[jcmanson]

I dont disagree with asking them why, but I do trust that they have their reasons and they are valid.

[LUconn]

I think we had a thread about this in the "other sports" forum and somebody said they polled the students about potential additions. And that there was little to no interest in women's golf.

[Baldspot]

equestrian is a gigantic waste of time and one of the most expensive sports next to football and lacrosse any athletic department can have. no one gives a crap about equestrian, I dont see how they could justify adding equestrian over another womens sport that costs less and is more popular. on that note, several local colleges have it, including bridgewater, randolph, hollins, lynchburg, W&L, and sweet briar. of course those arent D1...

I guess its the circles we run in but my father owns horses and participates in a lot of shows. I think there would be a lot of support and if memory serves me correctly, the kids compete with their own horses and are training for Olympic opportunities. Most of the kids at his stable pick a college based on the equestrian program.

If nothing else, their parents all seem to have the financial backing to become college donors.

[flamesbball84]

they should just expand the size of the womens teams to meet it the title IX regulations. either expand the size of the varsity team or add a JV team for some of the sports, its drastically cheaper than adding a very expensive sport in equestrian. if they really want to add a womens sport, add something thats officially sponsored by the ncaa and draws a crowd like field hockey (VA areas like richmond and the the great va beach/norfolk areas are hotbeds for talent), ice hockey, or even freaking water polo. sure all three of those sports wont bring in many fans, but I can guarantee you they will be CHEAPER and bring in a lot more fans than equestrian ever will - equestrian will never bring in the number of fans these sports can bring in. Im not lying when I say equestrian is VERY expensive, I used to work at a college that had equestrian, and it was by far the most expensive sport we had - we didnt have football, but we had other very high cost sports like lacrosse and ice hockey and we didnt bring in any money for it because fans never showed up and it would have ended up costing more to hire someone to deal with the admission than it would have cost to not have admission. also, equestrian will never receive the same kind of treatment that other minor sports like tennis or golf will receive because no one is going to know anything about it and nearly everyone at the school will realize it\'s a waste of time and the only reason it exists is to meet title IX requirements. in summary, equestrian is a waste of an intercollegiate sport and if not for title IX it wouldn't exist at 99.9% of the colleges that have it.

[JDUB]

they did poll the students a while back. I personally thought archery was a good idea.. evidently i was the only one

[flamesbball84]

was field hockey one of the sports on the poll? if not i dont think that poll holds much water since to me field hockey seems like its the biggest team sport not offered at LU.

[flamesbball84]

by the way, they are talking about adding three WOMENS sports. if they were to maintain the current male:female ratio, why would they need to add three womens sports? do they intend on bringing in a lot more women now, if not, I dont see why they would have to add womens sports yet no mens sports...

[Fumblerooskies]

Plans under the new conditional use request include future faculty housing, institutional buildings, expansions to athletic fields and facilities, additional parking areas and a recreational park.

FACULTY HOUSING????

At least we now know what Liberty Village will be used for....

[flamesbball84]

if the faculty housing LU produces is as nice as what I\'ve seen at other colleges, some of these faculty members are going to have one heck of a house!

[Baldspot]

I used to work at a college that had equestrian, and it was by far the most expensive sport we had - we didnt have football, but we had other very high cost sports like lacrosse

Was it the gym shorts or the little round ball that broke the bank at the un-named program?

Sorry, inquisitive minds want to know if you can provide details without the use of foul language

[flamesbball84]

Was it the gym shorts or the little round ball that broke the bank at the un-named program?

what??

[flamesbball84]

anyways, equestrians expenses are so freaking high for various reasons:

1) you will either have to own a stable, or pay a buttload of fees for the student-athletes to use someone elses barn
2) if you own it, you will have to hire multiple folks to work full-time or part-time to run the stable throughout the WHOLE year, not just the school year
3) if you dont own the stable or barn or whatever you want to call it, you will have to help pay the employees that do work there, and these employees do not come cheap
4) while the horses are stationed at the barn for the school year, the student is not the one responsible for taking care of the horse, the employees hired are. that means the employees will have to feed them and do all the other stuff it takes to keep a horse alive. that means the expenses will have to be paid by the school, and these expenses get very costly very quickly
5) not only do you have to have people there to operate the barn and care for the horses, you need a coach on top of that, unless you can get a coach that will do both
6) the insurance costs the school has to pay for the equestrian athletes is through the roof due to the fact that any type of horse riding can be very dangerous and deadly
7) most schools that own a barn also own their own horses that they keep around all year and use for various purposes such as competitions (visiting schools in competition have to use the horses at whatever barn they are competing at) and lessons.
for LUs case, travel could be costly because there doesnt appear to be any D1 schols around here that have equestrian, so unless LU were to host most of their competitions, they could be on the road A LOT for every away competition.

[Cider Jim]

FACULTY HOUSING????

At least we now know what Liberty Village will be used for....

Isn't Liberty Village used for married student housing right now?
84, just how many horses are on an equestrian team? Are there varsity & JV hourses? Sorry if I'm

[Baldspot]

Was it the gym shorts or the little round ball that broke the bank at the un-named program?

what??

You said lacrosse was a high cost sport. What made it so expensive?

Also, most of the expenses you mentioned can be amortized over several decades, for instance a barn is a one time expense. Horses need to be replaced every 20 years or so. The labor you noted is minimum wage stuff.

You also indicated no one cares about the sport, my guess is the school and church knows they can draw a lot of local kids (future college students) to their summer camps if it includes horseback riding.

[Fumblerooskies]

Can anyone imagine a worse job....than being the student manager...
...for the Equestrian team?

