[NU Sports] I think the thing everyone on thesportslistkeepsforgetting:

[Dennis W. Brandt]

Sigh.  I'll try one more time and then drop the issue because I have nothing 
new to add.  You are debating issues I never brought up.

> I understand that there is comfort describing the world in black and 
> white.

This is your description, which is not reflective of anything I have said on 
this subject.

> You suggest that you either make winning football games a priority
> or you are a loser.

If winning is so unimportant, then why put a football/basketball team out 
there?  The coaching staff is judged principally by wins.  If Cooper had won 
more at OSU, he would still be there.  Attendance, matriculation of new 
athletes (and ordinary students), and university sports income sports is all 
predicated on one thing:  WINNING.  That's why we can't get butts into the 
seats, and what fannies are found there are about as likely to be rooting 
for the other team as NU.

> Every school that has a football program makes some compromise between
> athletics and academics.

When did I ever state that athletics should rein supreme over academics?  I 
never said that we should take the next great, illiterate defensive end and 
ignore his class-skipping.  I said clearly that NU could take a FEW key 
athletes they might not otherwise take and shepherd them through the 
academic system.  I'll add "with even more care than usual."  You could make 
one heck of a student out of someone.

> Those are the ones that go to the JUCO football factories.

Where is it written that a JUCO is automatically disqualified from being a 
good student?  When I mentioned elitism before, this is what I meant.
>
> I happen to have an ethical problem with promising a kid a scholarship and
> not delivering an education.

These are your words and not reflective of anything I have said.

> If you are able to think outside the box, just for minute.

The inside of the box is the recruiting status quo at NU.  I offered an 
entirely new concept - for NU at least.

>  Imagine if scholarships were tied to some formula of graduation rates and 
> post graduate
> employment (indicating that you actually learned something valuable).
> Suddenly NU would jump to the front of the race by being able to offer 
> more
> scholarships than its BT competitors.  Winning football games would be
> aligned with the institutional goals of graduating players with marketable
> skills.  How would you feel at NU then?

OK, that's out of the box.  Worth thinking about if you forget post-grad 
employment.  A loss of a scholarship for each x% not graduating?  I'm for 
it.  I can hear Jim Tressel screaming now.  I'm not sure Joe Paterno 
wouldn't be for it.  He was the mastermind behind Proposition 40.  Coaches 
would probably want some slack for those who leave school to turn pro.  That 
is different than spending four years and walking away with nothing.

Final word:  NU never has made a genuine effort to field quality football 
and men's basketball teams by comparison to other schools in the Big 10. 
The basketball woes remain utterly incomprehensible when you consider Duke, 
Stanford, Georgetown, etc.  Either do the job right or 1) drop the sport, or 
2) adopt an Ivy League concept.  If we can't achieve an overall 50-50 chance 
of beating Ohio State and Michigan instead of our traditional 10-90 
(Michigan) and 2-98 (Ohio State), we don't deserve to be in the league with 
them athletically.