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Rgt likes sports he just doesn't buy into the fact that they're the front door to your university unfortunately

Meh. I'd rather be Georgetown with a 1-AA football team than TCU with a really good football team and an average academic school.

AustinPerson wrote:Meh. I'd rather be Georgetown with a 1-AA football team than TCU with a really good football team and an average academic school.

TCU is almost a peer academically so i don't know what you are talking about

And I prefer to be a Stanford than a Georgetown.

Stanford (and to some degree, Duke), is the standard we should be shooting for. As for Stanford, they have one of the largest, wealthiest alumni bases in the country (if not THE largest), so we need about 10 more 30 something billionaires who REALLY love SMU and it's sports to be minted very soon. And of course Duke has the bball tradition (and their football team has come on as of late with a good HC hire, although I don't follow them all that closely).

Ultimately, it's really (as Stallion says) about the giving of the alumni base (for a private school). Need more people writing bigger checks (and of course the right admin which I think we have with the AD and RGT of course just follows the money and won't be here forever so I'm hopeful there too). LB has been great for us all around (and I THINK the admin and faculty like he and Chad).

ojaipony wrote:... we need about 10 more 30 something billionaires who REALLY love SMU...

We may not have that many billionaires but we do have the younger, "unknown" multi-multi-millionaires who could help. Not sure how receptive they are to supporting this athletic "program". Although we couldn't pay the bills without them, we've got the same handful of ultra rich senior citizen donors who show up in every photo of every dedication... whether it be a building, plaza, park bench, flower garden, drinking fountain or the Sewell Automotive Red Zone.

I realize that SMU is on the same academic level as TCU and Baylor. But if SMU can put some more resources into academics to take it to the next level, great. Although I doubt that that is possible.

I have always felt like RGT was our millstone....he doesn't understand you don't have to sacrifice overall academic standards for athletics, e.g. Stanford, but without athletics (Big-Time Football and Men's Basketball) you will never be a nationally well known University, which definitely hurts your application numbers/academic base.

AustinPerson wrote:I realize that SMU is on the same academic level as TCU and Baylor. But if SMU can put some more resources into academics to take it to the next level, great. Although I doubt that that is possible.

SMU is ahead of Baylor academically. Not much to debate there. As for the purple frogs ... far below SMU academically if one is to believe the US News rankings.

AustinPerson wrote:I realize that SMU is on the same academic level as TCU and Baylor. But if SMU can put some more resources into academics to take it to the next level, great. Although I doubt that that is possible.

One data point but a friend's kid applied early decision to SMU and is still waitlisted but got into TCU and Baylor regular decision. A top 50 ranking some day will make a big difference. Also being ranked ahead of UT.

In Eric's interview, he has noticed what most of us have known...RGT is a narcissist. Eric pointed out, that you don't see other programs president at every athletic press conference. If there's a camera, RGT's got the time.

Why is his first name R?

ALEX LIFESON wrote:In Eric's interview, he has noticed what most of us have known...RGT is a narcissist. Eric pointed out, that you don't see other programs president at every athletic press conference. If there's a camera, RGT's got the time.

Or maybe he really likes and supports athletics. Not sure how many presidents fly out to the final game of the regular season when the team is facing a post season ban. Or show up to football fund raiser $$$ rah rah dinners.

What's wrong with a narcissist