Old Titan Posted August 21, 2019 Share Posted August 21, 2019 In over 40 years of being associated with ORU Athletics, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this: both the men AND the women in a particular sport are picked dead last in a preseason poll: https://oruathletics.com/sports/xc/2019-20/releases/20190820o56mnv Not sure which of of the following possible explanations I find more disturbing: ORU just doesn't care about cross country, and is not interested in being competitive. ORU in fact DOES care about cross country, but just doesn't know how or what to do to be competitive. Does anyone have an answer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORU82 Posted August 21, 2019 Share Posted August 21, 2019 Great questions OT, I wish I had the answers. You did pique my curiosity so I did a quick check of our CC archives and found that since our return to the Summit at the start of the 2014-15 season, we have finished as follows at the Summit Tournament. In 2014-15 the men had their BEST season finishing 5th out of 7 teams, while the women finished tied with WIU for DEAD LAST in the tourney. In 2015-16 the men slid a little to finish 6th out of 7 teams, while the women owned the basement finishing DEAD LAST. In 2016-17 the men finished DEAD LAST while the women climbed out of the cellar to finish 7th out of 8 teams. Last year we had the honor of claiming the cellar for both the men and the women. That's right, both the men and the women finished DEAD LAST! Knowing all of this, my question is why does the Athletic Department continue the program with virtually no change whatsoever? Based on the preseason poll it is predicted we will accomplish our apparent goal of being the bottom feeders in the Summit in CC, by again finishing DEAD LAST in both the men's and women's programs. Can anyone explain the math to me? Does the AD in particular just turn a blind eye, assign the job of creating a schedule to someone else and write a check once a year to fund this program? BTW, I use the term "program" in the loosest sense of the word. Sorry for being so harsh but the truth does hurt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleManiac Posted August 21, 2019 Share Posted August 21, 2019 Fairly certain it is the 1st explanation. I know that they regularly do not have enough team members to even fill the score sheet so they have to grab someone from the track team who feels like running longer distances. Compare that to the large schools who field huge teams and only take the top times to fill out their score sheet. I'm not all that familiar with how track meets work, but I know based on my conversations with friends who were on the team that our track team was in their words, a joke, and we were consistently irrelevant at meets. Got to have a full team to be competitive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted August 22, 2019 Author Share Posted August 22, 2019 "BACK IN MY DAY...." (LOL - "oh good, here he goes again!") But seriously, ORU used to have a bunch of Kenyans and Nigerians who were relevant not just at the regional meets, but nationally. Oral and Richard's ministries in those countries provided quite the pipeline for talent; doesn't Billy Wilson also have a presence over there? I'm assuming that fielding a cross country program is a necessity for ORU from both conference and Title IX standpoints; but it still boggles the mind that someone like Western Illinois, mired in little bitty Macomb, IL, manages to produce a better XC program, when I'm guessing they put very little money into their program, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted August 22, 2019 Author Share Posted August 22, 2019 Here's some even-more sobering factoids: since returning to the Summit League from the Southland Conference for the 2014-15 school year, ORU has won only four conference titles in ANY men's or women's sports: all in baseball, from 2015 thru 2018. 2018-19 marked the first time in conference competition that ORU failed to win a single team championship of any kind. I frankly did not realize just how far things have fallen... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theeagleman5 Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 Sounds like it's time for a total athletic program house cleaning.....serious changes are needed....these results aren't want OR envisioned when he founded ORU in the 60's....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORUInsider Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 I believe one of the reasons is that Coach Dial isn't fully funded scholarship-wise so decides to invest that scholarship money into certain areas/people rather than try to be competitive in all aspects of XC or T&F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmg1984 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 The times the mens team run arent even good for the D2 or D3 level Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleManiac Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 11 minutes ago, ORUInsider said: I believe one of the reasons is that Coach Dial isn't fully funded scholarship-wise so decides to invest that scholarship money into certain areas/people rather than try to be competitive in all aspects of XC or T&F. Do we have any way to verify this? I had no idea any of our sports were not able to fill out all scholarship spots. If so, that is VERY disappointing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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