Flutie effect may be for real

I thought that was a really interesting story. I ran it on our cover today as a sort of aside to NCAA coverage.

 

He would argue that it happens, but that the applicants are not as high a quality of student as the school would otherwise get because the brightest students are turned off by a school that overemphasizes athletics.

That's not true in all cases, of course. Butler is a good example of a school that improved its applicant pool by raising the status of its basketball team, but that was only part of an overall campaign to raise the school's profile and improve its performance in academics as well as athletics.

 

Gee Walter, never heard that one before. :

 

Boy, the ole Kennesaw State degree just pays off more and more each day. :

 

A win against Michigan lasts as long as it takes to prepare for the next game.

But the 80's-era style graphics and production, and thus humor, of that recruting video . . . are evergreen.

 

I'll agree that it's...ummmm...yeah. But it was never a recruiting video. It was produced to show to rich old alumni (not that we have that many rich ones) at dinner functions. It was never intended to see the light of day on the internet, and was put on there by mistake for maybe a day (which shows the poison of the internet).

Still, I don't think Appalachian is hurting for applicants. Last I read numbers were 20-25 percent ahead of last year, so if Hot Hot Hot is hurting, it's keeping the numbers from being, say, 40 percent.

 

I went to Oregon State when they were at their nadir. More than 10 years later, there is a bigger football stadium, the alumni magazine is thicker and of better quality, I'm getting more regular requests for money (and giving more often) and the females at the school are exponentially hotter. In a lot of ways, spending big bucks on an athletic program might be the best investment a school can make.
Now if we can just come up with a solid hoops coach..

 

A check of the facts reveals an interesting trend:

Buffalo's full-time undergraduate enrollment dipped to its lowest in recent history from 1996-98, with a low of 15,552 in that three-year span.

UB went Division I-A full-time when it joined the MAC in 1999. Low and behold, undergraduate enrollment has steadily increased to a record 18,515 for the fall, 2008, semester.

That's an increase of 2,963 students, or an increase of 19 percent in a period when the area's and state's population was relatively static.

 

Expendable, I love Appalachian State and Jerry Moore as much as anyone. When they approached my mother a few years ago about teaching there, I practically begged her to go. I love Boone, I love that campus and I love the Mountaineers.

But "Hot Hot Hot" will never die.

 

Sadly, it won't completely die, though it will and has faded into a punchline.

The worst thing I ever did was decide to leave Boone. I ask MrsExpendable to check for available teaching jobs in her field almost once a week. I turned down a job (not in this field) basically given to me on a platter about 10 years ago. Six months later, I thought about going to the doctor to see if he could surgically turn my left foot around so I could kick my ass harder. Oh to be 24, single and with no responsibility in a college town again.