Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2555035, member: 488"] There is going to be a lag effect when it comes to athletic success and its impact on applications and academic prestige. I think some of your examples actually prove that point rather than the one you were making. You're right that after a certain point, a great program is going to stay a great program, but I think when a once in a generation athlete like Tebow comes to your school for four years, it has a lasting effect. Even simple things like uniforms/school colors have a massive effect on branding and maximizing the eyeballs on your school. Where UConn is different from Florida is conference stability, geography, revenue, etc. When that stuff goes AND the product is bad, that's when you can lose something that you spent a quarter century building. As another poster mentioned, UVA and Cal are big time brands that jump off the screen. UConn isn't and as it turned out, that logo change could end up really hurting their ability to retain the visuals and nostalgia people have of the school in general. So it's obviously not a perfect correlation, but what these things ultimately boil down to is what people think of when they hear your name or see your colors. For a long time it was basketball for UConn, and that improved their reach with students. For other schools it is academics and it became self-perpetuating. There appears to be some question as to how much the current president understands this dynamic and even in 2011 and 2014 I'm not sure the school was as "hot" as it had been previous to that. Perhaps UConn's academic reputation right now is such that it can withstand the hit, but I don't get the impression that's the case. Damn good school, really good school, maybe not one that stands out comparatively. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,828

Messages: 4,411,759

Members: 10,239

Latest member: Dondadonone