Date Posted:21:09:05 04/12/04 Mon Author: xudash Subject: Outside View of Pat League Discussion (Long Post)
I do not understand those of you who take the position that Holy Cross can develop and sustain a competitive D1A basketball program by remaining in the Patriot League, or that you can honestly afford to stay there for the long term benefit of the university.
Let me first note that I was just passing through and, being of the Jesuit persuasion and not having a dog in the hunt, so to speak, thought I would make an attempt at providing some objective, dispassionate perspective. I am not here to flame. I have a positive bias towards Jesuit universities, and I certainly respect Holy Cross.
With that noted, I cannot begin to imagine how frustrating this topic is for you. Sader1970 framed it well, noting that there are logical arguments on both sides of the issue of league affiliation. There may be balance in the arguments, but I just don’t see where you have a choice.
If my post has a “thesis” it is this: that, through careful management and without sacrificing its academic REPUTATION, a university can develop and sustain highly competitive athletic programs that generate substantial, positive benefits for the school.
Let’s not go there just yet. Let’s look at the Cross from the standpoint of positioning. The big question is whether HC needs a solid athletic program to help fuel its ongoing development, or whether it is positioned today such that it has the resources to achieve its developmental objectives via its current sources of funding. More specifically, does the Cross need a highly successful D1A basketball program – A REVENUE, MEDIA AND PRIDE GENERATING ENGINE – to fuel its ongoing progress? HC has an excellent academic reputation in general and certainly is one of the top Jesuit universities in the States. However, with respect to showing up on the radar screen outside of New England or the Northeast, it tails-off in visibility as it pings for recognition at the national level, and it would seem to be migrating towards more of a regional, protected reputation.
If your endowment were what you wanted it to be, which is to say that most of you would want it to be, what, at least $500MM to $1B, then utilizing D1 athletics to advance the interests of the school would not be as necessary. To make a long story short, I doubt you believe the Cross is where it needs to be in this critical area. To be blunt about it, the Cross is not an Ivy League school. Those schools have the endowments and application pools to do what they want. They do not need to field competitive D1A athletic teams. They simply are operating at a different level.
Then there are the rest of us, after, say Duke, Stanford and Notre Dame, to mention three of the most visible institutions that still manage to carry off a perceived balance between highly regarded athletics and academics. Here’s a little “foreshadowing” for you: do you honestly believe that ND would be anything other than a small, Midwestern Catholic school had Knute Rockne and company not come along? Did ND’s “academics” fuel its growth, or did ND football create what has become ND as you know it? You can argue BC’s rise to prominence in the same vein, though to a lesser extent, after Flutie threw that long, improbable pass in the Orange Bowl.
Back to the thesis. You need not look any further than Xavier to gain insight into the value of strong athletic programs as “developmental tools” for growing and strengthening a university. I graduated from there in the late 1970’s. I received a great education from what, at the time, was a respected school, but not a necessarily distinguished school. Back then, Xavier was an independent in athletics, as were most Catholic schools. It had dropped D1 football as recently as 1973, and had an administration that didn’t have a clue with respect to fund raising (i.e. endowment management). It also had no concept for the value of fielding strong athletic programs. Xavier played in Schmidt Memorial Fieldhouse (1928) and lost regularly in front of crowds that may have averaged 2,000 – maybe – in that ancient place that could only seat 4,000 anyway.
Roll the tape forward. All of that has changed. If you want to get defensive, then take the position that the SAT ranges for HC are higher than those of X, and that, in general, HC is better academically than Xavier. Be my guest. But, at the margin, you would lose the war while fighting that specific battle. If you don’t believe that Xavier has established a strong reputation academically, you need to do some more research.
Xavier has been committed to building its flagship sport for over two decades now. The money, media attention and student interest that the Xavier men’s basketball program has generated for the school is a remarkable thing to comprehend if you are old enough to look back to those dusty nights spent in Schmidt, watching Xavier lose to some DIII school that it should not have been playing in the first place.
Xavier’s endowment is being addressed, because it isn’t at an acceptable level for Xavier as it is presently positioned. The fund raising power already is there, as is partially evident from a walk around campus: approximately $100 million in capital projects over the last 10 years, including the Cintas Center. The Board of Trustees and the Administration, both being very talented, have set the stage for real growth moving forward.
