What could we do with more

My very first article for the Southern DIGEST was “Baseball Complex Becomes a Reality.” It was a horrible story, but that is not why I am bringing it up. I am bringing it back up because after sitting and listening Chancellor Edward R. Jackson go on and on about why we don’t have new baseball facilities. His explanation was bids from different contractors were two high, had to renegotiate, draw up new plans, exclude some things and finally things are supposed to be underway.
This only reminds me of the forever being postponed renovations of the mini-dome. And the finally partially completed renovations of A.W. Mumford Stadium.
Chancellor Jackson said something that caught my attention. He spoke of attending a meeting with top officials of various southeastern universities and the accreditation board. The topic of discussion was athletic programs and their budgets.
Southern University’s athletic programs operate off a five million-dollar budget, whereas the bigger schools (i.e. University of Florida, Louisiana State University, etc) have budgets as large as 30 million dollars. And those are the schools that continue to get more money. Because these are the schools that complain that they can not operate without more money.
I feel Floyd Kerr, Pete, Richardson, Roger Cador and the other coaches have done amazing jobs with very little. But, I can only imagine what they could do with more.
I am proud that our school as well as our athletic programs has built such a fine reputation for themselves. Because, it only because of our winning traditions and fine reputation that we are able to pull in the caliber of players that we do.