Break the Cycle

Here we go again with the band-aid solution. 

Step 1: Program gets cut
Step 2: Raise mountains of cash
Step 3: Pray for reinstatement

This temporary solution lasts only as long as it takes for the administration to find another way to cut the program or until the cash runs out.  It is unfortunately a necessary short-term solution but it fails to address the real problem.  It has happened before, it's happening now and will happen again.  How do you make your program relevant?  To be relevant you have to have to have:

1. media that cares
2. fans who care
3. student-body who cares
4. donors who give

In addition to a coaching staff, warm-ups and shoes, every program should have a Facebook Fan Page, an email newsletter, an annual fundraising campaign and a PR campaign. 

In business it is said that it costs seven times more to get a new customer than to retain a current one.  It is the same in athletics.

Break the cycle.