Date Posted:12:55:39 04/14/04 Wed Author: Sad Subject: Please trash Holy Cross - We Love It
We Holy Cross posters wish to thank all you non-HC posters for your thoughtful and patronizing comments on our school. We appreciate it. We do hope other alums follow your lead and 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 would even consider 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. We promise not to challenge you so long as you 1) deride our athletic programs as much as you can; and 2) let us know that our Holy Cross diplomas really don't mean much anyone more because the rigor of our academics is virtually indistinguishable from all the other Catholic colleges. Oh, and you can score lots of bonus points if you can come up with more reasons to trash our 161-year old institution.
I’ll respond here and make this my last post, to the delight of some of you.
As I noted in my initial post, I did not come to your board to flame. I came here to offer 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.”
I also noted that I respect HC. The truth of the matter is that an unstated idea of mine involves a conference affiliation with HC, along with schools such as St. Joe’s, and Fordham (otherwise, I wouldn’t be posting here at all). Not exclusively Jesuit or Catholic, but a core of like minded schools that have the potential – and history – to develop a strong league association. It could happen. The conference realignment gig may wind its way forward to what could be one more big blast about 5 years from now (i.e. BE football schools breaking away from the non-football schools). Certain non-football schools will have to be well positioned at that time in order to take advantage of such an outcome.
I further noted, rather acknowledged that this is a frustrating topic for you, and that there are logical arguments on both sides of the league affiliation issue.
However, with all that offered, some of you believe that I lobbed a grenade at you when I seemed to suggest Xavier and the Cross are not that different academically. Part of my respect for HC is its long standing high academic position. I acknowledge that HC carries higher quantitative rankings than Xavier. After all, data are data. HC has been at it for 161 years, while Xavier has only been at it since 1831: 173 years.
In an attempt to put me in my place, a poster offered up Princeton Review data for a few schools for comparison’s sake. Thank you. Your arrogance took over and it helped to make my point. Note the following press release from Xavier’s website:
Xavier University is included for the first time in this year's edition of The Princeton Review's guide to the best colleges for undergraduate education. The New York-based company chose to include Xavier among 357 universities in the 2005 edition of its prestigious annual best colleges guidebook, "The Best 357 Colleges," to be released in August. "We regard the schools in this book as the cream of the crop institutions for undergraduate education," says Robert Franek, assistant vice president for publishing of The Princeton Review
.
"Only about 10% of the colleges in America, and only two Canadian colleges, are in the book. Each one offers an outstanding academic program. We select schools for the guide based on our knowledge of them, on data we review about them, and on the opinions of students and parents we talk to and survey."
In my first post, I noted that the Xavier of my era is nothing like the Xavier of today; we just made the Princeton Review, whereas I assume HC has been there for years. I am proud of what Xavier has accomplished and where it is headed, but sharing data on Xavier was done to amplify a point, nothing else. To expand, one or a couple of you noted that BC today is more highly regarded than the BC of the ‘70s. Doesn’t all this support the thesis? How can you argue against the notion that successful, well managed athletic programs can serve as engines for development (i.e. endowment and campus growth), awareness (i.e. applicants and image) and school pride (i.e. endowment again and tradition)?
If HC is well positioned for the future, then I apologize for posting here at all. Congratulations to you if the status quo is where HC needs to be to advance its interests down through the decades. I am truly happy for you. Keep that 1954 NIT banner at the top of your website and keep chugging away in the Patriot League. I just think you have the potential to accomplish more without sacrificing anything.
In the meantime, I’ll cheer for you when I next see you in the NCAA tournament, or perhaps in the regular season, during the nationwide ESPN telecast of the HC versus Colgate game.
i meant to comment on how i thought your initial post was excellent, but i've been bogged down at work and didn't get the chance! i can tell you that most of the HC fans that i know strongly agree with the sentiment of your posts. keep in mind that there are some jackasses on these boards who post under different names and probably aren't even HC fans at all.
there is no question as to what athletics can do for a school. i thought your first post was so well-written that it should be forwarded to fr. mcfarland as it summarizes most of what we have been saying here for years. hope to hear from you in the future xudash.
