Dave Ridpath is a friend of Ohio Athletics. He is a nationally recognized expert on the NCAA also. I'm have not seen the survey so I can't specifically comment on that, but I highly doubt he is doing anything to sabotage athletics. He teaches in the Sports Management department and attends nearly every sporting event on campus, as well as several road games.

It is possible he is teaching students how to market sports in a less than favorable environment. If I was really concerned about it, I'd send him an email asking about the motives of the survey. I'll bet he answers you honestly.

Push polls, and poorly designed polls are so common these days....  As someone  who studied proper survey design, it appalls me. How about this for an example? As the background, over the last 20 years a lot has changed locally in the biking area. Here are four changes:
1. There are a lot more bike paths now, so kids that bike do it more on bike paths, and less on roads.
2. Helmet use is much higher these days
3. Kids spend a lot more time inside playing video games, and a lot less time outside on bikes, so there are a lot less bike riders these days
4. The city has a biker safety program

Not surprisingly, there are a lot less head injuries from biking accidents these days that there were 25 years ago. Which of the above 4 factors was responsible? Without a doubt factors 1-3 would reduce the number of head injuries, and #4 might have an impact as well, if it is effective. Rather than bothering to try to find out or demonstrate how effective the safety program was, the city asked the following question in a survey:

Which would you favor:
a. Continuing to fund the biker safety program and increasing property taxes to pay for it
b. Allowing head injuries among children to rise

I choose, um, b? Seriously, they could have done some research to see if the accident rate was lower among people that participated in the safety program if they really wanted to know and/or prove how effective the program was, and they could have provided that information, and then asked the question in a non-inflammatory manner, but that wasn't the point. The point was to justify why the city budget could not be reduced in any way, and why property taxes had to go up, and this was just one of many similarly inflammatory questions. Another question was whether a tiny and little used library branch should be kept open, or whether we should let the literacy rate decline.

Note: I'm neither for or against either of the above. I am, however, in favor of properly designed surveys.

Nice one, Bob.

To be honest, most "push" surveys are slightly more subtle.The normal thing is to ask some leading questions and/or slip in some "facts" in between questions to influence the outcome. For example, you might see:

1. Name a fond memory of a football Saturday.
2. What is your favorite thing about football games on Saturday afternoons.
3. What is the most annoying thing about week night games?
Interject Fact - Did you know that attendance of Saturday games is 30% higher than weeknight games?
4. Do you think football games should be held on Saturdays or week nights?

Now, suppose instead the poll was:
1. Do you like it when the Bobcats are on National TV?
2. When the Bobcats are on National TV, do you ever hear from friends that they saw the game?
3. Name an example of a time when someone recognized your Bobcat gear, after having seen the Bobcats play on a weeknight game on National TV.
Interject Fact - Did you know that, following the MAC agreeing to play weeknight games in November on TV, the recruiting services all showed a dramatic improvement in the quality of recruits going to MAC schools, and since that agreement, the term MACtion is becoming well known, and MAC teams are setting records for wins over BCS schools?
4. Do you think football games should be held on Saturdays or week nights?

Even though question #4 is identical, the responses you got would not be.

Does anyone know if David Ridpath thinks Ohio University spends too much on athletics?  There's showing-up type support.  And then there's supporting the funding necessary to play football and basketball on a division I MAC conference level.  If I was a betting man, I'd bet Ridpath thinks Ohio should slash its athletics budget greatly.

Anyway, as long at McDavis is around this is a non-issue.  Once he's gone, look out.

lol