Xavier would not be where Xavier is now, and Xavier is going where it otherwise could not go, if it had not made a concerted effort to develop a professionally managed (ND grad is the AD and he is very good) athletic program that is based on the student-athlete and that is run cleanly. The resume continues to build: one E8, two S16s, 16 annual NCAA appearances in the last two decades, 8 straight 20+ win seasons, one of only three teams to win more than 25 games per season in the last three years, one of the highest grad rates, as that is calculated (tied with Duke; Duke also is one of the 3 teams noted above) in the nation, one of the truly finest on campus facilities IN THE NATION, average attendance approximating 10,200 in that facility, which seats 10,250 (i.e. most games are sellouts), our own TV package with FoxSportsOhio and home and home series with BCS schools (e.g. Purdue, Wisconsin, Alabama, Miss. State). I’m “getting too long” here, but you can see that this truly is a change from the Schmidt Fieldhouse era. Xavier has established itself as a high major and has done so the right way.
You may find it to be overly anecdotal, but, during the Duke/Xavier game for the Atlanta Regional Championship to get to the Final Four, CBS’s Vern Lundquist (sp) talked about “these two fine academic institutions” and how well “they represent NCAA basketball”, etc. He would not have said it if it were not warranted. He would not have been talking about academics at that point had Duke been playing, say Oklahoma State.
I didn’t need to hear that to know what Xavier has managed to achieve since the early 80’s. It simply is a very, very different place from when I was there, and that is because of its decision to utilize the development of a strong athletic program as a catalyst – as an engine – for developing the university as a whole. ND did it. BC did it. Xavier is in the process of doing it and will continue to advance its reputation nationally both academically and athletically.
Xavier is doing it its way. Perhaps HC sees things differently through its view finder. I think your choices, given where you are presently positioned are brutally clear. The first option is to stay where you are and, in doing so, know that you will be able to protect a slightly higher academic reputation at the margin. I believe you will always be respected academically. However, you will become more regional in reputation if you aren’t careful, and you will have to sustain your endowment growth from alumni who are proud mostly of that protected academic disposition. If you can become the “Gonzaga” of the Patriot League, that will help. Just don’t put too much stock into pulling that strategy off in the Patriot League. It will be hell for you to recruit at the level necessary to penetrate the NCAA brackets on a consistent basis.
The other option is to upgrade, if and when you have that chance. I doubt I have to wax on about what that could mean.
Someone mentioned Marquette and DePaul to the Big East. The first two teams to be considered for it were actually Marquette and Xavier. Tranghese did not want to step into his protégé’s sandbox – Linda Bruno of the A10 – and appear as though he were robbing two conferences after he had been robbed by the ACC. That’s why he limited his raid to poaching only C-USA schools. DePaul has the potential to get back to its glory days, but its program is no where near Xavier’s program at present.
The A10 is getting stronger, especially with St. Louis and Charlotte coming in, but Xavier will continue to monitor what might unfold in about 5 years, when the option exists for the BE football schools to split from the basketball schools. Xavier will be positioned to take advantage of change if it is to its advantage to do so.
I would submit to you that you have some time to set forth a long-term strategy to position the Cross to get back into the game. What does the collective Cross community really want HC to project to the outside world, and how strong will that signal broadcast?
Either way, good luck to the Cross as it moves forward.
for graduating its athletes. They don't shine in this regard. Perhaps you recently saw the flap when a noted former ND and NFL player said ND needed to lower its academic standard to remain competitive in sports.
The University of Notre Dame has a higher graduation rate for its student atheletes (92%) than does Colgate (86%). Check it out: http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/2003/d1/index.html
I'm begining to think that the Patriot League is overrated academicly as well as athleticly. Please get your facts straight before you peddle your Patriot League tripe here.
Perhaps the Cross would have been better off if Father Brooks had aspired to be the Notre Dame of the East rather than the Colgate of the Blackstone.
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You incorrectly read the report. -- Gate Raider, 14:47:42 04/13/04 Tue
Read the report more carefully, including the footnotes. The report you referenced is only for student athletes receiving athletic based financial aid. Colgate's grad rate for student athletes is about 96% and fourth in the nation. For blacks it has the highest graduation rate. I even question the report further, since during the time period Colgate did not give athletic financial aid.
The latest figures I have are Colgate had the fourth highest grad rate for Div. I athletics overall. (Lehigh 94, Northwester 90, Duke 90, Colgate 89, Stanford 86) For Div. IAA football, for the years 1996-2000, the latest I know of, Colgate was tied for fourth highest (Bucknell 100, Colgate 86, Lehigh 86) third place was non-PL. Also, you have to be careful using figures from the NCAA which can be suspect. It is better to use the figures from the federal gov't. as they are less prone to manipulation.
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Kick Colgate out of PL -- HC'84, 19:48:20 04/13/04 Tue
Yes, let's get rid of Colgate. I really have nothing against Colgate itself. But perhaps if we got rid of Colgate, Gate Raider would go find some other message board to haunt, and take his elitist, self-congratulatory BS with him.
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Re: Kick Colgate out of PL -- Gate Raider, 22:38:42 04/13/04 Tue
Sorry, if you dislike having some of factual information disseminated. I realize that most posts here have emotion at their base. It is not a bad thing to base some opinions on the facts.
