SARAH GISH RESPONSE TO BRAD EDWARDS, MASON ATHLETIC DIRECTOR. Please read, share, and sign our petition!
***CLARIFICATION***
Thank you all for your support of the Masonettes! Due to the publicity my post is getting, I wanted to make two extremely important clarifications.
1. It is my understanding that the rumor is that the Coach of the Masonettes is behind this protest. This is 100% untrue. The Masonettes Alumni have come together to save our beloved program. Everything I wrote below is my own. The Coach has had nothing to do with our protest, the petition, my post, or my personal opinions.
2. I and the other Masonettes and alumni hold absolutely no ill will toward anyone in or affiliated with Doc Nix and the Green Machine. They are an extremely talented group of individuals who deserve every bit of privilege they are given at George Mason. I used our history with the Green Machine as an example as to why Mr. Edwards was in poor taste in attempting to compare us where there is no comparison.
Thanks again for your support. More to come.
****
Dear Mr. Edwards,
1. "We have received your emails with your concerns regarding the competitive element of the Mason spirit teams."
Thank you for acknowledging that we have reached out to you. Why did you not respond to the Coaching staff when they reached out to you as well? I am receiving the message that you are willing to talk to anyone but the coaching staff. This concerns me for the state of the GMU Athletic Department as a whole.
2. "First of all, we very much value our entire spirit squad."
Thank you, however it is my opinion that while you indeed value it, you do not in the least understand it. Nor have you attempted to understand it, which you made painfully clear by not consulting anyone on the coaching staff before you made an uneducated decision.
3. "The primary purpose of the Masonettes, outside of earning a college degree, is to promote and enhance game day atmosphere."
That’s right. The Masonettes are model student-athletes. In fact, the Masonettes consistently hold the highest average GPA out of all of the athletic teams at George Mason University. That is one of the reasons I feel you have made a grave mistake.
The Masonettes promote and enhance game day atmosphere by performing for the crowd during athletic games. In order to perform, they need to train and practice. A dance team without proper training and dance background can be an embarrassment to the school. Removing the prospect of competition will greatly decrease the level of interest and therefore will decrease the level of talent that shows up to audition for the Masonettes. Lack of talent will have a direct negative impact on game day atmosphere.
4. "The Mason Spirit Program creates energy inside EagleBank Arena, fosters camaraderie with our fans and makes our athletic department and the Fairfax County community a more vibrant and welcoming place."
As a Masonette veteran, I am well aware of what the Masonettes do as I spent four years of my life practicing, training and lifting weights, running around a track, attending mandatory study hours, getting randomly drug tested as per NCAA rules (yet not being recognized as an NCAA sport), performing at athletic events, volunteering at university and local events, spending over $5,000 of my family’s own money to pay for all of this, giving up my entire winter break to stay on campus and cheer at basketball games in addition to practicing twice a day every day, attending camps in the off season and competing at the national level every year to represent the school that I was so very proud to represent, all while being treated like absolute dirt by George Mason University. But I did it with a smile because honestly, women’s sports are used to being treated like dirt. Why do you think Title IX is a thing?
5. "This is the part of the program our Mason Athletics prioritizes, and because of that, continuing to focus on the competitive aspect does not align with our department’s ongoing strategic plan or the current NCAA collegiate athletics landscape."
This is the part where it’s clear to me you have made little time to understand what a dance team is and does. How will competing nationally interfere with the Masonettes’ ability to “create energy inside EagleBank Arena, foster camaraderie with our fans and make our athletic department and the Fairfax County community a more vibrant and welcoming place”??? The competitive aspect is what draws talented, committed dancers to the Masonettes. Without the aspect of competition, there will be a lower commitment level. The dancers will be less interested in showing up and training hard. George Mason University does not offer scholarships for Dance Team as they do for Cheerleading and other sports. Without the opportunity to compete, there is little to entice talented dancers to audition. Your decision will have the direct opposite impact on your plan.
The Masonettes compete against all of the Division 1 Schools in the US. We watch with awe as the University of Minnesota wins year after year with their impressive athleticism and technique. This University and many others, has both Football and Basketball. They cheer for Volleyball, Lacrosse, Track…. All while maintaining high GPAs, working out, practicing, fundraising and COMPETING NATIONALLY. What makes you think the Masonettes will not be able to manage their time accordingly? I ask you again… what does increasing the Masonettes’ visibility at school events have to do with national competition?
6. "By way of process, an internal committee was formed and charged with evaluating all aspects of the spirit program."
If this is indeed true, why did you not inform the Coaching staff of the Masonettes that this was taking place? Why did you not ask them for their side of the story? For valuable historical information? They have been involved with the team for 20 years. You have been at Mason for 3 years. As a US Government Contracting professional, I have studied Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Action for nearly 10 years. A major component of Root Cause Analysis is studying all aspects of the problem. By leaving the coaching staff in the dark, you have intentionally swayed the decision and therefore the findings of your committee would be considered incomplete and invalid by any reputable organization.
7. "This study revealed that the teams’ participation in the non-NCAA affiliated competition carried with it major deficit spending that continues to grow at a double digit pace annually and has been covered each year with funds raised from our NCAA sport programs."
Your “internal committee” must not be very good at math. If they had done any research at all, they would have found that the Masonettes’ budget has been $5,000.00 every year since 1992. You must be a very smart man, because you are now the AD at a D1 school. So you know that nothing today costs what it did in 1992. I did a quick calculation and $5,000 in 1992 is equivalent to $8,753.88 today. In fact, if you add up the cost of inflation over the last 25 years, it appears YOU (the University) owe the Masonettes over $18,000.00. That would easily cover the $14,000 debt that you are claiming is the “purely financial” reason that the Masonettes can no longer compete.
(Although I am confused because even when we alumni offered to pay the school $24,000, the total amount of debt without the Patriot Club account, you still said they could no longer compete because the Cheerleaders (a completely different organization) can’t compete. And the cheerleaders can’t compete because they have a high cost of insurance. Are you following this? Is this confusing to you? I bet it is. It’s also confusing to all the media that are now following our story.)
I explained this in my last letter, but you didn’t read it. While Cheerleading and Dance Team fall under the “spirit” umbrella, they are not the same thing. They require different skills and athletic abilities. A baseball player would not make the basketball team. Just like a Masonette would not make the cheerleading team. George Mason University has failed to recognize the difference between these two sports for years.
I would also like to know how many other GMU athletic teams have had the same budget, with no increase, since 1992?
ALSO, please note that there is no NCAA-affiliated competition for cheer or dance. If there was, we’d be competing at it.
