Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jul 5, 2012 13:06:55 GMT -5
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jul 5, 2012 14:17:01 GMT -5
The Times obit fails to discuss Rev. Brooks' intransigence on athletics, one which effectively relegated HC out of the top tier of Catholic institutions. On 1979, the four founding members of the Big East (Providence, Georgetown, Syracuse, St. John's) began to look fo other schools. UConn, then a member of the Yankee Conference, was quick to get on board. (Dave Gavitt called UConn a sleeping giant, and like many things, he was right on target). Villanova was interested but could not leave the Eastern 8 for two more years. There was discussion on whether to pursue Holy Cross or BC. In 1979, at least, HC had the more visible program and with more traction than BC, which had fought off a decision whether to close the university just eight years earlier. BC was still playing in the McDonough-like Roberts Center while HC had opened a new 4,000 seat gym and the Centrum, a 12,000 seat arena, was under construction in downtown Worcester. HC was invited and Rev. Brooks vetoed the offer. In his view HC was an independent and needed no such league to be successful; he would later scold Georgetown and other schools for being in the "entertainment business" while HC pursued a more noble academic purpose. The Big East then went to invite Boston College and we all know what happened from then. As the Big East was ascendant in the mid-1980's, the life of an independent was doomed. HC ended up in the MAAC and its alumni were none too pleased at being left on the side of the road and expressed their concerns. Brooks then proceeded to help found the Patriot League, essentially defunding HC's scholarship football program in the process and the last vestige of big-time sports on that campus. While the school notes that it has avoided scandal and "big time" excess, one can only project that HC would have become a Northeastern version of Wake Forest, with frequent NCAA basketball tournament appearances, TV revenue, and lots of fans filling Fitton Field for football, with a bowl game or two every 5-10 years. (At the time, Wake had only 3,600 students.) Over the ensuing years, HC has fallen behind BC in prestige and is more of a regional school because it lacks the visibility that intercollegiate athletics brings to schools in the Northeast. HC gets about 6,000 applicants per year versus 18,000 at Georgetown and over 30,000 to BC. Today's high school kids in Los Angeles, Chicago, or even New York probably hear a lot more about Villanova than Holy Cross. Brooks also decided not to initiate graduate programs, leaving HC as one of the few Catholic schools that offers no postgraduate studies of any kind. "The harsher reality is Holy Cross is no longer the only ticket in town," wrote a columnist at Holy Cross' alumni magazine. "Sports is no longer a magnet. The die-hard Worcester grey-hairs in attendance are thinning out. Worcester County crowds come to Fitton Field not to see the Crusaders, but the Tornadoes, the minor league baseball team. While the College wisely keeps its athletic program under firm control and enhances its academic acclaim, the days when Holy Cross was “Worcester’s Team” seem a memory from a past." Rev. Brooks' decision was neither right nor wrong in the literal sense, but it was certainly transformative. www.holycross.edu/departments/publicaffairs/hcm/spring08/athletics/athletics2.html |
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jul 5, 2012 15:58:42 GMT -5
I knew DFW would have, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.  I grew up on Crusader sports as my father was an alumnus of Holy Cross. |
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Jul 6, 2012 9:42:56 GMT -5
In a way it's refreshing to see a college president put intercollegiate athletics in its proper place relative to the classroom.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jul 6, 2012 10:12:05 GMT -5
In a way it's refreshing to see a college president put intercollegiate athletics in its proper place relative to the classroom. That assumes there's only two ways to approach college athletics. I think Georgetown has done pretty well academically while being a member of the Big East and having nationally known and respected basketball program. |
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I grew up on Crusader sports as my father was an alumnus of Holy Cross.
