Demographics and Recruiting

[MustangIcon]

I see this topic skirted around or discussed in a round about way on the forum often, but never directly addressed.

Do you think that SMU's reputation/stereotype as a school consisting of nothing but stuck up, snobby, rich, white kids from affluent neighborhoods/families hurts our athletic programs' ability to recruit athletes who do not fit that description? (Ie prospective student athletes that would fall under any of the following categories: inner-city/low-income/minority.)

[MustangIcon]

By the way. My opinion on this is yes, it does hurt recruiting for those demographics. Couple overcoming that stereotype with a history of losing and it seems like a bad formula for both hoops and football, especially when kids have offers from more succesfull programs.

[expony18]

Have you ever been to the University of Miami?


Notre Dame?



and my favorite comparison OLE MISS?

SMU=OLE MISS
except its in oxford, mississippi and public but still how the hell do they beat us in recruiting?

i would bet a night of drinking that there are more collars popped on the grove then on the boulevard

[MustangIcon]

Have you ever been to the University of Miami?


Notre Dame?



and my favorite comparison OLE MISS?

SMU=OLE MISS
except its in oxford, mississippi and public but still how the hell do they beat us in recruiting?

i would bet a night of drinking that there are more collars popped on the grove then on the boulevard

Compare the success and level of prestige associated with those programs to that of SMU though. That is the big difference. Those schools maybe have to overcome a similar stereotype but have big time conferences, TV apperances, history, and prestige to help them overcome that hurdle. We don't.

Like I said in my post, overcoming our stereotype with a history of being a joke of a program is hard to do, in my opinion.

[Charleston Pony]

add Duke...Stanford, etc...I would agree there are plenty of inner city kids who won't feel comfortable and will not give SMU a look, but I believe there are plenty of others who view a scholarship offer from a small private school as an opportunity to branch out.

[TheBestAvailable]

No. They go to Rice, went to Stanford in the past, Northwestern, now Vanderbilt, etc. and those schools all have student demographics similar to SMU. They even go to Utah(non mormons from DISD).

It's just hard to convince kid's to come here when were known around the country for losing. JJ & associates have to close the deals somehow.

Vanderbilt is doing it now and they just won their first bowl game in school history.

That is why I wanted JW under center last year. If we could have won as few as 2-3 more games last year it would have helped in recruiting.