Valpo has much work to do...

When will the Twenge announcement happen?
Any other details?

"Valpo has much work to do if they are to compete at a meaningful level in the conference (Horizon)."

Let's rewind and go back to 1991, a time where VU competed in a conference with at least five of the same members whom it will compete against in the year 2007.

The quoted statement above was as true back then as it is today, no?

As was pointed out in a previous post (rlh?), Valpo's past winning percentage against some of our new conference members in basketball was 37% I believe. What do you guys think will be the difference in getting to a point of competing at a meaningful level in all sports this time around in the HL?

vu72, I don't mean for this to sound bad, but the struggles for cross country were not the results of coaching, but the results of being very young and inexperienced at racing at the college level. There were 15 freshmen or sophomores, athletically-based, on this season's roster. All of the experience of the last 7 years, including the 5 years I was a member of the team, has graduated. There were also many injuries to runners who were expected to do well. It's just something Coach Straubel had to deal with, nothing he could do to change the inexperience, but next year should show better results due to having the experience. Another factor the team hurts from is only having one runner per class eligible to receive a full scholarship, so Coach will splice that scholarship for the runners he is looking for help and success from. Don't hold Coach Straubel over the rail for something he can't really control. Some of it comes down to the choices of the athletes on the team, and not the coach.

I agree with you on the scholarship issue, but with running..injuries happen and between 2000-2004, there were many unexpected and unexplainable injuries that happened. I hope Coach Straubel can turn it around, but I don't hold youth and injuries against him.
After re-reading your beginning post, track is a story proper facilities to train on and the coach stepping back and reworking his responsibilities. I know from having run for Coach Wingard that he expects alot from his athletes, but he doesn't give much in return for the purposes of sleep and study, but yet he would tell us to get on the ball about how to work in the classroom and around practice and meet schedules, which is difficult with the academic rigors Valpo expects of all students. Many athletes are up til 2-3 in the morning just doing homework and studying because of the time he practices..about 3 hours a day, then taking an hour for dinner, shower, relaxing and then remembering what we've got going on for the evening. He's one that really should be taken to task, although with our facility choices for workouts and such things..I'm not surprised with being 6th or so in conference every year. It also doesn't help that the team lacks depth after he conducts fall camp and shows the freshmen just what he expects of them..and then they say "Forget this" or some other more expletive-laden terms.
Of course, we are students first, but the coaches do need to look at themselves and maybe rethink philosophy or recruiting to help lead the team up the standings and to Mid-Con/Horizon Leage titles.

Don't hold your breath for the basketball schedule. It seems like it was August or September last year.

Scholarships help, yes, but the real issue seems to me to be leadership (ie coaches) of the programs - at least of some of the programs. My son plays at Valpo and has one year remaining of eligibility. If not for friendships, love of the game, and a good engineering school, he'd have left long ago. The coach is a joke and everyone knows. If baseball is making a change, I hope that it signals the start of a little house cleaning that extends to other sports. The new conference presents a great opportunity to do so.