Dear Cowboy State Daily,
I am extremely frustrated with the lack of reporting on the total expenditures and amount of money the University of Wyoming continues to fund for poorly performing athletic department programs. It seems UW is now back to the legislature asking for MORE MONEY! Here are some facts:
1. Over the past eighteen years, since being a member of the Mountain West Conference, Wyoming has paid coaches the following buyouts:
- Basketball coach Heath Schroyer received a buyout of $480,000
- Basketball coach Alan Edwards received a buyout of $220,000
- Football coach Joe Glenn received a buyout of $316,000
- Football coach Dave Christiansen received a buyout of $570,000
These are actual dollars that were paid to coaches to STOP doing jobs they were already being paid huge salaries to do. By allocating more money to UW for athletics you are only enabling these type of buyouts and contracts in the future. Our current Coach Jay Sawvel has a record of 7-17 in his first two year and UW appears headed toward another one of these buyouts. It's NUTS! Stop it! Quit enabling these programs and these buyouts.
2. UW football which is the primary driver of the athletic department has combined record in the MWC since the inception of the conference of 73-146, that's a 33% winning percentage and has NEVER won an actual MWC Championship. The men's basketball program which is considered the second most prominent program has a winning percentage of 40% (146-219) in conference games.
3. Here is a ranking system that shows the actual success or exposure that athletic departments in the Mountain West Conference are bringing: Which schools have brought the Mountain West the most value under current membership?. Wyoming is dead last.
4. Next year, Wyoming will remain in a newly configured Mountain West Conference that will no longer feature former rival Colorado State. Instead UW will have "conference" games with UTEP, Northern Illinois, and Grand Canyon. To facilitate this, UNLV and Air Force $25 million from the departing schools while the rest of the programs (Wyoming included) will receive only $9.43 million putting Wyoming on what amounts to an uphill struggle to remain competitive against UNLV and Air Force.
5. Then UW recently completed an $80 million swimming pool in spite of the fact that the city of Laramie has the best pool in the state of Wyoming (which the UW swim team was using). There was also a recent renovation to War Memorial Stadium which cost the taxpayers of Wyoming $65 million.
I urge you to stop the madness and force some hard decisions to be made by administrators at the University of Wyoming. There is not a requirement that UW and by extension the legislature continue throwing money into what amounts to a money pit.
Travis Samulski
Evanston, Wyoming
