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Message: [QUOTE="CCSU97, post: 5329436, member: 7844"] Agreed. UConn is the without a doubt the State flagship and especially since the 1990s has really done well to draw non-alumni fans from inside Connecticut. I'd suggest most of that is still basketball-focused, but it bleeds into football and maybe hockey to an extent. UConn's biggest problem in-state is that historically the goal was never to go to "State U" in a region dominated by Ivy League, Catholic and high-caliber private colleges and universities and college football just isn't big in the Northeast - its NFL. But UConn Law and Medical School and D-I athletics put it above the many smaller academic-elite schools and gives it big clout in the General Assembly. Central's biggest issue (aside from lack of public funding/political support) is that our loyal alumni are almost entirely blue collar, working class. Most of our alumni are first-generation college graduates. We graduate teachers, nurses, accountants, cops, firemen, and the middle-mangers and small business types. We have very few corporate executives or high net-worth individuals that can afford to give back in large, amounts to make a huge impact. I'd wager that many UConn grads from the 1970s and on had a parent that graduated from a CSU school. We are not a legacy school and so our alumni kids or grandkids don't really go to Central, they are attending other "higher rated" schools. So even through CCSU probably has the 2nd (or third) largest alumni group inside the state, we don't have the power or influence of UConn, the Ivy class, or even high-wealth doners at Wesleyan, Trinity, Fairfield, Quinnipiac, etc. Also, both CCSU and UConn don't do as well in Fairfield County and that's where they state has grown the most and is the most wealthy. Obviously UConn has made leaps and bounds in the area (and they Stamford campus helps), and are much better than CCSU, but I know back in the 1980s, your high-academic FCIAC school kids were going out of state. CCSU draws well across the state, except in Fairfield County. When the State's 2nd largest city Stamford is sending maybe 10 kids a year to Central, we have a problem. I doubt there are more than 50 kids at Central from Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, and New Cannan, Norwalk, Wilton, and Westport combined. [/QUOTE]

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