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Messages - calvinite

#1
Haven't received an update on Warners, but the speed at which he rushed the court with other Calvin players following the buzzer-beater gives me some reason to be optimistic.
#2
Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that.
#3
Quote from: realist on November 16, 2019, 09:56:01 AM
Night and day difference for Calvin.  One can't help but note that the 5 guys that carried the load for Calvin last night were there all last year.
The only real change was at head coach.   :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) you get the idea!

The five guys carrying the load for Calvin may have all been there last year, but the guys carrying the load for IWU last year certainly weren't. Bonnet and Rose graduated after starting all 27 games for IWU last year. Gregoire also graduated last year after starting 26 of 27 games, and Baker started 1/2 of the games last year as a senior.  IWU not only lost the bulk of their team to graduation, but they are a very young team staring 2 juniors and 3 sophomores.

Nevertheless, I've been impressed with Calvin's offense. The defense and rebounding are still big questions for me.
#4
Quote from: Bilk on May 17, 2019, 12:22:28 PM
Quote from: calvin_grad on May 17, 2019, 08:41:05 AM
Quote from: Bilk on May 16, 2019, 07:34:26 PM
All faculty/ coaches teach, some staff/ coaches teach. All staff/ coaches have additional duties. No one at Calvin is a full-time coach.
What classes does Ryan Souders, head soccer coach at Calvin, teach?  I believe that Calvin has changed their policy and some, but not all coaches, do not teach.
I did a little checking. This academic year Souders team-taught IDIS W32 The Leadership Code, he's also in charge of athletic recruiting and acts as a liaison between admissions and athletics.
IDIS W32 is an ungraded, 3.5 week interim course that was co-taught.
#5
Quote from: Gregory Sager on March 19, 2019, 01:35:41 PM
Quote from: Dave 'd-mac' McHugh on March 19, 2019, 12:26:10 PMI have found Calvin to be all show and less substance. Yes, they have had successful programs and they clearly have spent money on facilities .. but the fact the men's job will finally have teaching responsibilities removed ONLY because Vande Streek decided to retire from coaching (and stay on as a teacher) is an indictment. The same only happened with the women's job when Ross was forced to choose which coaching job he wanted to keep while still teaching.

Calvin has 11 national titles (four in men's cross-country, three in women's volleyball, and two apiece in men's basketball and women's cross-country), which puts it well within the top five percent among D3 schools. And only 16 schools have won D3 national championships in a broader array of sports than Calvin's four. That's not simply "successful programs." That is substance.

Yeah, requiring head coaches to also carry out classroom teaching responsibilities is an antiquated and unproductive policy. But you can't argue with eleven Big Doorstops.

Why the heck is ONLY capitalized?  Sauders has been Calvin's men's soccer coach since 2012 and has not teaching responsibilities / other Calvin responsibilities. Sure, they could have removed that for VandeStreek retroactively, but several coaches have been hired recently without  admin/teaching responsibilities including the women's soccer coach in the past year. And, speaking of soccer, Calvin's men's team has been to the national finals 2 of the last 3 years, and in between those two years, they were ranked #1 in the nation for most of the season and ended the year with just one or two losses (as I recall).  The women's soccer team has also had success at the national level recently, as has their women's track team, and I believe their women's softball team is ranked in the top 25 nationally right now.

Calvin doesn't emphasize sports (in terms of coach compensation, overall budget money, marketing material, etc.) as much as many/most DIII schools, and I actually appreciate that. It was not important  so important to me that my kids have well-paid coaches as that they had high quality insructors.  I don't think posters here are stating that Calvin does, and I certainly did not intend to give this message. What I did state is that Calvin had more resources than smaller school like Marrietta to compensate coaches a men's basketball coach than many DIII schools SHOULD THEY make that a priority. I mentioned the endowement along with several other thigns just because that's what I found during my 5 minute google search. I agree with what Dave said about the endowement, but the size of the endowement is just one indicator of school's findancial resources. Obviously schools with larger endowements are better able to provide financials assistance which attracts more students which results in more dollars to pay instructors.... and coaches.

