With this closure there is now currently 11,000 kids in the portal
Limestone
- Thread starter BlueDevil1996
- Start date
Limestone handled this pretty poorly if you ask me. You don't just close a 197 year old institution over night. This was months in the making and to allow kids to sign this year was egregious.
Let's not forget all sports are involved not just football.
Let's not forget all sports are involved not just football.
And they hired a new head football coach in January. Things haven't looked great there recently but wonder how much they bothered to disclose to him on the situation?
I have heard that school is hurting big time for money
got ya. well hopefully they have had a plan in place or at least getting one esp with the other 2 closures
Im curious if some other college like Livingstone ; Erskine; ECSU; etc could be next those lower level type places.
St. Aug losing accreditation, Limeston closing, St Andrews closing…sheesh.
If Guilford College goes, & Gboro College stays, that’d be shocking as can be
The era of loan forgiveness and NIL effects. starting to trickle down to small colleges..... This is not surprising
I don’t think many if any kids who attend limestone or schools like that have to worry about NIL money
It’s official Limestone will close its door after failing to generate enough donations to keep them alive
1845-2025 is a great run but a sad end to a historic university
1845-2025 is a great run but a sad end to a historic university
Right now we have an influx of players in the market. There are players in the portal who have exhausted their eligibility after playing 5-6 seasons and they want to continue playing because they have low professional/ regular job prospects. Its better to them to play one more season at $100k than leave the school. Some college coaches only recruit the portal and no HS players so this has had a trickle down effect with players playing down a level or possibly two levels.
The lower level schools like FCS, NAIA, D2, D3 have been flooded with more HS guys and portal guys coming down. In many instances they only have partial scholarships or limited scholarships and the vast majority of athletes depend on private loans, Financial aid, and direct pay. Right now we have too many guys applying for too few spots. HS is 4 strict years. College now is 5-6 years in most cases so we have too many players.
These smaller private Christian schools tried to get this great talent but there has not been enough funding. They depend on getting a ton of athletes in using partial scholarships and private loans/FAFSA to help keep the university afloat. Now with so many applying and getting in players have more leverage and less patience. They rage quit, transfer, dont pay their bills, try to move up a level, which leaves them smaller schools in bad spots. Add in the loan forgiveness and lenders tightening up its a mess at smaller private schools.
So NIL, COVID effects and loan forgiveness have had an unattended side effect on these small private schools who were already in financial binds. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Right now its smaller schools feeling the crunch but it will trickle up. D3 is taking a big hit.
CLOSURES/Athletics eliminated
Limestone(closed)
St. Andrews (closed)
St. Augustine (Football)
Sonoma State University(all athletics)
San Fran State (baseball, soccer, track)
St Francis D1 to D3
Fontbonne University (Closed)
Northland College(Closing)
Bryn Athyn(All athletics)
Multnomah(merger ending all athletics)
North American (Football)
Don’t see how they are in a finacial
Bind with how much they have been charging regular students for years….someone been pading there pockets
Limestone specific there was some misuse of funds by Admin. several years ago.
Paying employees, upkeep on a campus (grounds, buildings, infrastructure, et al), systems, et al add up really fast. Some schools have been fighting the closure and hoping for an influx of cash/donations. I think they see the federal government is backing off and people are second guessing students loan and four year college all together. Add in bad decisions / management and in some cases illegal use of funds and the problems become insurmountable.
Pfeiffer College (between Mt Pleasant and Salisbury in Stanly County) went from D2 to D3 sports a few years ago. The varsity basketball team was dressing 16 plus players and they had a JV with about the same. They were using sports as a way to generate income (as bigdadd mentioned above) getting students wanting to continue their playing careers to pay tuition. A little from the school, some from the students, student loans, and grants. The system has been broke and the students / families and the taxpayer was footing the bill.
Agree there was financial mismanagement prior to these issues. These new issues just make the problem untenable. Schools been using athletic money to "balance" the budget. Now that money is drying up and true issues are seen.
If those kids went to Limestone out of high school, they may find it hard to transfer out to other schools as Limestone is not exactly a football tradition. It is sad when schools close or close down sports. We will see more and more smaller schools closing or getting rid of expensive programs. It is now about facilities, player services and NIL. If you are not upgrading your facility with fancy locker rooms, massive training areas, staff to cater to those athletes, private team dining areas, onsite barbershops, video game rooms, golf simulators, extra gyms, fitness areas, etc then those colleges are going to fail eventually. Lots of these recruits "want" all that fancy now instead of wanting to compete, be loyal and play ball. The times of loyalty are done with college sports due to the NIL and portal.
You explained exactly what I was trying to say. These smaller schools are now getting diva athletes that feel they should be at a higher level. Then when they get their student loan checks/aid they not paying the schools but using the money on their on. Kids are basically holding these schools hostage. Its happening at mid majors too but we only focus on the FBS schools.
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