(12-25-2014 06:07 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  The part that is interesting is that we wouldn't be a door mat. Once we were in the ACC we would recruit kids who want to be on an ACC team. Our other sports would immediately benefit. Football would take a while.

There's no reason why we couldn't be Duke. Duke sucked until coach K showed up.

Oh I totally agree. I think eventually our recruiting would catch up to the level we would play at.

I meant that I'd rather be in the ACC even if it meant being completely uncompetitive (since we're dealing with hypotheticals anyway)

(12-25-2014 11:07 AM)nj alum Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 10:08 AM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 06:44 AM)nj alum Wrote:  The decision has been made. When asked, I said that I think a mistake was made. William and Mary is in a better place athletically than the Ivies and Patriots. That's good. But to be happy with W&M's position vis a vis UVa in athletics? Didn't have to be this way. A conscious decision was made. So be it. We live with the consequences.

If the "consequences" are not being UVA east, there was no mistake made. NJ Alum, I'd say that you are hating the Jamestown ferry for not being replaced by a bridge. The rest of us came here for the ferry. In order to have become the athletic powerhouse you wish, the school would have had to fundamentally change. The W&M I attended would not have existed, and I don't think I'd have cared about the W&M you wanted it to be.

:-)

We were the ferry. In fact, we plied the same waters with UVa, UNC, etc. UVa and UNC upgraded their ferries. W&M not only didn't upgrade the ferry, but W&M no longer plies the James in certain sports.

BTW, I just want W&M to be the same as it was, not as it is.

Your analogies, respectfully, are poor.

I will be more blunt, then. Keeping up with UVA, UNC, Duke, Wake, etc. would have required W&M to either privatize or double/triple in size, based on schools in the BCS conferences. The W&M that exists now would not exist had either thing occurred, and the world would be poorer for it.

Excluding service academies, I believe there's only one public FS school with under 10k in enrollment - Louisiana Monroe (they have about 8.5-9k). The next smallest is Idaho, with around 11-12k. Excluding the academies there are 2 schools smaller than William and Mary, Tulsa and Rice.

The smallest public P5 schools - Ole Miss, Georgia Tech, Washington State - appear to be in the range of 20-23,000 (Counting undergrad and graduate). There is one private P5 school, Wake, that is about WM's size, they have 5,000 undergrads and 2,500 grad students.

So it's pretty unlikely that we'd have remained a 6-7,000 person college had we moved up.

This whole idea that we were somehow on equal footing with UVA, UNC, etc. and opted not to follow is really shallow.

First of all, they have been in the ACC for decades. We were in the Southern Conference for decades. Through the 60s, we were playing basketball at Blow Gym. We were playing baseball in the field behind the west stands at Zable. We were playing football in the same spot, Cary Field, which even going back to the brief flirtation with the ACC, was then less than half the size of these other schools.

Today, we are expanding and modernizing Zable, have an entire complex dedicated to the Football team, have a beautiful new baseball stadium (and a program that competes into the NCAAs), a new soccer complex, a basketball team that has been to post season twice and made it to a conference championship three times in the last decade, a football season who has been to the post season 8 times since 1980, smothered UVA in football just five short years ago, almost beat WVU for the first time in 20 tries, have a two game winning streak against Navy - all within an environment that has not forced W&M to sacrifice our size, position and integrity in the process.

I'm not wringing my hands on what might have been. One of the other options being thrown around back in that same timeframe was a complete elimination of the football program.

I think the University has been pretty smart. And, this college athletic evolution is not finished as yet. As money and power continue to dictate things. I still believe we will surface within a group of peers who will find this arms race to compete is just too high a price to pay. For now, I like where we are.

(12-25-2014 10:29 PM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 11:07 AM)nj alum Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 10:08 AM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 06:44 AM)nj alum Wrote:  The decision has been made. When asked, I said that I think a mistake was made. William and Mary is in a better place athletically than the Ivies and Patriots. That's good. But to be happy with W&M's position vis a vis UVa in athletics? Didn't have to be this way. A conscious decision was made. So be it. We live with the consequences.

If the "consequences" are not being UVA east, there was no mistake made. NJ Alum, I'd say that you are hating the Jamestown ferry for not being replaced by a bridge. The rest of us came here for the ferry. In order to have become the athletic powerhouse you wish, the school would have had to fundamentally change. The W&M I attended would not have existed, and I don't think I'd have cared about the W&M you wanted it to be.

:-)

We were the ferry. In fact, we plied the same waters with UVa, UNC, etc. UVa and UNC upgraded their ferries. W&M not only didn't upgrade the ferry, but W&M no longer plies the James in certain sports.

BTW, I just want W&M to be the same as it was, not as it is.

Your analogies, respectfully, are poor.