While I can see why Dave would site the Ross situation, I think that can cut both ways in terms of how important winning at athletics is to Calvin College. That is, I agree that one solution in Ross's case could have been to let him keep both the tennis and W basketball by removing other responsibilities, but it could also be argued that they actually wanted a coach more focused on just w. basketball. And, while I don't doubt that the teaching and other responsibilities are probably a deterent to some potential coaches and not existent in other instututions, the idea that the teaching responsibilities of these coaches is overtly burdensome is a little dramatic, too. 



#6
I don't know if Calvin will want to pay him more, but Calvin's endowment is about twice that of Marietta's (125 million vs 74 million); Calvin's student body is more than three times that of Marietta's student body (3700+ to just over 1,0000). Calvin pays its president more than Marrietta pays its president (375,000 vs. 350,000-- and the 350,000 is a new contract whereas LeRoy turned down a pay rais this yea; LeRoy's benefits package is significantly larger). Note: Calvin's current president was simultaneously a finalist to be the president at Hope and Calvin, but withdrew from Hope and chose Calvin. Calvin's average professor makes $57,000 a year compared to $55,000 at Marietta.

It is true that Marrietta spends more on athletics overall (2.2 million to 1.75 million), but much of that difference is the result of having a football program; overall revenues and expenditures are basically equal at both schools.

The elephant in the room, of course, is Calvin's decereasing enrollment, but the decrease in enrollment and severe budget crisis has been equally bad at Marietta where, "The data posted on the Institutional Research area of the college's website shows steady fall enrollment varying between 1,573 and 1,618 from 2007 through 2012, but in 2013 the numbers of students began to decline, dropping off to 1,224 in fall 2016. Over time, freshman cohorts dropped from a peak of 463 full-time students in fall 2007 to 284 in 2016, according to the data. The decline precipitated a budget crisis, and in 2014 and 2015, the college lost 40 positions and staff took a cut in the college's contributions to retirement funding. In early 2016, president Joseph Bruno resigned." Marrietta's new president has reportedly started to turn things around, but enrollment has basically levelled off, not increased. I think it's still at 1,100. In fact, even though Calvin is a larger school and could therefore more easily afford to lose more students, Marrietta has actually lost more students over same time period.

This is all completely pointless speculation; I apologize for ranting. I do believe that Calvin can compete with most other DIII schools when it comes to hiring just because of their relative size, resources, donors, etc. I could not find a listing of DIII schools by size, but I believe that Calvin is one of the larger DIII schools in the nation --- I could be totally off on this guess.
#7
Quote from: Dave 'd-mac' McHugh on February 04, 2019, 01:53:40 PM
There is a time when stuff like that is too far and there is a time when it is just fine. It was just fine on Saturday. I even got a kick out of it.

I am all about proper sportsmanship and proper behavior when the situation calls for it ... this was nothing in the grand scheme of things. It was towards the Calvin student-section and his own bench. Players do this all the time and as was pointed out, burying those shots to start the game was worthy of some allowances.

It was other behavior in the game by both sides that should be looked at. Not to take away from the game, but if you have a problem with this than you must have hated the jawing back and forth and finger wagging at each other. Or getting in each other's way as often as possible after a whistle (which finally resulted in a technical foul).

None of that took away from the game ... nor did the bow-and-arrow celebrations. Use the term you did to describe it is over the top as well.

Agree completely, and my first reaction to the bow and and arrow comment was the discussion our van full of particpants had home about the very poor sportsmanship on the part of other players -- on both sides. We were particularly appalled by the behavior one player, but the lenses of my glasses were probably too marron colored to be objective -- but I'm not blind. And even if I'm blind, folks around were discussing one player's poor actions during the game, too.

It was a great game, and I apprecaite the discussion that takes place here -- most of it. but not comments about why one player's actions were found to be obnoxious --- or, going back several years -- about the dangers of celebrating students rushing the court.