Check out the comments of the leading recruits at 'gate. You will find they made the comments. I justed passed them on. I never said I don't post opinions. Posting opinions is not mutually exclusive to posting some facts. You get really defensive about HC BB. You need to stop back and take a few deep breaths. You're living on past glory and seem desperate.
Although I'd also like to switch leagues, give me a break on what I consider to be a patronizing post. Among the top law and graduate schools in the US, Holy Cross has an excellent "national" reputation. Take a look at HC's admission rates to these schools and I think you'll find they blow away Xavier's. Just take a look at the bios of the partners from many of the best law firms in the nation, not to mention Wall Street, etc. So I guess Cinncinati is a better school than Middlebury or Bowdoin because more people have heard of it. Please. I have nothing against Xavier but how is it that Merrimack College in Mass., Fairfield U., Santa Clara and a few others all have have higher academic ratings (100 is the top score) than Xavier in the Princeton Review. For the record, the ratings are:
Xavier (selectivity--72; academic 76)
Merrimack College (selectivity--75; academic--80)
Fairfield (selectivity--80; academic--79)
Santa Clara (selectivity--80; academic-84)
Boston College (selectivity--96; academic--92)
Holy Cross (selectivity-- 92; academic-- 94)
I'd be careful about correlating basketball success with academic rigor. For some schools, it has helped but for others it has hasn't.
To achieve high academic results it takes what? excellent students w/desire to succeed, excellent teachers and an investment in facilities and an atmosphere that breeds success.
The BB has half of this. The student athletes and teachers fit the criteria, but can you tell me the Hart Center and the PL breed an atmophere of excellence in BB?? I think not.
Why is the commitment to athletics always done half way? The PL does not hold any athletic clout that you can slide by with anything.
The top of this string makes some very good points. BB will never be the only thing HC is noted for, but could be a tool to go well beyond where we are today. "Strive for excellence in all areas, not just a few"
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Re: Pat League Discussion (Long Post) -- kesiwick, 17:16:13 04/13/04 Tue
right on - I hate to see HC turn into a bunch of non-competitive weenie eggheads who spend their non-study hours trying to get ROTC kicked off campus and gender specific pronouns banned from campus speech -- as the old sayings go, second place is just first loser and there is no substitute for victory!
XU Dash Great post!!! Your view is an articulate and unbiased statement of the position taken by many posters.
Unfortunately, the comments that it has drawn from 'Gate Raider and BBall=academic rigor? are not comments on the
OVERALL merit of your position but rather comments on narrow areas where your position may not be as meritorious
as the overall position. In effect, what we seem to be hearing from some pro-PL posters(including 'Gate Raider) is that if a proposed league shift is not a "guaranteed-in-advance" perfect answer (i.e. maintaining the same or better graduation rate in a league with a philosophy and membership similar to the PL, excelling competitively, maintaining the same or higher admission standards for athletes[particularly scholarship hoopers], maintaining the same level of varsity sports as currently exist,etc.)that a league shift should not be considered by HC or, if considered, not chosen. To those who espouse that view, I say that all games are not won by shutout. While the proposed path that XUDash outlines may(emphasize MAY) create a slight downward change in some of the factors outlined above, it is probably more likely that it will have a neutral or positive effect. BBall= points to the selectivity/academic ratings for XU as a point of difference. Fine!! BC's data is listed in the same post and it is virtually identical to HC's as the Eagles depart for the ACC. I would suggest to you that if you took a look at the 1978 (pre-Big East) version of the Princeton Review (or equivalent) the gap between HC and BC would have been greater in HC's favor. In effect, BC's choice 26 years ago has enhanced its academic and "visibility" standing while allowing it to support a more successful athletic program at a higher competitive level. Which one of these changes is a problem? HC's past history, as outlined by other posters, shows no indication that following the path that XUDash suggests would lead to ruin. Indeed, his proposal outlines a path that IMO would be the best OVERALL path for the College and its athletic program and lead it to an improvement of its Princeton Review factors.
I agree but to be fair I believe the other poster said the coorelation doesn't work for some cases, which is true. It seems to have biggest impact on schools with pre-existing (so to speak) academic reps. If you run a good, clean program where athletes still must do the work, it is great for the school. If you don't it can cause lots of damage to the respective school's academic image.
Yes, thank you for your thoughtful and patronizing comments on Holy Cross. We appreciate it. We do hope other alums from our Catholic college brothers also post on our site, letting us know that our basketball program sucks and that our academics are pretty much the same as everybody elses. We really don't know why anyone even considers Holy Cross. All that money for the same education you could get at another school for fewer bucks. So again, please post. We love it.