I will be more blunt, then. Keeping up with UVA, UNC, Duke, Wake, etc. would have required W&M to either privatize or double/triple in size, based on schools in the BCS conferences. The W&M that exists now would not exist had either thing occurred, and the world would be poorer for it.

Exactly what I'm trying to say, well said.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't like a W&M ACC program. I'm saying I wouldn't like how to school would have to change to accommodate that.

(12-25-2014 09:05 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  We actually did go to a bowl game in 1970 when we won the Southern Conference. It was called the Tangerine Bowl. It has been renamed the Florida Citrus Bowl and I'm not sure what it is now. Lou Holtz was our coach. Laycock may have been on that team.

For folks who don't have historical context here are some of the home football opponents from the late 60s and early 70s in the time frame referenced regarding moving to the ACC:

West Virginia (we had a long time home and home agreement)
UVA (often)
VPI (often)
Cincinnati
East Carolina (often)

Here is the list in hoops during the Ashnault/Balanis/Parkhill era:

UVA (often)
VPI (often)
Rutgers
Wake Forest (often)
UNC
Maryland
Cincinnati
ODU (every year)

We regularly had 6-8k fans in attendance and the student section was full. The hall was full to the ceiling with portable stands brought in for ODU games and UNC (the night we beat them).

Merry Christmas to the ghosts of Christmas Past.

On the football example, WVU and ECU were conference mates at the time in the Southern, which is why we played them consecutively. Schools like VMI and Davidson were also in the conference. This was obviously before ESPN, big money, etc. The Southern then was built on geography.

It should also be noted our record against this grouping of teams during the timeframe was pretty dismal. Our crowds were smaller than today. There was little optimism and the expectations were normally pretty low. We played many of these teams when I went to W&M at home in the 70s.

We had just two sellouts when I was there - ironically one was against Richmond in 1973 and the other against Delaware in 1976. Not ECU, not Tech and we only played UVA during this period in Charlottesville.

Basketball was a different story. Starting with that magical night in 1978 against UNC, that propelled a huge swell of interest that lasted until Swenson. I'm not sure we will ever get that back. Like football, the power conferences in basketball are starting to play the same game.

Wake Forest endowment at about 1B.

W&M will be at the 1+B after the current fund raising activity (2015-2018 guess). Current is 700M.

So, to sum this up, it seems most of us would like "big boy" benefits without making "big boy" changes. We'd essentially have to increase enrollment to JMU/GSU/ODU/Appy size of 23,000+, increase Zable's capacity to 25,000+, and do anything we could to make ourselves appealing to the SunBelt/MAC/CUSA.

I'd be okay with increasing our enrollment to 10,000 and increasing stadium size to accommodate as many fans who are willing to attend but that's it for me. I'm not in favor of becoming another UVA and certainly not doing so just to play Troy twice a year.

Let me try it this way.

In a perfect world, who would you like to come to the Hall to play hoops?

In a perfect world, who would you like to come to Cary / Zable to play football?

Who do you want to see the Tribe play? And it's not Alabama in football nor Kentucky in basketball... nor Troy.

I think the answers to those questions tell you who the peers are...regardless of which athletic conference we're in.

(12-26-2014 10:50 AM)nj alum Wrote:  Let me try it this way.

In a perfect world, who would you like to come to the Hall to play hoops?

In a perfect world, who would you like to come to Cary / Zable to play football?

Who do you want to see the Tribe play? And it's not Alabama in football nor Kentucky in basketball... nor Troy.

I think the answers to those questions tell you who the peers are...regardless of which athletic conference we're in.

If you're saying that UVA, UNC etc. are too good to be on our level these days, then by definition you're saying they aren't our peers. They're aspirational opponents.

(12-26-2014 12:02 PM)Rocco Wrote:  If you're saying that UVA, UNC etc. are too good to be on our level these days, then by definition you're saying they aren't our peers. They're aspirational opponents.

Who do you want to see the Tribe play at Kaplan / Zable?

Academically our peers are schools like UVA, Duke, Michigan, Cal-Berkeley, Colgate, and UNC-Chapel Hill.

W&M has zero interest in being on a big-time athletic peer list...that all died, unfortunately,
when we turned down the ACC in 1975.

The great percentage of the very intelligent students at today's W&M have little to modest
interest in major college athletics.

The absence of big-time conference athletics at our College hasn't hurt W&M one iota; the
College's academic reputation and top-tier ability to get students into the best graduate schools, it's beautiful campus, Williamsburg location, and wide offerings of intercollegiate athletic and club teams on a non-big time level has never been higher and the school never more selective.

(12-26-2014 01:04 PM)BigTribe Wrote:  Academically our peers are schools like UVA, Duke, Michigan, Cal-Berkeley, Colgate, and UNC-Chapel Hill.

W&M has zero interest in being on a big-time athletic peer list...that all died, unfortunately,
when we turned down the ACC in 1975.

The great percentage of the very intelligent students at today's W&M have little to modest
interest in major college athletics.

