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Post by Non Alum Dave on May 20, 2019 15:46:14 GMT -5
Welcome to Worcester, Marcus!
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 20, 2019 18:32:31 GMT -5
Gavitt didn't want country bumpkins like URI and UMass located in sparse population areas according to a documentary on the forming of the BE I saw a while ago. Watched the whole damn thing and HC was never mentioned unless that was when I had to see a man about a horse for a minute. Dave Gavitt saw untapped potential in independent schools in the major TV markets of the East - New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Syracuse...and Hartford. He called Connecticut "a sleeping giant" even when the Huskies still played at the 4,600 seat UConn Field House. UMass was never considered because it was already a member of the Eastern 8. Much like the Metro Conference (a league which once included Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Tulane, Louisville, Memphis and Virginia Tech, yet never bothered to form a football conference), the Eastern 8 had all the ingredients to become a major conference (having been founded four years before the Big East) with the likes of Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, West Virginia, UMass, and Villanova...and still couldn't put it together. It's been said that some in the room of the four original schools (Georgetown, Providence, Syracuse, St. John's) wanted the Big East to pick one team for the Boston market (either BC or HC) but Gavitt, mindful of the HC athletic tradition, was willing to take both. In the end, the decision was made for him.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 20, 2019 18:32:33 GMT -5
Below is an answer to a question that was tangentially asked. 1978 average basketball attendance Providence 9168 Syracuse 8605 [Rutgers] 6107 (turned Gavitt down) St. John's 4627 [UMass] 4430 (not invited) (no big arena on the horizon?) UConn 4419 [Holy Cross] 3891 (turned Gavitt down) Georgetown 2898 BC 2567 Villanova 2361 Seton Hall 2231 (Meadowlands built 1981) _________________ URI 4801 (not invited) (competition?) Villanova's attendance was less than half of UPenn's, but ahead of St. Joe's, Temple, and LaSalle. Those numbers are great but the percentage of capacity would be a better gauge. Teams played in much smaller 'gyms' then. Played in front of full houses. IMO, Gavitt assessed whether a school would have access to a larger venue than its then on-campus gym. UConn: Hartford Civic Center (XL Center) built around 1975. HC: Centrum, construction having begun in 1977. St. John's had MSG Villanova had the Spectrum and the Philadelphia Convention Center. The Convention Center was relatively near 30th Street railroad station, and thus convenient to campus, transportation-wise. The newer Spectrum was not. Seton Hall didn't have anything near term; the Nets had moved from Long Island to NJ, but were playing at Rutgers. BC had the Roberts Center, not much bigger than the Hart. And there was always the Garden. Georgetown had the Capital Center, opened in 1973. It was so far away from campus it would be like HC playing in Framingham. Providence, Syracuse, and Rutgers already were playing in venues with sufficient capacity.
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Post by A Clock Tower Purple on May 20, 2019 18:37:07 GMT -5
Your reasonable request has been fulfilled. Futile as it apparently is, I nonetheless appreciate your effort longsuffering.
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Post by longsuffering on May 20, 2019 20:33:09 GMT -5
Thanks. It's like herding cats trying to get us to stick to the topic. Sorry I was an immediate violator.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 20, 2019 21:20:51 GMT -5
Thanks. It's like herding cats trying to get us to stick to the topic. Sorry I was an immediate violator.Your list of transgressions is growing at a disturbing rate and has come to the attention of the board of directors. Please cease and desist or we shall be forced to take corrective action. It will be most unpleasant. (Just kidding, of course. I was just watching some youtube movie clips of a favorite Gestapo character and I had the urge to be imperious.)
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Post by rgs318 on May 21, 2019 6:09:11 GMT -5
I have to ask. How does one have a "favorite" Gestapo character?
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Post by gks on May 21, 2019 6:37:25 GMT -5
I have to ask. How does one have a "favorite" Gestapo character? How about Hochstetter from Hogan's Heroes...
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Post by rgs318 on May 21, 2019 7:16:06 GMT -5
Fair enough. I figured it was from that show, but could only think of Sgt Schutz and Col. Klink and I knew they were not Gestapo.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 21, 2019 7:26:21 GMT -5
No-/ it was Major Von Papen from the great war movie “Where Eagles Dare”. Of course I am 100% opposed to Nazi Germany, the Gestapo, the SS and all their actions. Major Von Papen is a “favorite” because of the actor’s creepy portrayal of a purely evil character.
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Post by rgs318 on May 21, 2019 7:30:59 GMT -5
In terms of pure "evil" I have to go with Christof Waltz's portrayal of SS officer Col. Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. Some of the character's logic was effective and was truly pure evil. I still see that character whenever I see Waltz in a film.
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Post by timholycross on May 22, 2019 9:55:51 GMT -5
Speaking of infamous, failed governmental systems, if you see HBO's Chernobyl, there are some real good character portrayals of party loyalists (Episode 1, the old guy who says, "tell them nothing and shut off the phone system")- and the guy in Episode 3 who runs the KGB was excellent ("old Russian saying, 'trust but verify'...and Ronald Reagan thought he invented that one").
