Continuing Athletics Discussion

[Cajun Express]

_ Well, the good news is I'm not pushing it on the helmets any more.

I just want it as an option for those of us who prefer it. Some will buy the pepper, some the hot wheels, some that gawd-awful yellow stuff. Me, I like the interlocking UL (and I hope L'ville never sues us over it... ) and the triple fleurs.

CX, I know you dislike the "flowers", but if we're going to use that design, let's make sure we distinguish ourselves from the rest of Louisiana.

So if we use it, let's use three instead of one. _

Honestly Fun, the tri fleur, the ragin'cajuns across the helmet, the interlocking ul it is all the same to me as long as we win. What we should have is a great big W for all the whining we do and still not supporting the teams.

[CajunFun]

_ Preach on, Father Fun...Preach on....

I've often wondered that this person in Martin Hall you speak of had pictures of Doc playing golf with Satan or someting like that because I can't figure out how this has been allowed to go on for so long.

When 2 people with such different political mindsets such as ourselves believe the same thing, so ardently, about an issue, there must be something REALLY wrong going on here.

Maybe it's time other people start speaking out on this topic and not belittle it like they do often on this board, i. e. "not another uni thread".

This matters. _

Yeah, it does. What I've come to realize, is that the people in charge of this stuff have areas where they are very valuable to UL.

But those areas aren't necessarily News Services, and they aren't Marketing and Athletic Marketing.

My understanding is that there is a great deal of irritation over there about ultoday.com. At first I couldn't understand why, but then one of my friends pointed out to me that I'm an MD, with no training in writing, with no training in journalism, and in my free time I'm putting out more news, more interesting news, and better-written news, than all of News Services is. So that made more sense.

As for marketing and athletics marketing, the problems just never seem to stop. Everything they touch seems to go awry.

I will say this in their defense, there is is a deeper, national concern here: schools all over the country are going to a business-like approach to PR and marketing.

But that's a problem. A corporation is supposed to be uniform; a university is supposed to be diverse. Business people conform, academics non-conform. Each business walks in one direction, lock-step; academia goes everywhere, helter-skelter.

So what does it mean, when you walk into a university bookstore-- and Harvard is much worse about this than say, Nicholls-- and everything there conforms to narrow, inflexible guidelines?

What does it say about the importance the university places on diversity and independence of mind?

A university is about offering and exploring the maximum number of paths, opinions, and interests. So it seems to me that in academic marketing, universities should allow their graduates and supporters those same options.

There's another insight here. For Coke and Pepsi, intense, non-varying marketing is critical, because, well, there's not much real difference between them. So if you're going to buy one over the other, it will be based on heavily conditioned marketing cues.

Universities, on the other hand, are known for three things: Their name, their sports nickname, and their colors, if distinctive; if they have also have a distinctive mascot that is different from the nickname, then it's four things.

But except for a VERY few schools, the fonts and the logos just aren't as important.

Let me use our beloved sister school down the road: they use dozens of different tigers, but whenever you see a purple & gold tiger, you know who it is. Texas could do the same thing with many versions of burnt orange longhorns, and Florida could use a multitude of blue & orange alligator designs.

And any knowledgeable sports fan recognizes the school immediately.

Type styles and tight logo controls just aren't critical for colleges.

[CajunNation]

But except for a VERY few schools, the fonts and the logos just aren't as important.

Well, we are one of those few schools, because this is a train wreck: