Wagner, Evans, Kirkpatrick, Chiddy, Ashley Shine; UM SB Routs Penn State 12-1
We have our first Yakety Sax game of the year. The ladies routed Penn State today 12-1 in a mercy rule win. Haylie, Bree, Chiddy, Ashley and Stephanie came up big. Penn State just could not get anything going in this non conference game today.
Haylie pitched all 5 innings today. She gave up 1 ER on 3 H and had 1 BB but the impressive stat is that she had 11 Ks today. Not to shabby for a LH Freshman Pitcher. I will have to check and see if that is a record for a Freshman pitcher. She faced 20 batters. Haylie even batted for herself and got a hit.
Chiddy went 1 for 4 (HR), scored 2 runs and had 4 RBIs. Bree went 2 for 3 with 2 runs scored. Stephanie K. went 3 for 4 with 3 RBIs. Ashley went 1 for 2 (HR) with a run scored and 2 RBIs.
Coach must be be real proud of the girls thus far. Yes there was a few close games but every game cannot be a mercy rule win. We play next weekend in Boca Raton Fla. Friday we play Maryland and Long Island, Saturday we have a re-match with Kentucky then play Florida Atlantic. On Sunday we play Write State.
Overall we dominated this tournament. The other teams struggled in close games. Even #22 LSU is having trouble. Now that is not really a concern because teams have to find themselves. We have found ourselves for sure. This is going to be a great year. Thanks Ladies for your inspiration. You are a hero to many young ladies around the State of Michigan.
CALLING BLUEDRAGON!!!!!!
February 12th, 2012 at 2:10 PM ^
So what does the postseason look like for us? Obviously it's a long way off, but is this the type of team that could make a run?
February 12th, 2012 at 2:19 PM ^
to talk about the Post Season. There are too many games ahead. However, I will say that our biggest enemy will be the injury bug. It killed us last year. Stephanie went down after 10 games. It took us a minute to get re-adjusted. But in the post season, Kentucky took advantage of our freshman catcher and ran all over us. Caitlan did a wonderful job and is a great catcher but she was young last year.
I think we solved the mystery of whether we could adjust with the loss of Jordan and Dorian. So the key for Coach is to keep improving and tweaking the schedule to find the best combination for a run.
February 12th, 2012 at 2:17 PM ^
I clearly jumped the gun with my "could we lose the Big Ten!?" post yesterday. Here is my penance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ
February 12th, 2012 at 2:29 PM ^
enough data point to make any "rash" decisions. In softball, most games are decided by 1 or 2 runs. Its like "Any Given Sunday"; anyone can win. Last year we lost 4 games in the regular season. Two of those were "bad" loses. The one against Indiana was a very poor call by the officials. I thought I was going to get arrested.
So we really need to get 8 or 10 games into the season before we can start the "post season" talk. The B1G will not be a huge concern; but the key will be to host team during regionals and super regionals.
People should plan to be in AA over Memorial Day. It will be worth your time.
February 12th, 2012 at 2:19 PM ^
good to see the non profit sports shining
February 12th, 2012 at 2:21 PM ^
Softball makes some money. We usually get 1000 people for home games at least.
February 12th, 2012 at 2:36 PM ^
SB doesnt take much money to operate. The land has been paid for decades ago. The renavations were paid for by the Alumni and Diamond Club members. The only cost is chaulk, Umpires fee, gas, and balls). My guess is that the break even point is about 200-250 fans ($1000).
February 12th, 2012 at 3:19 PM ^
I guess we'll have to add softball to the list of revenue sports in the Michigan AD.
February 12th, 2012 at 3:25 PM ^
There you are. I think you will need to dig deep into your collection this year. It is going to be a very fun spring. I think SB is revenue neutral actually. Its all an accounting game for those who had graduate level accounting.
February 12th, 2012 at 3:40 PM ^
Yes, they make money at home, but these spring tournaments must be expensive. Figure 25 people (20 players, 5 coaches & support staff), round trip airfare to Baton Rouge, 3 nights in a hotel, 4 days worth of food...I'm guessing this road trip cost pretty close to $10K. And they do it again next week, they are gone for 9 days over spring break, then they have 2 more tournaments after that. We haven't even discussed the scholarship money for the players, which is technically part of the team's budget, and the coaches' salaries.
Michigan has only 10 home dates on the schedule. 1000 fans average at $5 each for 10 games is $50K--that won't even pay half of Hutch's salary.
