[NU Sports] Where shall we bowl?

[Mark S. Ament]

I acknowledge each of your points as they exist in both the reality of NU's
sports existence and the minds of the guys in the hideous colored blazers
that make bowl selections. Nevertheless, the facts behind our actual bowl
performance don't bear any of this out.  The attendance at our bowl games
over the last decade has been remarkably high, given all the circumstances.
The Rose Bowl, admittedly an unusual and once in a lifetime return to a bowl
event, was predominately purple.  There were good crowds at both the Citrus
the next year and the Alamo a few years ago and last year's Motor City set
an attendance record/

What Mark Murphy has to do for the future is to begin educating the bowls on
the facts regarding our national following.  You can't judge bowl potential
for NU on the stands at Ryan Field.  We have a national alumni base that
turns out for bowls and the selection committees have to be educated to that
fact.

Murphy also has a big selling job ahead of him with Chicago media which
continues to treat NU as if it were located in some distant universe.  I
don't pretend to know why the coverage in the local media is so poor.  I
suspect it is a combination of a number of different factors ranging from
Chicago being predominately a pro sports town to there being insufficient
readership/viewership demand.  NU's admittedly weak efforts at promotion
don't help matters any.  I'm sure Murphy knows he has his work cut out for
him.  I just hope he plans on giving it the attention it deserves.

In the meantime, let's hope for a win on Saturday so that we can all enjoy
New Year's in Music City.

Mark
Mark S. Ament
prplehaze at insightbb.com
 

	-- small fanbase
	  -- examples: no NU themed sports bar in entire Chicago area
	  -- none of the major papers here think we're a local team
	  -- only 1 sports-radio outlet cares about us, and while
	     it's the best AM station in the country, it probably
	     only cares about us because their sports director is
	     himself an NU grad and apparently a huge fan of NU sports
	  -- smaller alumni base
	-- questionable sports marketing department
	  -- this, despite having a top-2 B-school.  I'm guessing
	     NU Athletics simply can't afford Kellogg grads.
	  -- did you see the posters from last year?  A current student
	     remarked: "I could've done better than that in an hour in
	     my room with Photoshop."
	  -- why weren't there more students there on senior day