Frankly, I find these sorts of comments about players celebrating something that they are happy about -- not something that degrades others -- far more obnoxious that the student celebrating  4, or even one made three. I was a regular poster on this board until the whole board blew up following Calvin's rushiing the floor a couple years ago. I've not posted 5 times since then. In fact, this might be the first post since then. A big part of that, though certainly not all of it, was my disgust with that discussion. Following it, I apologized to SAC. I don't think those types of comments are helpful, though. Others may want to read about how the actions of 20 year old basketball players celebrarting were fonnd to be obnoxious, but I, for one, do believe it says more about the person making the post than it does the person doing the celebrating.
#8
The number of Canadian students at Calvin has been steadily and significantly declining over the past 10 years. In 2016, there were only 51 Canadian students enrolled at Calvin. At the same time, the number of international students (overall) has been increasing. International students, in fact, is the one bright spot in Calvin's enrollment statistics, and yes, the word 'University' makes a huge difference especially in Asian countries such as South Korea which sends a significant number of students to Calvin College. South Korea sent 168 students to Calvin in 2016, and that is double what it sent in 2011.
#9
Quote from: realist on January 28, 2018, 01:35:43 PM

FWIW:  6 is the remaining number of games HOPEFULLY in someone's coaching career. :)

Be careful what you 'hope' for. I remember my UM buddies THRILLED at the prospect of RichRod arriving on campus. These were same folks who a couple years later said 'He has to go. Worst Defense EVER. No coach could be worse! Then, they were the same folks raving about Hoke -- something I never understood. Looking at Hoke's resume, I couldn't imagine a University like UM hiring someone with a resume like Hoke's, but I was told 'He's a Michigan Man!' He understands the Michigan way. Maybe, but it never made any sense to me. And, even after UM hired their dream coach -- there's still folks criticizing him now.

I think VandeStreek's record speaks for itself. Certainly he has strengths and weaknesses, and I'm as disappointed about this year as anyone. No doubt there are better coaches who THEORETICALLY could coach at Calvin, but there are also ton of coaches who REALISTICALLY  could take his place who would be a whole lot worse.

#10
Who's the Knight who twisted an ankle?
#11
Quote from: Gregory Sager on March 21, 2017, 10:54:17 PM
Is this a thing, OK? Is there a documented precedent of a father playing for one Rivalry school and the son playing for the other?

The mind reels.

I've probably got this wrong, but I thought Nick Kronemeyer's grandfather (Don) played for Hope. Well, I know Don Kronemeyer played for Hope, but I thought Nick was his grandson. Not father-son, but a similar situation -- which I probably have wrong anyway.
#12
Not sure after tonight's performance that everyone would consider GRCH to be the best team in the state, but their victory tonight is the result of a bench player hitting a last second three.
#13
wow. Gutsy performance by players from both teams. Big contributions from starters and from the bench for both teams.

Despite Hope's shooting lights out at the start of the game, Calvin really played solid defense and limited their turnovers. They made their free throws down the stretch, and while making 5 out of 13 3 point attempts pales in comparison  to Hawkins' 5 for 8, it's nevertheless an improvement over many games earlier this season.

Congratulations to both teams, and best wishes to them this weekend. I just hope they don't meet in the tournament anytime soon.
#14
Quote from: realist on December 28, 2016, 12:47:57 PM
Major upset is a bit strong.  I would go with disappointing, and leave it at that.  :)

The afternoon consolation game doesn't conflict with the UM football game.... That's a consolation in its own right.
Hope's playing as well, right?

#15
A live video link for Thursday's Calvin-Milikin 4:30 matchup should be found here:

http://wittenbergtigers.com/sports/mbkb/2016-17/tournaments/zimmerman/index

(not listed on Calvin College's web page).

The loser of this match will play at 2:30 on Friday, and the winner will play at 7:00 pm. The same link (above) should contain links to video feeds of these matches.