February 12th, 2012 at 4:11 PM ^
Hutch brings home $200,000 this year, and the assistants make $80,010 and $59,921. They also have a director of operations who doesn't have a listed salary, and an athletic trainer. On top of that, if they don't have a dedicated S&C coach, they at least have 1/2 or 1/3 of one, which would have to be factored in as well.
The only sports that actually turn a profit are hockey, basketball and football (which isn't a slight against softball, M football probably wouldn't turn a profit if they were playing 80% of their games on the road), as they have big stadiums that are pretty routinely packed.
Also, twelve scholarships aren't cheap. $595,200 by my calculations. That's some serious change.
February 12th, 2012 at 4:25 PM ^
are using some interesting accounting. The cost of the scholarships, while are valuable to the recipients, do not actually "cost" the U any money. This is the primary reason that scholarships do not include books, supplies etc. There is some talk to include these costs.
February 12th, 2012 at 4:36 PM ^
They cost the AD money, though (and actually that's unique to schools with an AD that can afford it, a lot of schools just write off the cost and it gets expensed against the general fund or somewhere similar). Every year the AD cuts a check for OOS tuition, plus room and board and books for every athlete at M, within the scholarship limits. Your last line about books is incorrect, scholarships include the three things I listed above, and there is talk about increasing them to include other money (M calls it "Personal and Miscellaneous Expenditures").
February 12th, 2012 at 9:51 PM ^
problem if UM pays for all school supplies. But the the cost of the athletes does not "cost" the University money. I uderstand the AD pays the school but there is no additional cost to the U for a single student.
There are many many schools that the AD does NOT pay for athletes.
February 12th, 2012 at 10:17 PM ^
February 12th, 2012 at 10:27 PM ^
The athlete does not add cost to the U. 12 extra students does not require additional resources that the U has to spend money. For example, professors are already paid, the light bill, phone bill, heat, taxes, ground maintenance, toilet cleaner etc are already employed. So the addition of 12 more atheletes does not add to the "cost" of the school.
I understand that the AD "pays" the school and it comes out of the budget. But the additional cost is minimal.
The major portion of the non-revenue budget is official and travel. The U already has ground keepers employed to take care of non-athletic grounds. The property has already been paid for. So the "real cost" of softball, baseball, Lax, Field Hockey is minimal.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:05 AM ^
This interesting conversation motivated me to find this year's athletic department budget:
http://www.regents.umich.edu/meetings/06-11/2011-06-X-13.pdf
Notice that the revenue from ticket sales all sports other than football, basketball and hockey ($273K) still does not pay the salary of the softball coaching staff ($360K). I also forgot that in addition to the 5 pre-season tournaments that Michigan pays travel expenses for the entire team, Hutch and her assistants are also flying to California multiple times a year on recruiting trips, and flying recruits from California to Michigan for official visits as well.
If you don't want to examine the budget, they unfortunately don't break it down by sport, but the overall athletic budget goes to salaries (36%), team travel and equipment (16%), financial aid to athletes (16%), facilities improvement (12%), facilities maintenance (9%), and other (11%). Ticket sales from all sports combined other than football, basketball and hockey pay exactly 0.25% of the budget.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:28 AM ^
This is good information to have. This is ONE way to perform the accounting. There are several methods according to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).
One item that is not listed is the money from summer camps. Softball campers each pay about $300 and typically there are 300-500 softball campers. So on the low end, the income is about $1,000,000. Michigan Softball Camps have always been a big draw; however, after the 2005 NC, it has exploded. Everyone wants to be taught by Coach Hutch.
Camp income is NOT listed as a line-item. The camp fixed costs are already covered and the variable costs (balls, water, lunch etc) total about $10,000 (my estimation). I imagine the baseball camps do just as well. Don forget about concession income as well as hosting Regionals and Super Regionals either. That income is runs into the thousands per game.
So the variable costs of SB/BB (coaches salaries, travel, balls, chalk, diamond dust, equipment, uniforms, etc) is more than covered. I also imagine that we are in a unique position because of the success of our program.
I dont want this to be a Cost Accounting 700 class. Schools typically call all the sports other than the big 3 (BB, FB, H), non-revenue sports. However, UM has a very loyal SB and BB following and is probably revenue-neutral. The athletic department might report this as a loss by factoring in depreciation, cost of money, scholarships etc.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:30 AM ^
$300 fee times 300-500 campers is $0.1 million, not $1 million...
February 13th, 2012 at 9:37 AM ^
Also, camps are outside of the athletic department budget. The revenue from the camps does not go to pay for the softball team. The camps are a way for Hutch and her assistants to make some "side money." The income will go to the camp instructors, including Hutch, as outside income. The money doesn't help pay for our trip to Baton Rouge last week.
