colleges that sit inside or just outside major media and sports markets that out fundraise us -- Univ of Michigan, Pittsburgh, Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, G'Tech, Univ Washington. All of them have endowments in multiples of ours.

Didn't mean it as a knock on anyone, but rather an observation. I think the numbers (TC members, etc, in comparison to similar size/profile schools) probably agree.

A parallel: I'd love to have half the number of subscribers that Alabama's got, but I know that 1) writing almost exclusively about football wouldn't work here like it does that and 2)Bama simply has a higher number of people who live and breathe the stuff.

Again, not a knock, just an observation. As someone recently posted, culture >>>>>>> strategy IMO. I understand you're saying the culture needs to be changed, but that's always a tall order.

Lackluster overrall giving is a big reason why the school has sort of maxed out its climb in the rankings. I never quite understood why the culture of institutional pride is relatively weak compared to similar schools. Somehow that needs to change.

OK, so they either have decades of success or 400 years of academic and old money connections (referring to the Ivy League).

Maryland has to do things differently because they don't have hundreds of years of charitable good will built up with their alumni.

And alumni giving is separate from athletic donations, IMO. Athletic donations should receive benefits. My donation to the school at large is strictly charitable.