[MacGeek]

shoot me in the face.

[flamesbball84]

well how many horses depends on how many riders you will have. and if you own the barn, the number of horses required depends upon how many competitions you will ahve and how frequent they are and the size of the competitions. obviously if you have frequent competitions you will need more horses because they will tire out if used too much and the bigger the competition you will obviously need more horses because each horse can only be used an x amount of times each competition. also, the number will depend on the level of use the school will allow the general public to have. will they have large summer camps in which the campers and camp workers have access to use the barn and horses? will the school provide riding lessons throughout the year? will they plan on hosting non-intercollegiate horseshows? and various other factors need to be taken into account when undertaking an equestrian program.

QUALITY EQ horses do not last 20 years, no where close to that, 10 years is good and 15 years is severely pushing it. a domestic horse not used for competition has a life expectancy of just 20-30 years, so it is basically impossible for a horse to be used for EQ purposes for 20 years. One horse year is approximate to 3 human years, so by the time they get to be 12 horse yars old, thats 36 human years old and as we all know by the time a human athlete begins to reach their mid 30s, they generally begin to physically break down and do not perform nearly as effectively as they used to. at my previous school, not one single rider or school owned horse was used for intercollegiate events for more than 10 years, once you get past 10-15 years, they will have generally gotten to old to be used effectively as EQ horses. the shelf life on these horses is not very long. these horses may still be satisfactory for simple horseback riding and riding lessons beyond 10-15 years, but they will most likely no longer be suitable for EQ competitions.

Of course, any horse that the student-athlete owns and brings too town to use is their responsibility to replace, but LU will still have to have their own horses if they wish to own a barn. Depending on how big and how good LU wants to make the stable, that can get VERY costly. For example, Sweet Briar owns one of the best in the cocuntry and is over 3000 acres in size, according to their website, and they have 40 college owned horses and 28 student owned horses. Randolph Colleges facility is significantly smaller at 100 accres and only has 9 horses listed on their website. I do not know if that is horses they own or what, their website is not anywhere close to informative as Sweet Briars. Hollins does not say how big the facility is, just says they have a flat field of 20 acres, which obviously doesnt include everything, they also do not say how many horses they own, but they do say that many are donated. Bridgewater has boarding facilities for 30 horses, that is about all the info I can find. Lynchburg Coll. doesnt own a barn, they use Randolphs and it doesnt appear that W&L own their hometown barn either - im sure they pay a hefty amount of money to use them though.

the EQ jobs I mentioned are not minimum wage. we are not talking about your typical minimum wage college student job, were talking about putting the lives of $20,000+ horses in the hands of another human. the qualified individuals that can perform the job well get paid well more than minimum wage. if you want to operate a quality barn/stable, you do not hire minimum wage workers to care for the horses. The local barns dont even pay minimum wage to its college aged summer workers who help take care of the horses and provide riding lessons. if you want to operate a quality barn or stable, it is going to cost you to hire quality care takers for the horses. if you want to operate a crappy barn, then you hire minimum wage people to care for the horses, that is if you can even find qualified ones to do it for that little play. i would think most horse owners would not feel comfortable housing their horse in a barn manned by minimum wage workers. what kind of message does that send out ot horse owners? your horse is not worth hiring high quality caretakers? the $20,000+ you spent on your horse is only worth paying some $6/hour to take care of them?

--------

lacrosse is expensive for multiple reasons:

1) its the biggest sport in terms of roster size next to football. if the sport is taken seriously on the varsity level at a school, there will be anywhere between 40-50+ players.

2) it has the most expensive equipment, maybe even more expensive than football but I do not have the numbers.
the sticks can be VERY expensive, especially since different positions have different types of sticks. defenders have longer sticks, middies and attack have shorter sticks. goalies have a different stick. faceoff people can have different sticks. and not only does the length of the stick differ, the head of the stick and the pocket varies from position to position. so you ca not just go out and buy a bunch of the same sticks and have enough for everyone on the team. and unlike baseball and softball, the sticks will break so you have to have extras on hand or extras in case a player alters his stick to where it does not meet the legal specifications. cleats do not come cheap, neither do the helmets. plus you have the all the pads as well.

3) The number one reason why lacrosse has taken this long to finally start growing rapidly in the US: $$$

[El Scorcho]

[flamesbball84]

scorcho,

your response sums up exactly why LU shouldnt add equestrian!!! lol

[Cider Jim]

84, I for one appreciate your knowledge and the research that you demonstrated in your 7 paragraph response, but this one phrase made me laugh out loud:

if you want to operate a crappy barn

[flamesbball84]

LOL. well no barn is a pleasurable place to be for most humans, its the horse that matters though (well unless a human decides to stay there...)

[PAmedic]

bearing in mind I'm from the northeast- but I really would've thought field hockey and ladies golf would've have been next, along with swimming.

[flamesbball84]

field hockey should be next, big mistake not to add that in my opinion! FH isnt played in Lynchburg, except at Lynchburg Coll. and Randolph used to have it but they cut the program this year, and more than a handful of VA colleges have a FH team...

[SuperJon]

Women's golf should be next. It's the only sport the Big South offers that we do not compete in. We should try to compete in all Big South sports before adding crap we don't have a conference for.

[TDDance234]

FACULTY HOUSING????

At least we now know what Liberty Village will be used for....

Isn't Liberty Village used for married student housing right now?
84, just how many horses are on an equestrian team? Are there varsity & JV hourses? Sorry if I'm

I don't think it's fully up and functional yet. However, Liberty does not regulate Liberty Village. Anyone may live there.