The absence of big-time conference athletics at our College hasn't hurt W&M one iota; the
College's academic reputation and top-tier ability to get students into the best graduate schools, it's beautiful campus, Williamsburg location, and wide offerings of intercollegiate athletic and club teams on a non-big time level has never been higher and the school never more selective.

I agree with your first three paragraphs.

As for paragraph 4, the near-empty student section at football games is a problem.

Unfortunately, paragraph 3 portends the make-up of the alumni base on a go forward basis ... so to say it hasn't hurt ... I disagree. A lot of the very intelligent students at 1980 W&M had a modest to major interest in major college athletics.

Anyway, the decision was made, and the path forward was chosen ... just have to make the best of it.

(12-26-2014 01:04 PM)BigTribe Wrote:  The great percentage of the very intelligent students at today's W&M have little to modest
interest in major college athletics.

There is only one way to strengthen student interest in athletics - our mens basketball team would need to make the NCAAT and probably make it to a second game.

(12-26-2014 10:37 AM)Tribal Wrote:  So, to sum this up, it seems most of us would like "big boy" benefits without making "big boy" changes. We'd essentially have to increase enrollment to JMU/GSU/ODU/Appy size of 23,000+, increase Zable's capacity to 25,000+, and do anything we could to make ourselves appealing to the SunBelt/MAC/CUSA.

I'd be okay with increasing our enrollment to 10,000 and increasing stadium size to accommodate as many fans who are willing to attend but that's it for me. I'm not in favor of becoming another UVA and certainly not doing so just to play Troy twice a year.

Actually, I'd say that most of us recognize that "big boy" changes would have to be made to get "big boy" benefits, but we think the price of the changes is not worth the benefits.

In response to nj alum's question about who would you like to come to W&M to play, my answer would be most of the traditional CAA schools, mostly because of history. The "perfect world" doesn't have enough context; is it now or in the 70s when college sports wasn't the industry it is now? If it's now, I stand by answer. If it's the 70s, then I should have bought Apple stock.

(12-26-2014 12:32 PM)nj alum Wrote:  

(12-26-2014 12:02 PM)Rocco Wrote:  If you're saying that UVA, UNC etc. are too good to be on our level these days, then by definition you're saying they aren't our peers. They're aspirational opponents.

Who do you want to see the Tribe play at Kaplan / Zable?

I'd love for the big boys to come to Zable/Kaplan. That's not going to happen because our athletics aren't on their level and won't be on their level unless a wealthy grad gives the athletics department a billion dollars (rough estimate).

(12-26-2014 01:45 PM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote:  Actually, I'd say that most of us recognize that "big boy" changes would have to be made to get "big boy" benefits, but we think the price of the changes is not worth the benefits.

In response to nj alum's question about who would you like to come to W&M to play, my answer would be most of the traditional CAA schools, mostly because of history. The "perfect world" doesn't have enough context; is it now or in the 70s when college sports wasn't the industry it is now? If it's now, I stand by answer. If it's the 70s, then I should have bought Apple stock.

The Tribe should have bought Apple stock in the 70's as well ... only then it was trading as the ACC.

(12-26-2014 02:06 PM)Rocco Wrote:  I'd love for the big boys to come to Zable/Kaplan. That's not going to happen because our athletics aren't on their level and won't be on their level unless a wealthy grad gives the athletics department a billion dollars (rough estimate).

We agree...the train has left the station and I'm not sure it can be caught. It was still a mistake not to get on the train.

Another train is getting set to leave the station as well. Will we be on it?

(12-26-2014 02:14 PM)nj alum Wrote:  We agree...the train has left the station and I'm not sure it can be caught. It was still a mistake not to get on the train.

Another train is getting set to leave the station as well. Will we be on it?

I'm curious what train this is. I've agreed with everything you've posted so far but here I'm not certain what you're talking about. There's not an ACC invite waiting for us anywhere in the immediate future.

(12-26-2014 02:14 PM)nj alum Wrote:  

(12-26-2014 02:06 PM)Rocco Wrote:  I'd love for the big boys to come to Zable/Kaplan. That's not going to happen because our athletics aren't on their level and won't be on their level unless a wealthy grad gives the athletics department a billion dollars (rough estimate).

We agree...the train has left the station and I'm not sure it can be caught. It was still a mistake not to get on the train.

Another train is getting set to leave the station as well. Will we be on it?

As previously mentioned, if W&M hopped on that train they would have had to change a lot of things dramatically. What's done is done. Even if W&M were in the ACC there's no guarantee things would be better.

As for the other train, if you're talking about the train leading to terrible 1-A conferences, I'm fine with missing that one. I have no interest in watching W&M struggle to get 6 wins and make the New Orleans Bowl while flushing money down the toilet. Let JMU continue to grovel for a Sun Belt bid.