I’ll let the mods move this to whatever forum they decide. Part of it could go into this one, the football forum, as well as the University news (if CHP were to read it).
[QUOTE][B][SIZE=2]OUR VIEW —
Wildcats’ Stephen Curry for president?[/SIZE]
The High Point Enterprise
April 1, 2008[/B]
Many a U.S. presidential candidate has promoted himself or herself as “a uniter, not a divider.” As Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama battle it out in North Carolina for the Democratic presidential nomination with the state’s May 6 primary nearing, there’s one young man in the Tarheel State who surely qualifies as a uniter.
As the Davidson College Wildcats advanced during the NCAA college basketball tournament, Stephen Curry became a household name across North Carolina, and fans who wear Carolina blue, Duke blue, N.C. State red, Wake Forest black and gold or the colors of a number of other institutions united in support of Curry and Davidson. Basketball fans who hold intensely competitive loyalties to their favorite institutions stood in solidarity behind Curry (and in amazement, too) as he carried the Wildcats into the tournament’s “Elite 8” for the first time in nearly 40 years.
Despite a two-point loss Sunday to Kansas, one the nation’s traditional basketball powers, Curry and company made a name for themselves and focused immense amounts of attention on the small, private college located just north of Charlotte. Davidson’s run through the tournament brought tons of positive publicity to the college of about 1,700 students that opened in 1837.
[B][COLOR=Green]It was free publicity that would have cost tens of millions of dollars. The CBS Morning Show did live broadcasts from the campus last Thursday morning. News and sports articles in major newspapers across the country brought even more exposure. Campus officials reported receiving well-wishes from across the nation and even around the world. We expect applications to Davidson, an academically rigorous institution, will rise as a result of the team’s success, and you can bet the college’s Web site has been a hot one during the past week.
Officials at George Mason University reported similar experiences after the Virginia institution made the basketball tournament’s Final Four two years ago with an improbable run much like Davidson’s. Even officials of larger colleges and universities that have tournament successes on a regular basis say that success in athletics produces benefits for their institutions overall. Chancellor James Moeser of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill often has called its basketball program and other athletics programs “front porches” of the university.
Some among us like to criticize big-time college athletics in general as distractions from the educational mission of institutions of higher learning. And that criticism gets especially loud whenever an institution, coach or player is caught breaking rules. But those that stress a reasonable balance between athletics (with no cheating) and high-quality education usually find they can reap benefits for the academic programs through sports.[/COLOR][/B]
Just ask the folks at Davidson.[/QUOTE]