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Post by JRGNYR on May 29, 2019 7:25:17 GMT -5
Harvard's endowment in 1979, according to the article, was 1.5 billion dollars. That's incredible money for back then. Factoring in inflation, that's about 5.3 billion in today's dollars. Of course, its current endowment is 38 billion so 5.3 seems paltry.
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Post by sader1970 on May 29, 2019 9:24:17 GMT -5
Mom used to have an expression, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." Harvard and others of its type certainly demonstrate the first part of that. A version of that, in my opinion, is that in college athletics, "winning begets winning." The trick is to get that spiral going. Kearney, Brown, Carmody couldn't kickstart our basketball program but hopefully Chesney can with football.
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Post by Tom on May 31, 2019 8:35:44 GMT -5
Sometimes winning begets winning. Sometimes winning is so closely tied to an individual coach that all the winning in the world falls apart when he leaves. St Johns with Carnesecca. UMass with Calipari. UNLV with Tark. to name a few. One might say on a smaller scale HC with Coach Willard
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Post by trimster on May 31, 2019 8:55:51 GMT -5
Sometimes winning begets winning. Sometimes winning is so closely tied to an individual coach that all the winning in the world falls apart when he leaves. St Johns with Carnesecca. UMass with Calipari. UNLV with Tark. to name a few. One might say on a smaller scale HC with Coach Willard Coach RW has clearly been an aberration in the post George Blaney era. Too bad the power brokers wouldn't allow him to return after the brief stint of his successor. It will be interesting to see what happens at Davidson when Bob McKillop finally retires.
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Post by timholycross on May 31, 2019 9:00:23 GMT -5
Sometimes winning begets winning. Sometimes winning is so closely tied to an individual coach that all the winning in the world falls apart when he leaves. St Johns with Carnesecca. UMass with Calipari. UNLV with Tark. to name a few. One might say on a smaller scale HC with Coach Willard The guys I always feel bad for are the loyal, long-time assistants who replace one of these legends. Phil Bengston (Lombardi), Brian Mahoney (Louie C) , Bill Guthridge (Dean Smith) spring to mind. It usually doesn't end well.
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Post by Tom on May 31, 2019 9:25:38 GMT -5
Sometimes winning begets winning. Sometimes winning is so closely tied to an individual coach that all the winning in the world falls apart when he leaves. St Johns with Carnesecca. UMass with Calipari. UNLV with Tark. to name a few. One might say on a smaller scale HC with Coach Willard The guys I always feel bad for are the loyal, long-time assistants who replace one of these legends. Phil Bengston (Lombardi), Brian Mahoney (Louie C) , Bill Guthridge (Dean Smith) spring to mind. It usually doesn't end well. Mahoney took SJ over a cliff. Guthridge did pretty good for himself after Smith
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Post by timholycross on May 31, 2019 9:39:28 GMT -5
The guys I always feel bad for are the loyal, long-time assistants who replace one of these legends. Phil Bengston (Lombardi), Brian Mahoney (Louie C) , Bill Guthridge (Dean Smith) spring to mind. It usually doesn't end well. Mahoney took SJ over a cliff. Guthridge did pretty good for himself after Smith ...Guthridge coached Smith's players (they were LOADED at the time) very well, 2 FFs in 3 years (although losing to unheralded Utah one year and Weber State the next probably didn't go over very well). Not a recruiter by any means. When he left the cupboard was bare (recruiting the likes of Neil Fingleton didn't help, no offense to the late, great Holy Name star) and the program cratered for a few years. The prevailing thought is that he was supposed to coach as long as he did, give or take a year; then Roy Williams was supposed to come in. But Williams wanted to stay at Kansas a while longer so they hired Matt Doherty, a disastah.
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Post by hc87 on May 31, 2019 10:50:15 GMT -5
You always want to be the guy who replaces the guy....
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Post by sader1970 on May 31, 2019 11:33:59 GMT -5
Oh, you mean how Brown replaced Kearney who replaced Willard? So, Brown was in the catbird seat (tip of the hat to Red Barber)?
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Post by longsuffering on May 31, 2019 11:38:01 GMT -5
You want to be the guy who replaced the guy who replaced the guy who replaced the guy.☺️
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Post by Tom on Jun 5, 2019 11:28:10 GMT -5
Oh, you mean how Brown replaced Kearney who replaced Willard? So, Brown was in the catbird seat (tip of the hat to Red Barber)? I think this assumes that the guy who replaced the guy lasts more than 12 months He needs to be there long enough so that the guy who replaces the guy who replaced the guy isn't compared to the guy
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Post by rgs318 on Jun 5, 2019 13:04:50 GMT -5
He needs to be there long enough so that the guy who replaces the guy who replaced the guy isn't compared to the guy I am afraid that, here on CROSSPORTS, that could take many decades.
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