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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 26, 2018 8:04:39 GMT -5
IH, the Brooks BE decision was in the same timeframe as the decision to go coed. Going coed and basically keeping enrollment level meant the number of male undergraduates was halved. To 'graduate' to the BE and still play football at a high level would have required HC to fight far above its weight. Let's not overlook that Villanova dropped football soon after joining the BE. How Georgetown got to the PL www.hoyasaxa.com/sports/hist09.htmI have always been suspicious that the Jesuits dictated that HC remain small. BC was nearly forced into bankruptcy but a few years before (supposedly Harvard was interested in buying the campus) and 'growing' HC (by siphoning off prospective BC students) would have been detrimental to BC's financial situation And then there was Fairfield, which the province was also developing at that time. There was an era when one spoke of Fairfield, the reference was to Fairfield Prep.
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Post by JRGNYR on Sept 26, 2018 8:56:57 GMT -5
Had HC gone to the BE in 79, it's almost certain football would have been dropped soon after, maybe in a similar timeframe to Villanova. Perhaps it would've lasted a few more years, but if you look at where things were relative to the hoops and football programs at the time, you could have easily made a case to drop football in 80 if you coupled it with BE membership.
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Post by joe on Sept 26, 2018 9:09:23 GMT -5
Had we gone BE, I would think our football trajectory would have mirrored that of Villanova. We would have lost football for a while as we battled it out to establish ourselves in men's basketball, and then re-emerged sometime later in the YC/CAA for football.
Sad about BU football and how it was dropped shortly after a stellar season under Danny A, but goes to show what could happen at the FCS level. Here today, gone tomorrow. Would love to see BU have football again and be a regular opponent. Maybe as part of my new league, we can invite them;)
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Post by timholycross on Sept 26, 2018 9:16:57 GMT -5
Not sure if HC was kept small to keep BC viable but there's no question that someone, somewhere decided that HC should be the essentially the same size with or without women. Combine this with the philosophy of having many varsity teams (which many enormous schools do NOT have; look it up) has IMHO hurt the major sports as much as anything.
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 26, 2018 9:22:37 GMT -5
I think in this day and age that if a school has completely given up on football, they aren't about to go the Villanova rout (i.e. D-IAA), without some other larger issues.
I can't see BU going back to football, though that might actually enhance the meaning of the Turnpike Trophy. The only school I could see even possibly considering it would be Fairfield. I think they would positively salivate at the possibility of joining the academically prestigious Patriot League. As a Stag alum parent, I get lots of communications from Fairfield and they are very proud of 1. their Jesuit identity, much more so than Holy Cross; and 2. they are trumpeting theie newest #1 USN&WR ranking in the Northern regional university category.
Their athletic teams are pretty successful in other sports - certainly better than Holy Cross in the Olympic sports.
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Post by rgs318 on Sept 26, 2018 9:41:24 GMT -5
As an Fairfield alum parent, they have enough sense to never contact me...after they screwed up my son's financial aid so badly with their insulin attitude after he finally qualified for some (small) help in his senior year. I told them to never contact me since I would never again donate to them...and I am pleased that they have taken me at my word.
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Post by joe on Sept 26, 2018 9:46:07 GMT -5
As an Fairfield alum parent, they have enough sense to never contact me...after they screwed up my son's financial aid so badly with their insulin attitude after he finally qualified for some (small) help in his senior year. I told them to never contact me since I would never again donate to them...and I am pleased that they have taken me at my word. Plus they should be contacting your son, not you, looking for donations. You paid your dues.
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Post by JRGNYR on Sept 26, 2018 9:52:44 GMT -5
Had we gone BE, I would think our football trajectory would have mirrored that of Villanova. We would have lost football for a while as we battled it out to establish ourselves in men's basketball, and then re-emerged sometime later in the CAA for football. Sad about BU football and how it was dropped shortly after a stellar season under Danny A, but goes to show what could happen at the FCS level. Here today, gone tomorrow. Would love to see BU have football again and be a regular opponent. Maybe as part of my new league, we can invite them;) Possible reemergence like Villanova but I have my doubts. It's all speculative and BE membership would've required a complete 180 from Fr. Brooks, so we're going down a rabbit hole of "what ifs" but I'll bite. I doubt he would've advocated for the resumption of scholarship football after a few years of "going dark," and financially I think decisions about other sports would've been necessary as well. He might have been fine with bringing football back entirely as a non-scholarship/need-based entity, but that would rule out membership in a revamped CAA. I'm not familiar with the exact reasons Villanova dropped football in 80 - I imagine it was resource driven. Haven't researched it though. Selfishly would love to see BU re-add football for a variety of reasons. Sadly, it's not meant to be.
