Sent mine out and got an immediate reply from Mrs. Popp. Nice to get quick responses.
Here’s what I sent to each
[COLOR=Green]Dear XXXXX,
I would like to thank you for your service on the UNC Charlotte Board of Trustees. At this Thursday’s meeting Chancellor Dubois is scheduled to give his recommendation on whether UNC Charlotte should pursue the sport of football. It would be easy to reduce this decision to a money equation, but I would respectfully ask you to consider the overall impact that the nation’s #1 sport will have on the future of the entire university and the Charlotte region as a whole.
For better or worse athletics is the public face of universities in this nation. Football, as the nation’s #1 sport is the keystone to development of donations for the majority of universities. Universities with football garner substantial increases in giving for both athletics and academics when compared to those that don’t. Football also provides for better marketing to the community, generating year round revenue and exposure. Football unites a university in ways that nothing else can. Schools with football have a higher percentage of alumni, corporate and community participation and donation.
Thursday’s vote will be a watershed moment in the history of this university on a scale not seen since we joined the UNC System in 1965. The future of this university can go in one of two directions from this vote. Without football this university will proceed to benefit from an appalling level of relative obscurity that it currently enjoys not only in the region, but within the very city it occupies. It can continue to be ignored by local media and business interests for the lack of “value” not having football brings. It’s athletics programs, already forced into a lower quality conference for the lack of football, will slide further into mediocrity as better athletes choose better known programs, with football. Without football the Athletic Department will be forced to ask for high student fees to compensate for the lack of interest our current slide will continue to produce.
With football we will have the chance to join with a better quality conference, to play a better level of competition, to get UNC Charlotte’s name back into the national spotlight. Football will garner more support from the local and regional media; getting students more involved with the university as a whole. It will help students, fans and the alumni to develop a love and concern for their university. Football will encourage corporate donations by offering a better and more widely seen product, and put the UNC Charlotte brand in the forefront of the region’s universities.
Please vote YES for football at Charlotte. The students (in a system wide historic vote) have affirmed their willingness to pay the fee increase because they realize the benefit that football will not only have to the overall college experience, but to the value of their university and their own degrees in the long run. Please do not allow the concerns of outside interests who DO NOT have the university’s best interests in mind, only their Alma Mater’s, to influence your vote. If we cave in on football, which is completely in the hands of the university, then we will never get a medical school or law school from the hands of outside special interests. The choice is clear; with football we will move one step closer to become a real university not only in reality but in public perception as well. Without football we will be doomed to be nothing more then a diploma factory. The power is in your hands to make UNC Charlotte better for everyone and for future generations to come.
Thank you for your consideration,
George Stanton Adams II
UNC Charlotte Student BSME
Gadams12@carolina.rr.com
Go Niners![/COLOR]