".....during the nationwide ESPN telecast of the HC versus Colgate game."
Actually, albeit not basketball, Colgate was on national TV not that long ago when it played in the NCAA I-AA football championship game against the U. of Delaware in December.
Nevertheless, I think you did make some valid points in your posts. I just did not think it was necessary for you to stoop to sarcasm at the end just because that other poster did. That kind of ruined it for me. Maybe I just naturally feel that HC people should have more latitude
here on our board than outsiders. Otherwise, thank you for the interesting and relevant posts.
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HC Latitude -- Gate Raider, 01:53:09 04/15/04 Thu
I guess I can understand why you might think HC posters should have more latitude to post here. However, the board is for discussing HC sports. I don't think being a "Holy Crosser" is a prerequiste. Wouldn't you get sick of just reading mutually flattering compliments and comments that may or may not have any basis in truth. Having a few outsiders around does lend itself to keeping you guys a little more honest and brings you back to reality now and then.
As regular posters know, I am one of the few on this board that support HC in the PL and there's no need to re-hash why as all anyone has to do is scan through prior posts.
However, I thought that XU's original post was well thought out and made as strong a case for enhancing our basketball program as any that had been posted previously.
I did not take offense at anything that XU said about HC and its academic credentials. I took him at his word that he didn't know the specifics about HC's academic prowess and to compare Xavier to HC on that basis might be offensive to some Crusaders - but he wouldn't know that. Having lived in the midwest for a number of years, I can tell you that most people there don't have any idea of what a fine college HC is. The few who have heard about HC know it as the school that Cousy or Heinsohn went to before they went to the Celtics.
The folks in Ohio, for example, think that "THE Ohio State University" is an excellent school and they thought that Gordon Gee had rocks in his head for leaving there to go to head up Brown University. The Columbus Dispatch (affectionately and aptly nicknamed the "Columbus Dogpatch") actually had graphs and charts comparing OSU and Brown and had to explain to the central Ohioans where Brown was and that it was an Ivy League school. They thought Gee was getting some kind of demotion because OSU had 60,000+ students compared to 5,000 for Brown. Now if these folks don't know Brown University, how in the world would they know about HC? OSU, by the way, gives FULL athletic scholarships for golf caddies!
When my son went to Holy Cross, the local folks were astounded that he would go to school "back east." The usual response was "what's wrong with OSU?" or "we have plenty of good schools here in Ohio, why does he HAVE to go there?"
So, XU, you had an excellent and well thought out post. And I was pulling for Xavier after St. Joe's got knocked off in the NCAAs. You guys had an excellent run and I'll be pulling for you in the future too. And I have little doubt that Xavier is doing well and improving academically too.
Here's some interesting food for thought from an article I recently read. When John Thompson was appointed head basketball coach at Georgetown, the school had a 60 percent acceptance rate. It now has an acceptance rate under 20 percent, and is one of the most difficult schools in the country to which to be admitted. Duke was just another very good school with average SATs at about 1200 before Coach K. The average SAT score at Duke now exceeds 1400, even though the average SAT score of the basketball players is under 1000. Georgetown and Duke both were solid academic institutions whose academic programs have become better known -- and more marketable -- because of their basketball success. By playing big-time basketball, these schools can now market themselves to another type of gifted student, who not only has an interest in the books, but in sports too. Fordham's average SAT scores are now slightly in excess of 1200, and I understand from co-workers that the new president is solidly behind making the basketball team a national factor. Fordham is already in a top basketball conference. Will Fordham too surpass us before we get the message? Look at the fortunes of NC and ND, the only two Catholic schools still playing Division I-A football. Lowering standards for athletes can actually create higher standards across the board.
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Re: Lowering Standards. It's a good thing. -- Rick, 23:15:38 04/14/04 Wed
'84 -
" The average SAT score at Duke now exceeds 1400, even though the average SAT score of the basketball players is under 1000. "
By chance do you have a link to this article ?
Below is an excerpt from another thread on page 2 here. Nine of thirteen Duke kids appear to have pretty good high school academic credentials. I guess it's possible but is it probable that given this info, plus the highly proactive and well publicised posture of the Duke Faculty Council ( see their recent ACC-Big East posture on academics ), that the average SAT scores for this group would be under 1000 ?