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 26, 2018 10:10:18 GMT -5
I understand your reason for not donating to Fairfield but I did not have a similar experience and while I continue to donate a small amount every year to Fairfield, helped by a matching gift from one of my community-minded former employers, I have nothing but good things to say about Fairfield. From memory, they gave my son more grant-in-aid than HC did for his older brother at HC. Of course, that meant we had 2 in college at the same time but HC never adjusted my older son's financial help.
As I believe I posted previously, my younger son went to Fairfield, the first in the clan to do so, as almost all are HC grads except my sisters who had the bad timing of being female when HC was all-male. After my son went there, 3 nephews followed him to Fairfield. So, we have a mini-group of Stags within our larger family.
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Post by nhteamer on Sept 27, 2018 7:02:43 GMT -5
interesting. thank you for the input/history. again Fr Brooks knew how to get what he wanted and was usually successful. not saying that the HC alumni is some puppet master but there is no Fr Brooks on the administration team right now. so, influence of the HC alumni is stronger with him gone. don't think that we would have scheduled BC, Syracuse football games if Fr Brooks was still around. Much though I disagreed with Brooks (my junior year Theology teacher...Heils Geschichte, baby!) about the BE and PL at the time, the reality is that we have no business these days playing teams like BC, Syracuse...or (likely) Army or Navy, until we can do better against our PL, IL, and CAA "peers". The reality is that Brooks screwed HC athletics mightily...but that's not to say he wasn't right, given our small size and the seismically changing intercollegiate athletic environment since the early to mid-80s. Of course we can't now compete with those teams! The point is that if JEB hadn't screwed us WE WOULDN'T SUCK!
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 27, 2018 8:18:16 GMT -5
Just a short note on BC. BC Revenues / Expenses (in millions) Fiscal 1968-69 $22.4 / $26.2 Fiscal 1969-70 $27.4 / $31.2 Fiscal 1970-71 $32.5 / $33.5 These values are from BC's fact book, and not from a financial statement, let alone an audited one. As BC had no endowment to speak of, it appears, from entries in a very summary table, that BC took out a mortgage on its campus, sort of like a home equity loan, and used the proceeds to pay for the everyday operations of BC;, i.e., to bring revenue into alignment with expenses (to use the loan to pay the heating bill, etc.). I have heard that BC's financial situation not only scared the bejesus out of the province, but of HC as well. And there may have been financial repercussions on HC from a BC bankruptcy, as HC might have had to become the primary supporter of the province's many Jesuits. YieldFor unclear reasons, BC's yield dropped significantly over the 1960s. Class entering fall of 1962: 4473 applied, 1099 enrolled. Class entering fall of 1969: 5242 applied, 1232 enrolled Class entering fall of 1970: 6605 applied, 1402 enrolled. Class entering fall of 1971: 6712 applied, 1024 enrolled. And for the days when BC was a 'safety school'"Average of the Medians"* Class of 1961 SAT V 478 SAT M 486 * I really don't know what "average of the medians" represents; possibly it is the average of the median scores for the four different schools at BC. Suffice to say, recruited athlete with a SAT of 950 applying to HC today would not be admitted, as such scores would place the recruit well below the AI floor. __________________________ I will add that as all Jesuits are aware, the suppression of the order in the late 18th Century was precipitated by a financial bankruptcy arising from when the order was unable to fulfill contracts arising from its very substantial commercial enterprises (slave plantations) in the West Indies. _________________________ The century is now truncated to a single year!
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 27, 2018 8:32:23 GMT -5
Boy, that 101 year span from 1869-1970 was something else!
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Post by timholycross on Sept 27, 2018 21:20:57 GMT -5
Not sure what the acceptance rate was for Holy Cross, but for Boston College it was said by BC High graduates I went to HC with that any BCH diploma was an admissions acceptance to The Heights.
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