Post by bfoley82 on Jul 5, 2022 21:40:26 GMT -5
As for stability as opposed to stagnation, you've got first to decide what the role of football -- men's basketball, for that matter -- should be in the school's external athletic strategy (i.e., as opposed to HC's apparent commitment to providing as many opportunities as possible for students to play other NCAA varsity sports).
I start from a certain point of view. To wit, that, starting in the early 20th century, a small college in Worcester has had a phenomenal historical track record in football and basketball that no school in New England...save only Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and BC...can even hope to touch. Fitton Field is the physical embodiment of this tradition. It's certainly not the most up to date venue that we might hope it could be, but it is the fourth oldest Division-1 stadium in the land and outdistances most north-eastern football FCS "stadia" by orders of magnitude in seating capacity (excepting only HYP and Penn). I won't even get into the many, many historically significant games that have been played on its grass for more than a century.
To me, that pedigree is key. Our combination of the PL, featuring smaller, high academic quality schools like HC, coupled with two or three games every year against the Ivies is as good as it's likely ever to get. We're showing now that we can be nationally successful with that schedule under Coach Chesney (as we were in the '80s and '90s under Carter and Duffner).
The PL...just like the Ivies...was always more than the playing field...or basketball court...alone. It was a banding together of like-minded superior academic institutions. HC is moving the PL needle in football and I believe we will do so in basketball in time. Let's not dilute the brand by aligning athletically with schools that bring nothing to the party and will only dilute the brand that we should be happy to enjoy. If not entertaining membership applications from schools in other conferences like the NEC means we're stagnating, I'm happy to stagnate, looking at the greater scheme of things.