[Vision2020] Warning: Sports related post

[Ken]

On Thursday 19 August 2010 14:11:14 Art Deco wrote:
> Fight them?

Well, at least make necessary efforts not to lose ground to them.

> Sounds like something a schoolyard bully would say.

Perhaps superficially, but survival-oriented adrenaline rushes usually aren't 
the most articulate emotional events, and for appropriate reasons.

> How about outsmarting them?  Out-planning them?  Out-lobbying them? 
> Outperforming them in all academic areas?

Collegiate sports and academics share a common need for higher success levels 
in their respective spheres of influence. Success recruiting better players, 
and success recruiting better qualified and motivated students, directly 
effect better outcomes for overall institutional success. 

> Oh, I guess we'd have hire some much smarter people at the UI especially at
> the upper echelon to do those things.  Given the UI's recent fumbles (not
> in football, where they have shone) the probability of doing that seems
> very close to zero.

I would reserve judgment on what the probability level may be for a dozen 
weeks, or so, at least. The near-term and intermediate-term success of the 
institution depends ever more on its ability to partner with capable and 
connected people and organizations. Possibilities in that realm depend on the 
environment within which they would operate, and until that environment is 
more conducive to positive and constructive efforts, patience is suggested.

> Sorry, you're right Dan.  The only chance of the UI prevailing over BSU
> generally right now is to fight them, or possibly given the record of UI
> public relations, out-lying or out-obfuscating them.

Noxious neighbors may prompt emotional responses from a weaker injured state, 
but care must be taken that the more appropriate response, which considers 
the larger community beyond the neighborhood, does not sub-optimize the 
benefits possible from the best possible course of action.


Ken