The love of the sport surpasses the business at Truman

Truman State University’s men’s baseball is about to start play February 13 making me anxious for how the season will play out after a rough season preceding it. Last year I spoke to head coach Dan Davis and he said that the team was close to being great, comparing them to the 2015 historic season where they went to the NCAA Division II tournament for the first time in program history.

The team that was close to greatness went 12-35 and had four series sweep them away not winning a game. 

I have a real issue blaming Davis though, the real reason like many things on campus is tied back to enrollment and funding. The more money any team has the more likely they are to succeed. 

Truman’s football team has the largest budget and is the most successful in terms of wins, and fan participation. Despite this they have been the baby brother of the University of Indy for a decade now, in large part to the larger funding of the greyhounds team.

I know when I see Indy on the football schedule that means the team will likely lose – maybe by a lot – and that’s not really their fault.

Maybe we’re taking this all too seriously, maybe one or two D2 athletes will play beyond the sphere of college football, and it’s not like the University can print money, especially with anti-education sentiments spreading resulting in a gutting of their funding. 

I think we can forget Truman athletes are and will never be professionals and we need to embrace that. Act like it’s your high school and have school pride, go out and celebrate athletics. Some of these athletes pay to play sports here, they want to – because it’s fun. 

That’s why we still have programs that frustrate and hurt fans, it’s about the experience. The athletes go out despite some cards being against them and are competitive, often with lots of success, but even in the absence of wins or money they spend their morning lifting weights, afternoons going to class and nights at practice all for the ability to play the game they love.

They have to work harder than most, have poor funding, pay and faculties compared to higher end programs and take a fair amount of criticism, but they still do it, because they need to – the love of the sport surpasses the business – and that’s what it was always supposed to be.