Schools in Big Markets

by **leopold** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:34 pm

ESPN is running an article called 'Heart of the City', discussing schools in major cities:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/s ... id=6676377

And here is SMU's bit:

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation

by **NickSMU17** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:44 pm

School: Southern Methodist
Location: Dallas, Texas
Enrollment: 11,000
Bowl appearances: 11
NFL first-round picks: 4
Losing seasons: 43
10-win seasons: 4
Source: ESPN Stats & Info (Note: Numbers date back to 1936, the first year of the AP poll.)

The good: SMU is a small school, but located in the heart of the city of Dallas, the home of numerous Fortune 500 companies. For a program more apt to send players into the business world than the NFL, that can be a real selling point. Coaches can sell small-town kids on big-city life more than almost any school, and certainly more than any school that plays FBS football in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The Ponies are on the rise of late, too, after a dark period before June Jones arrived from Hawaii and put the Mustangs into two consecutive bowls.

The bad: Those dark ages came at the worst time possible, too. Chronicled by the ESPN 30 for 30 film, "Pony Excess," recruiting violations resulted in the death penalty when the SMU program was at its height. Shortly after, the Southwest Conference split, and instead of finding a soft landing in the Big 12, the Mustangs are now relegated to the Conference USA, blocking them from getting access to the Cotton Bowl, where it's played four times. The school has plenty of money and a nice, albeit small, stadium. Its size keeps it from really grabbing a stronghold in the Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M-dominated Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Also not helping matters: Only 21 percent of students are minorities.

Pretty darn accurate...The last sentence is a real component and I believe an issue with our staff as well...

by **RGV Pony** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 2:02 pm

I guess not only do we not have a marketing dept, we also cant spare someone to go to the "Marketing Summit'

From the article:

Big City Marketing Summit participants
Arizona State (Pac-12)
Boston College (ACC)
Cincinnati (Big East)
Houston (Conference USA)
Maryland (ACC)
Miami (ACC)
Northwestern (Big Ten)
Pittsburgh (Big East)
Rutgers (Big East)
San Diego State (Mountain West)
South Florida (Big East)
TCU (Mountain West)
Temple (MAC)
Tulane (Conference USA)
Washington (Pac-12)

by **One Trick Pony** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 2:45 pm

Can we hood it up a little in that [deleted] then teach them.

by **GiddyUp** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 3:57 pm

The time is now to learn from other schools on this issue. They are having the same problems. Time to WAKE up athletic department. You can't do the same things you have always done, it doesn't work.

by **smustatesmen** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:49 pm

ESPN says that under Bad, for SMU, that we have only 21% minority enrollment (graduation class of 2014 ?) (total enrollment ?). Quick look at UT enrollment shows that African-Americans and Hispanics comprise 22% of it 2014 graduating class. Oklahoma's African-American and Hispanic population for 2014 graduating class is 10.7%. Texas A&M showed as of 2009, whites comprised 80% of its student body. (under grad or all enrollment ?) Dubious reporting ?

by **Treadway21** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 6:34 pm

smustatesmen wrote:ESPN says that under Bad, for SMU, that we have only 21% minority enrollment (graduation class of 2014 ?) (total enrollment ?). Quick look at UT enrollment shows that African-Americans and Hispanics comprise 22% of it 2014 graduating class. Oklahoma's African-American and Hispanic population for 2014 graduating class is 10.7%. Texas A&M showed as of 2009, whites comprised 80% of its student body. (under grad or all enrollment ?) Dubious reporting ?

No - it all about the narrative, not facts. Snotty, racist, private school.

You forgot TCU - 79% white, 5% african american,10% hispanic.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/undergraduate_mba_profiles/texaschr.html

by **ponyscott** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 5:09 am

Biased reporting with a [deleted] slap last retort, and would guess that 90% of all colleges/universities are 90% non- minority. ( and oh yes except for the Southland Conference)

by **smudubs** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:39 am

I cannot speak to the experience of other minority groups at SMU, but I can say that the university experience for African-American students differs vastly from that of other students. I have two degrees from SMU and if we did not have two black students transfer into my graduate program, I would have been the only black student who graduated from either program. That leads me to believe that most of that 20% minority figure is non-black.

The racial and socio-economic differences between the groups often makes SMU a difficult place to be. I was speaking with an African-American professor who told me it has gotten much worse since I graduated. It might be the same at other schools, but we need to be realistic about what's going on at our university.

by **GiddyUp** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:04 am

Back to the topic - I am shocked we didn't attend this conference

by **RGV Pony** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:24 am

GiddyUp wrote:Back to the topic - I am shocked we didn't attend this conference

there's trying and getting disappointing results, and then there's just not trying.

by **leopold** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:54 am

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6665732

Ivan Maisel's quick look.

by **EastStang** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:38 pm

The difference is in the opportunities for social life for minorities. At UT, there are 40,000 students of whom 8,000 are minorities. Plenty of bodies like you out there to party with. At SMU, 10,000 with 20% minority and you're looking at 2,000 total. If you just go with undergrad thats 4000 total or 800 minorities. Then break it down between African American, Hispanic, and Asian and that number gets even smaller. Then break it down by ethnicity (African vs. African American, Vietnamese vs. Korean, etc.) and those numbers are down right small.

by **Longtime** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:37 pm

Actually, this is the link to the article on SMU:

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/ncf/co ... id=6675301

The article overlooks the fact that TCU athletics has always had the support of its administration, faculty and student body. At SMU, post-DP, the administration has often shown only token support, the faculty has exhibited downright hatred of athletics and the student body has been incredibly apathetic. It's hard to become "Dallas' team" when you can't even win over your own campus.

And as for TCU's winning ways making it Fort Worth's team: TCU has always been Fort Worth's team. TCU has never had the elitist reputation that turns off so many potential fans about SMU. And Fort Worth has always had more civic pride than Dallas - probably because it' gets less recognition than Dallas.

But for SMU to use TCU's blueprint for success, first SMU would have to create a marketing department, right Steve? And if SMU really wanted to accent "the cheerleaders, the band and everything" it might want to throw a few dollars to those starving programs, too.

And by the way, "Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex" is such an absurdly redundant term they used it twice in the profile NickSMU17 pasted above. Why just say "Dallas-Fort Worth" when you can throw in "Metroplex" too! Bravo!