UAPB baseball coach talks funding

A lack of funding consistently leaves University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff student-athletes at a competitive disadvantage.

UAPB baseball coach Carlos James said his program’s finances trail behind its peers in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

“I’ve been here 14 years, and we’ve never been fully funded,” James said. “The other schools have continued to fund their programs to the point where it keeps us last. Believe it or not, our guys fight as best they can, but with only the amount of scholarships we have, it’s only so many quality [Division I] players that you can get.”

The NCAA allows Division I baseball teams 11.7 scholarships, which can be issued to athletes in any combination of full and partial scholarships.

James said he gets four scholarships.

“When I first got here, it was six,” James said. “And then tuition rises, and no more money being put into it, it’s just the way it is. That’s the frustrating part, because you try to motivate your kids to play at a high level, but at this level, you gotta be able to have some ability to play at this level at the same time.”

There are five NCAA Division I baseball programs in Arkansas, including three in the University of Arkansas System. The flagship school, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, plays in the wealthy Southeastern Conference, and is thus far better funded than the Natural State’s other institutions.

But even when compared to the other non-power conference schools in Arkansas, UAPB’s funding comes up well short.

According to the schools’ budgets for the Fiscal Year 2024, UAPB budgeted $114,064 this year for baseball scholarships, well behind the $319,000 the University of Arkansas at Little Rock budgeted, for example.

James said he recruited several athletes who currently play for other SWAC schools such as Prairie View A&M or Grambling State. He said those schools can offer more scholarship money than he can, which leads to recruits choosing those teams over UAPB.

He said he knows several people, including former Alabama State and Bethune-Cookman coach Mervyl Melendez, who call him about promising recruits. But without scholarship money, he can’t get those types of players.

“I can’t afford him, so I gotta go get a guy that just wants an opportunity and probably didn’t even play a lot where he came from, and I gotta come in here and try to make him a player,” James said. “It’s just not working out. You have to catch them on good days.

“My kids give me all they got, and I feel sorry for them, because it’s like, you’re hustling, you’re doing everything I’m asking you to do, and the [other] guy’s just better. So, it’s been tough.”

The scholarship shortage is a symptom of a larger lack of funding and revenue. UAPB lists its total baseball budget as $286,685, by far the lowest of any Division I program in Arkansas. UALR spends more on baseball scholarships alone than UAPB spends on baseball in total.

UALR’s baseball budget is $777,654. The University of Central Arkansas’s is $747,655. Arkansas State University lists its baseball budget separately from its baseball scholarship budget. The figures, when combined, total $745,260.

UAPB athletic director Chris Robinson was not made available for an interview, despite several requests to the university by the Commercial.

The lack of funding shows up in facilities and equipment.

“It ain’t even about our wants,” James said. “It’s about getting the things that we need. Like, we need dirt on our field. We need sand put on the field, so when it rains, it can dry the field out. Our scoreboard [goes] out every game. We got holes in our net or in the bleachers. The bathrooms in the dugout don’t work. It’s always something else.”

UAPB’s budget lists one paid assistant coach, Roger Mallison, while the others each list two. James said he didn’t have a pitching coach until Shane Youman-Osuoha, who doesn’t have a salary listed on the school’s budget, joined the staff in 2023.

UALR budgeted $205,000 for baseball coaching staff salaries. UCA budgeted $171,716, and A-State $139,612.

UAPB’s staff gets $94,061.

The Golden Lions played four games against in-state Division I foes this season. UAPB played A-State twice, losing 10-0 in Jonesboro and 7-4 in Pine Bluff. UAPB also lost 3-2 at home to UALR and 11-1 to No. 2 Arkansas in North Little Rock.

The game against Arkansas was tied at 1 after four innings, and the Razorbacks led 3-1 after the fifth before finally pulling away in the sixth.

“If you can take a third, a fourth of what they got, and you compete with the No. 2 team in the country, what could you do if you had half?” James asked after the game.

Junior outfielder Carlos Rodriguez-Velez, one of UAPB’s top hitters, said the players know they don’t have what their opponents have but avoid thinking about it.

“At the end of the day, it’s us against the ball,” Rodriguez-Velez said. “We have to make plays. It really doesn’t matter. Obviously, you want to have some stuff. When that game starts, everything’s equal. Just need to come out and make plays and get some wins.”

But while the players may try to overlook their disadvantages, James said he is tired of having to do more with less.

“As a coach, it wears you down, because you can do all the teaching and all the rah-rah speeches and all that,” James said. “When you look in your kids’ eyes, and they giving you the best that they can, and then you know they finna go out here and run into a Mack truck, that’s disheartening.”

James, who was named SWAC Coach of the Year in 2013, said his team has done its best to work with what it has. UAPB won three straight SWAC West Division titles from 2014-16.

Since that three-year stretch, UAPB has only reached the SWAC tournament once, which came in 2018 after finishing third in the division. Other than that season and the canceled 2020 season, UAPB has consistently finished fifth. The top four teams in each division qualify for the tournament, and the Golden Lions will miss the tournament again this season.

James said his program needs more funding to compete, but he doesn’t believe the school has the money to give him. He also said he isn’t alone as these problems affect UAPB’s other sports, including football and basketball.

UAPB’s men’s basketball budget this fiscal year is $707,276, well below UCA’s $1,312,619, which adds some context to the Golden Lions’ 85-83 win in Conway in November.

A-State’s men’s basketball budget is $1,406,754, while UALR’s is $1,001,348.

In women’s basketball, A-State defeated UAPB 85-65 in Jonesboro this season. A-State budgeted $1,113,514 for the sport compared to UAPB’s $649,856.

UALR budgeted $1,380,383, and UCA $1,205,866.

The Lady Lions’ 74-71 win at Arkansas is made more impressive considering Arkansas spends more than twice UAPB’s entire budget just on coaches’ salaries alone, over $1.3 million.

UAPB budgeted $2,210,443 for football, while UCA budgeted $3,824,217. The two teams will meet this fall in Pine Bluff.

UALR doesn’t sponsor football, while A-State and Arkansas play in the higher Football Bowl Subdivision and therefore should be expected to have much larger football budgets.

James said he doesn’t know what could be done to fix UAPB’s situation, and he doesn’t see it improving any time soon. Still, he said the public should know the situation before judging the school, the team or the players.

“You get some people that are insensitive, and they see these kids, and they go, ‘Oh they losing, because they going to the liquor store too much, or they doing this,'” James said. “It’s just not enough of them. It’s just not enough quality players, and that’s going to cause you to lose when you running up against schools like Prairie View that’s got everything they need.”