Someone always has it worse. But what about the worst of all? What do they do?
The Savannah State University athletic program is the epitome of bad. In fact, bad is an enormous understatement. They are dreadful, abysmal even. Honestly, words fail to capture just how awful the Tigers have been over the last four years.
The school is in the transition stages of moving from Division II to Division I and to put it very mildly, have had some struggles.
For example, last night the Tigers basketball program lost by 51 points to second ranked Florida and that was only the team’s third most lopsided loss of the season. Half of there 18 losses have come by at least 30 points. Since the 2002/2003 season, the team is 8-92, including recording just the second winless season by a team in fifty years.
The women’s team isn’t much better. Over the same period of time, the Lady Tigers are 19-82.
But basketball is just a start. Savannah State’s Division IAA football team has gone winless in two of the last three years. They did almost win once this season. The Tigers dropped a 28-27 heartbreaker to Central State on Homecoming. By the way, Central is a Division II program and was playing football for the first time since 1996.
Spring sports don’t stray far from the crowd either. The baseball team is actually mediocre although they did give up an NCAA record 11 straight hits to New Mexico last year.
Last and definitely worst of all, Savannah State’s softball team has won just one game ever. In 2005, the team scored seven runs all season and was on the receiving end of five of the ten most lopsided losses in the country.
Consider that an improvement. In 2004, the team scored one run all season.
There’s a lesson to be learned to here. Don’t go ballistic when your school drops a close game or goes on a little losing streak. Maybe the football team was bad but another sport will pick it up. It could be a lot worse.
You could go to Savannah State and lose year round.
Article comments
1 - sal m
do they actually have a plan to get better or are they just wasting their money??
2 - sal m
do they actually have a plan to get better or are they just wasting their money??
3 - Dan McGowan
From what I gathered, they operate on a 2 million dollar budget which is one of the lowest in the country. They are division 1 independent and it appears that no conference is interested so I'd guess that they are going to be in trouble for awhile.
4 - Matthew T. Sussman
We finally have a '00s response to Prairie View A&M!
5 - M.D. Sandwasher
Dan,
Great article!
1 run all season. That's almost impossible. You'd think a high school team competing against some D-I schools could manage more than 1 run in a season.
6 - sal m
it sounds like a waste of 2 mil...