Youre missing the bigger picture 187. Our athletics crumble and what's it do to our enrollment? Will there still be record numbers applying? Will housing and retail continue to grow in storrs/mansfield? All of those pay taxes. If we can continually pack the xl could it pay for repairs and upgrades? Would an upgraded xl attract other sports and entertainments? Its not just on the surface. This is important on multiple levels. We, as a state, need uconn to produce top level employees into top level, local business. Attracting young and intelligent people to the state is crucial to turning our economy around.
I'm not missing the point.
Hate to point this out, but ALL of the history and success of the school came without UCONN being a football power. I'm fairly certain that the number of UCONN applications having anything at all to do with UCONN football is a number that rounds to zero.
I know that money is an issue, and I'm not #goingfullnelson here because I LOVE UCONN Football. BUT, let's not pretend that the $2-3B that has been spent on UCONN's campus over the last 25 years has anything to do with the football team. And men's and women's BB - the real catalyst - pay for themselves. And even if they didn't, they aren't expensive sports to maintain.
I didn't want to go to UCONN in 1989 BECAUSE it didn't have a D-1 football team. I ended up there, under duress, because it was cheap and I was a middle child and my parents were struggling with sending my brother to Wisconsin (where we grew up) and my sister was 3 years behind me.
We all want it - and I think we deserve it - but you could kill the football program in its entirety and it would be like a tree falling in the forest...