Some Guy’s Exit Interview with Susan Herbst | The Boneyard

Some Guy’s Exit Interview with Susan Herbst

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Jeff Jacobs: An exit interview with outgoing UConn president Susan Herbst

Interesting stuff here, I thought she was very transparent.

Interesting to see that the lack of SNY really is a sticking point with the American. It looks like they are taking advantage of UConn there.

But also, I've always agreed with her point about the football stadium: "Rentschler is a beautiful field. It’s just wrongly placed. It wouldn’t take too much imagination to fantasize about football being on the Storrs campus. What kind of numbers and excitement it would bring. That’s a thing I didn’t understand before I came here. It was baffling. It’s a problem. It’s hard to get students down there. Get on the bus. Wait for the bus. It’s too far.”

This has always been true. When you have a base of 15,000 students attending each game, it really helps you. That means you only need to attract 15,000 fans to Storrs for average games so you can have a 3/4 filled stadium. It should always have been in Storrs.
 
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Interesting to see that the lack of SNY really is a sticking point with the American. It looks like they are taking advantage of UConn there.

But also, I've always agreed with her point about the football stadium: "Rentschler is a beautiful field. It’s just wrongly placed. It wouldn’t take too much imagination to fantasize about football being on the Storrs campus. What kind of numbers and excitement it would bring. That’s a thing I didn’t understand before I came here. It was baffling. It’s a problem. It’s hard to get students down there. Get on the bus. Wait for the bus. It’s too far.”

This has always been true. When you have a base of 15,000 students attending each game, it really helps you. That means you only need to attract 15,000 fans to Storrs for average games so you can have a 3/4 filled stadium. It should always have been in Storrs.
It's the biggest misstep we ever made in relation to the football program. Poor leadership from the state.
 
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Interesting to see that the lack of SNY really is a sticking point with the American. It looks like they are taking advantage of UConn there.

But also, I've always agreed with her point about the football stadium: "Rentschler is a beautiful field. It’s just wrongly placed. It wouldn’t take too much imagination to fantasize about football being on the Storrs campus. What kind of numbers and excitement it would bring. That’s a thing I didn’t understand before I came here. It was baffling. It’s a problem. It’s hard to get students down there. Get on the bus. Wait for the bus. It’s too far.”

This has always been true. When you have a base of 15,000 students attending each game, it really helps you. That means you only need to attract 15,000 fans to Storrs for average games so you can have a 3/4 filled stadium. It should always have been in Storrs.

I like your thinking, but unfortunately a lot of those 15,000 students wouldn't be interested in football or would have other things going on. That said, having your football field 30 minutes from campus is certainly not helping student attendance.
 

Chin Diesel

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Funny thing about a no cost stadium. Things that are free can cost a lot.
 
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i always said by putting the stadium where they did would disengage the student base and thus not build any kind of alumni interest that is needed to sustain a big time program. My daughter graduated in 2016 and although she is a sports fan she did not care about football because it was so difficult to go to games. If it was on campus I guarantee she would have gone to every game and as an alum she still would be going to games. But she still does not care. Men’s basketball however she loves. On March 29 I called her and asked her if she knew what day it was. She said of course. She was 4 years old in 1999! I guess I brought her up right.
 
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I go back to my Whalers analogy. We were in the best basketball league of all time. While the American apologists are not totally wrong, many of us feel we are now in the minors (mid-major is the collegiate term) It is hard to have that NHL excitement for an AHL program.
 
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It's the biggest misstep we ever made in relation to the football program. Poor leadership from the state.
I'm not sure it was poor leadership vs. protecting Hartford's interests at the expense of UConn.
Political leaders saw UConn as an attraction to bring people and badly needed $ to the city. Beyond the stadium, it was an explicit reason why Gampel was sized below that of the Civic Center, so "big" games would be scheduled on Trumbull Street.
 
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f it was on campus I guarantee she would have gone to every game and as an alum she still would be going to games.

So hopping on a bus as a student is more difficult than as an alum buying full price tickets, driving, paying for parking, etc.?

I get that more students would go if the stadium is on campus. But if the stadium was moved to on campus you're getting the students who don't really care about football but its something to do. But those aren't the people who might become life long fans and buy season tickets as alums. They are already going.
 
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So hopping on a bus as a student is more difficult than as an alum buying full price tickets, driving, paying for parking, etc.?

I get that more students would go if the stadium is on campus. But if the stadium was moved to on campus you're getting the students who don't really care about football but its something to do. But those aren't the people who might become life long fans and buy season tickets as alums. They are already going.
I'd go to more games if they were on campus. Its a connection you just don't get in Hartford
 
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I'd go to more games if they were on campus. Its a connection you just don't get in Hartford

I believe you and I believe there's others who feel the same.

Just don't think it's enough to make a difference considering we consistently packed the student section when we were good, or even just below average, and we consistently get tons of students who go to east hartford to tailgate now, just don't go inside.
 
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I'd go to more games if they were on campus. Its a connection you just don't get in Hartford

The responses to something that even Herbst understands shows why there is no football culture in Connecticut. People can't even imagine half the student body streaming to the on-campus football stadium, and yet this is something that happens everywhere.
 
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I'd go to more games if they were on campus. Its a connection you just don't get in Hartford

My son agrees with you. His major is very difficult. He is a sports fanatic but to commit to a 9 hour day is too much (of course the team sucking doesn’t help)
 

ConnHuskBask

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15,000 students for a football game, Lmfao.

They can barely get half the student section filled in Gampel most nights.

The student apologistas are something else. When we were in the Big East and winning the Rent was 30-35k damn near every game. I'm convinced they wouldn't have sniffed those numbers on campus.

Nowadays? If the stadium wasn't in EH, you would have 200 people there.
 
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The students used to fill up the student section when the team was more successful. Maybe she didn't notice that the general public fan base is greatly reduced also. This is a product quality issue not a location issue. As usual she is out of touch with reality.
 

CL82

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It's the biggest misstep we ever made in relation to the football program. Poor leadership from the state.
Classic example of group think and incremental error. I blame Kraft for it. If he didn't flirt with Hartford there's no way putting a UConn stadium in East Hartford would have seemed like a good idea to anyone.

The mistake that UConn made is rolling the stadium, "Shenkman" and "Burton" into a single bonding request to the State. Had we done just the stadium, we'd might well have gotten it prion to the Hartford Patriots debacle.
 
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I go back to my Whalers analogy. We were in the best basketball league of all time. While the American apologists are not totally wrong, many of us feel we are now in the minors (mid-major is the collegiate term) It is hard to have that NHL excitement for an AHL program.
I have a read a lot of bad analogies on here lately, but this one was good. Congrats and thank you.
 
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My son agrees with you. His major is very difficult. He is a sports fanatic but to commit to a 9 hour day is too much (of course the team sucking doesn’t help)
it's awful as freshman/sophomore. it's nothing more than a chore. I now live closer to Rentschler than campus, but I'd still go to more games if they were in Storrs.
 

CL82

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The student apologistas are something else. When we were in the Big East and winning the Rent was 30-35k damn near every game. I'm convinced they wouldn't have sniffed those numbers on campus.

Why?
 

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theres just no land on campus for a football stadium
 

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