" He also spoke about BB programs at schools like Duke, who he claimed had an average SAT of between 925-950 on the BB team vs. 1300+ for the school average. "
1970 -
These aren't your words....I'm not shooting the messenger, just the message. FWIW, I gleened the following from Duke's web site on their 5 starters plus the top 2 subs off the bench as regards HS/Prep academic credentials:
C Sheldon Williams ( soph ) - National Honor Society
F Luol Deng ( frosh ) - " An outstanding student ", speaks 3 languages fluently.
G J.J. Redick ( soph ) - nothing noted.
G Chris Duhon ( senior ) - National Honor Society
G Daniel Ewing ( junior ) - " Honor Roll student ", City of Houston Athletic Committee Scholar-Athlete in 2001, Scholar Athlete of the Year, Academic Excellence Award.
C Nick Horvath ( senior ) - Double Major in Physics and English.
F Shavlik Randolph ( soph ) - Four-Year Honor Roll.
I kinda doubt it would logically follow that 6 of the above 7 youngsters would have scored 925/950 on their SAT's. Here's the rest of Duke's roster:
G Patrick Davidson ( frosh ) - " member of the Beta Club for academics in high school "
G Andy Borman ( senior ) - nothing noted.
G Sean Dockery ( soph ) - nothing noted.
F Patrick Johnson ( junior ) - National Honor Society
G Andy Means ( senior ) - A three-time Academic All-Conference award winner. Indiana Basketball Coaches Association Academic All-State Honorable Mention selection as a senior.
F Lee Melchionni ( soph ) - was class president during his junior year of high school. Also involved in the Student Council, the Singing Patriots (a competitive performing group), Kids Teaching Kids and the Ambassador Club as a prep student.
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Re: Lowering Standards. It's a good thing. -- HC'84, 06:16:28 04/15/04 Thu
The article was in a newspaper called The Journal News, which is the Gannett newspaper for Westchester County, New York. It was written by by a guy named Rappaport, and appeared on April 4, 2004. It was noted that he had done some kind of study on this issue in connection with a degree he received from Columbia University, and came to the conclusion that lowering academic standards for athletes could have a positive impact on academic standards overall. I can find no link to the story on line (thejournalnews.com), which ran as an opinion piece on page two (in response to Hornung's comments on the situation at ND). I understood that the average SAT score was a reference to an average over time, not a snapshot of the current team. Now, from where is the quote you have provided, about Duke's SAT average for BB players being between 925-950 taken? Because that is the same information Rappaport reported.
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Re: Duke SAT reference -- Rick, 10:17:33 04/15/04 Thu
" Now, from where is the quote you have provided, about Duke's SAT average for BB players being between 925-950 taken? Because that is the same information Rappaport reported. "
See a thread on page 1 started by fellow poster sader1970, dated 3/31/04, entitled 'HC direction'.
Just as perhaps with your reference via author Mr. Rappaport, I believe there was a some vagueness as to the time frame and # of Duke basketball athletes studied as well as the source of the reference being kept confidential ( understandably so as this was a private conversation sader1970 had with a very high ranking HC administrator ).
Hey, don't put me in the same boat with xudash. I found his posts to be pretty patronizing. Just because Xavier for the first time ever is included among the "Top 351" (wow!) colleges is no cause to believe that it will be, any time soon, seriously threatening to take students we want at the Cross. My point is simply that students who were but assured of going to HC 25-30 years ago (I was in high school about 25 years ago) now see BC or Georgetown as very viable options. BC and Georgetown have upgraded their profiles through sports, and are now taking students away from us. Rather than Xavier, I'd be more concerned that Fordham is next. I live around NYC, and work in the city with many Fordham grads, and I can tell you that this is a school making a big push (new $50 million library; $250 million for a professional school tower at Lincoln Center for its law school; new $75 million science facility, plus a push for big-time basketball in New York). We need to defend our turf, and do everything possible to keep HC where it is today. We are among the best colleges, and Catholic colleges, in America, but we cannot let our prestige blind us. We have to work to keep ourselves in the first-rank of American colleges.
