After so many years of having the "New" name and to not have the desired name (Louisiana) not resonate with ESPN, AP, Sports Illustrated, The Advocate, Nola.com, not to mention the former university SID and others who now opine in local, weekly rags is the single biggest mistake possibly ever made by the "smartest people in the room" who used to run this university. Sure, winning has certainly helped, but the more success the RC have, the more important this name thing will become. How has all of the bastardization of title, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Laf, ULL, LA Laf, etc) benefited anyone associated with the school? U LA LA work for anyone here? Of course not....
These people who run the university are supposed to be smart. I know Joe S. is a very smart, intelligent guy. You would have to be the village idiot to believe that anything other than UL, (sometimes even ULL) or Louisiana isn't the right and correct choice of non-official names. For me, a 25 year media marketing guru, something is telling me there is more to this story, especially in light of what's been going on the last few weeks. And I don't think its a case of Doc S and his immediate staff not caring. I'm 5 states removed from Lafayette and I can see that. Now, the Comm and Marketing Office may not care, the new "smartest people in the room" may not care, but there are thousands and thousands of others who do care that the university stop accepting these mistakes from national media, like ESPN. Something about all of this, including those who "don't care" doesn't seem to make sense in light of ESPN referring to the school as they like, with no accountability or recourse by the University. Sort of like IUPUI baskeball. You know the school is in Indiana, you're just not sure what all these letters mean. Same thing.