[NU Sports] final thoughts RE: 4th Quarter

[Jeff Beamsley]

There is some logic to your argument if all the BT cared about was football
and basketball.  Were that the case, I agree that NU likely would have left
for a less football-centric conference.

Fortunately, as other posters have already pointed out, the BT is about a lot
more including academics.  

So what we may lack in basketball and football (at least in attendance), we
more than make up for in academics, women's sports, golf, etc.

With the understanding of a biased perspective, I think that the BT is proud
to have Northwestern as a member.  We are the only private school.  We are
the smallest school.  We are an academic and research leader, and we're still
willing to strap it on every Saturday and slug it out with the "big" schools.
Just as one example, our student graduation rate helps balance out the low
rates from schools like OSU.  In return, OSU shares a little football revenue
with us.  It's a good deal the whole way 'round.

Jeff


-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Arthur Miller
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:35 PM
To: Eric West; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] final thoughts RE: 4th Quarter


Eric, I'm not insta-panicking.  I am going to offer some final thoughts, and
then shut up and return to Lurker Mode ("at last!", they said):
 
I don't like the idea of reducing academic standards; it's just not the
culture at NU, and agree that something seems wrong about it.  I'd love to
see NU form a football-only conference with like-minded schools: Duke,
Stanford, Wake Forest, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Rice, BC, Army, Navy, and Air
Force.  I think such a conference would be a lot of fun to follow, and could
send the right message to the rest of the country about the ideal of the
student-athlete by imposing high standards around academic eligibility,
academic progress, graduation rates, etc.  The member programs would compete
on a more equal footing, which should result in parity over the long term
(ask yourself: is there a perennial doormat or superpower in the list above?)
The benefits would IMHO more than make up for the reduced TV and bowl revenue
of such a conference.  It would allow us to gracefully opt out of our present
arms race against large state universities, some of whom have only minimal
academic expectations of themselves.
 
Barring this pipe dream, we must accept that the economics of college
football & men's hoops have changed dramatically in the past 20 years.  If NU
doesn't pull our weight in the Big Ten (as defined by our ability to attract
fan interest, relative to the others) then our days are numbered.  Oh, they
won't boot us out anytime soon, but it is delusional to ignore economic
reality, because economic reality ALWAYS catches up with you eventually.  Ask
the USSR.
 
I agree that we have done fairly well in football over the past 10 years.
But economic reality says that we have to accomplish much more than just
being competitive--we have to attract lots of fans.  This is where NU is
failing miserably, as recent Ryan Field attendance figures will attest.  The
odds are stacked against us, due to our small size and the fact that we don't
represent an entire state, so in order to attract as many football fans as
even a mediocre Indiana or Illinois, we're going to have to do much, MUCH
better than going 26-35 in the past 5 years.
 
"They can't kick us out--we're a charter member of the Big Ten!"  Yeah, but
what if the conference disbanded in favor of some TBD super-conference?  If
this happened, it is almost a certainty that we would be left behind, just as
Rice was when the once-great Southwest Conference disintegrated in the face
of--you guessed it--economic reality.  It could happen to NU.  Something's
gotta give, eventually.
 
Cheers,
Art Miller
 
 
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