
Originally Posted by
CajunFun
So many of you insist that we need big-time athletics to succeed. So riddle me this, Batman:
How is it that we are already succeeding?
I remember a friendly, but animated, disagreement with a UL administrator who was insisting to me that we have to have big-time athletics to succeed.
I replied that I know of an academic area, at a public university, that was succeeding without big-time athletics.
He wrinkled his nose in doubt, and asked me, Where?
I pointed at him and said, "In your area." He didn't take it well.
But it was true. He and his people were succeeding -- like gangbusters -- even though we didn't have big-time athletics.
So in response to your comments about public attitudes and perceptions, let me offer a few questions:
Do you think we should try to change those attitudes?
Do you think, as I do, that in fact it is our mission to change those attitudes?
Well, do you think that UL is capable of changing those attitudes?
And if not UL, can you name another school in the South who even has an interest in trying to change them?
With great apologies, I will never agree with those who equate t-shirts with success.
The Bhagavad Gita contains one of my favorite quotes: "Better one's own path, though imperfect, than another's well-made."
I don't want UL to be as good as LSU, or Florida, or even Texas, UNC or Virginia.
I want us to be better.
And if some of you folks would stop waving your pom-pons for a minute and look around, you would see that we are on track to be better. We are blazing a different path forward, we are re-thinking what a university is, what a university does, and what a university could do.
UL has the potential to grow into more than colleges who simply surrender their ideals, and pander to the opinions of an ill-educated public.
And once you consider that possibility, why would we strive for anything less?