2014
To The Board of Visitors:
Save Temple Athletics
Has anyone considered starting a drive on kick-starter or a similar site to raise funds for Temple Athletics. i know at least 2 people who have been very successful doing this. In return for contributions we can offer signed calendars (gymnastics), preferred seating at games. if we can put a dollar value on each sport and a time frame and we get some press we could rule the world or at least Temple Athletics
Being involved in saving Temple’s athletic teams has provided me with a rare glimpse at the quality, dedication, maturity and professionalism of the students participating on our teams. I am very proud to be involved with young people of the caliber represented by these Temple athletes. They deserve our current and future support.
After posting several ways to fund the Temple rowing team on Facebook and emailing the postings to the President of Temple University and the Board of Trustees, a Baseball Team member Class of 2017 requested that I help save his team. Below is the letter I sent to the President and the Board in response to that request.
I might add that I have received no response or acknowledgement of receipt of my communications from thePresident or any member of the Board of Trustees. As an alumni I am very upset with the decision to cut the sports teams, the lack of a consistent and logical basis for that decision, and the manner in which it was announced. As a major donor to the University, having endowed 2 scholarships and named the University as a beneficiary of my estate I am personally insulted at the lack of common courtesy and consideration my communications have been given.
There is much more to this story than the conflicting and unsubstantiated reasons given by the President for cutting 7 Teams. I applaud the Philadelphia newspapers for keeping this story alive.
To The President and Board of Trustees, Temple University:
A Short Commute For A Worthy Cause
Unlike the President of Temple University and many members of the Board of Trustees, I am very familiar with the distance between the Ambler Campus and the Main Campus of Temple University. And I know that this distance was not a deterrent to a determined student in 1964 nor should it be to a determined Baseball Team in 2014.
September 2014 will be the 50th anniversary of my college education beginning at Temple University. An education that provided me with a B.A., M.A., Ph.D. and professional opportunities I could only dream about as a 17 year old without family support or financial resources.
Like many students of very limited means who commuted to Temple’s main campus, public transportation provided me the access to a college education. For six years I spent two hours each day on the C bus traveling from Cheltenham Avenue to Broad and Montgomery Streets. I could have reduced this commute by 30 minutes by taking the Broad Street subway but that would have cost 5 cents more than the 25 cent bus fare and was not in my budget. Making the commute even more difficult, in 1964 students like me were faced with navigating across lines of National Guardsmen at each bus stop deployed to the University to protect us from the surrounding riots.
Given this backstory, it is hard for me to fathom that the inconvenience imposed by the commute from the Main Campus to the Ambler Campus justifies eliminating Temple’s Baseball Team.
I understand that other avenues are being pursued to allow the Baseball Team to practice closer to the main campus. But even if these avenues are not available, a relatively short commute to Ambler for athletes, many of whom have come to Temple from 100’s if not 1000’s of miles away, is a small price to pay for them to realize their dreams.
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