With the exception that I think some of the camp money goes to the athletic department for "facility rental" or something like that...
February 13th, 2012 at 9:39 AM ^
However, the AD gets income.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:27 AM ^
This is a very odd way to think about budgeting. By this rationale, no student costs the University any money, yet when you put them all together, educating and providing for students is enormously expensive.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:30 AM ^
The fixed costs are coverd by the "paying" students. The small number of athletes are covered under the fixed costs. The variable costs are real and tangible.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:36 AM ^
Maybe I'm not understanding you, but this feels like a technicality. I mean, even if you focus only on faculty time (a small fraction of the overall cost of these students to the University), 12 scholarship athletes x 120 credits for graduation = 1,440 faculty credit hours. That's real money.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:42 AM ^
is very difficult to explain in a 3 sentense blog. Fixed costs, variable costs, Cost of money: it gives me a headache.
Needless to say: Large Universities absorb scholarships better than smaller ones as the small number of scholarships are spread over a large number of students.
February 12th, 2012 at 2:29 PM ^
I've noticed that Nebraska isn't on the schedule, I'm disappointed that there isn't a complete round robin for Big Ten play. The newcomers have a good program and should be playing the top program in the Big Ten. Hopefully that changes in the future.
February 12th, 2012 at 2:35 PM ^
change for future schedules. Lincoln is such a long distance away. Im sure they are trying to get 2 eastern teams (like Penn State) to go out to Lincoln with us to have a mini-tournament. over a weekend.
February 12th, 2012 at 3:17 PM ^
I can offer a nice 1967 recording of Symphony Band playing Shostakovich's Festive Overture, arranged for band by Donald Hunsberger and conducted by William Revelli.
February 12th, 2012 at 3:28 PM ^
Your retirement has been denied. Especially this this group of girls, we need all hands on deck. I think we can assist you on occasion though.
February 12th, 2012 at 3:22 PM ^
Great to see the bats come alive like that! 2+ runs per inning will win you a lot of games. Granted PSU isn't exctly on our level as a program, but you play the games you have scheduled. Even more than the O, though, I'm pleased with our freshman pitchers answering some ?s early.
February 12th, 2012 at 3:58 PM ^
Good wins this weekend; hopefully we can get a small amount of revenge against Kentucky this Saturday.
I'm happy to see that Michigan has some depth both on the mound and at the plate, and that both of the freshman pitchers can hit. That will give Michigan some additional late-game options that they didn't have last year after Kirkpatrick's injury.
February 12th, 2012 at 4:33 PM ^
My dad is a big softball fan but he has trouble finding good information on the team so I can keep him up to speed because of your posts.
February 12th, 2012 at 4:35 PM ^
What a weekend for all Michigan sports.
- Michigan Hockey beat state at JLA AGAIN, winning 3-2 in OT AGAIN
- Michigan Basketball beat illinois
- Michigan Softball starts off their season winning a tournament and going 4-0
- Michigan Lacrosse played their innaugural game today.
Next weekend is jam-packed too!
Friday:
- Softball plays in the Florida Atlantic Kickoff Classic in doubleheader. Against long island at 4pm and against FAU at 6pm.
- Baseball starts their season in what will be, IMO, a major turnaround as the team will be much older. Michigan will play pittsburgh in Dunedin,FL in the B1G/Big East Challenge at 7:30pm.
- Hockey plays northern at Yost in the final regular-season home series of the season at 7:35pm on BTN.
Saturday:
- Softball plays early in another doubleheader in the Classic. They will take on maryland at 9am and then play wright state at 1pm.
- Baseball plays seton hall at 1pm in the B1G/Big East Challenge in St. Petersburg,FL
- Lacrosse gets back on the road, going to #17 penn state at 1pm. Not sure yet if BTN will broadcast it.
- Hockey has it's game at a special time to accomodate the big game at Crisler. The Michigan vs northern game will be a 5:05pm start on FSN Detroit. It will be senior night. Cannot wait for Hunwick to be honored.
- Mens Basketball plays a BIG game against which is the toughest game left on the schedule. College Gameday will be at Crisler Center, It will be a Maize-Out no doubt about it. That game will be at 9pm on ESPN.
Sunday:
- Softball will try to avenge last season's NCAA Regional loss to kentucky, as they will play them at noon in the conclusion of their run in the Florida Atlantic Kickoff Classic.
- Baseball wraps their play in the B1G/Big East Challenge when they play west virginia at 10am in St. Petersburg,FL.
- Womens Basketball plays last place indiana on the road at Noon on BTN.
GO BLUE!!