Brewster talking to FSU...
- Thread starter chew1095
- Start date
I don't think its this at all. We have roughly 110,000 living Alumni. We have less than 9k BC members.....Scott, Jimmy, John Rush, etc... have done a good job increasing the overall donor numbers but we truly are only scratching the surface of what we could do. Are you a member, is everyone you know a member? MSU will not ever be able to count on just a few folks to bankrole us into a powerhouse (which seemed to be the LT approach), but if we can get up to just 20% we would never have financial shortfalls again.
Last I saw, MSU had the highest percent of the 3 major schools going to UMC and MSU is very high on the UM law school list. Even higher on the MC list. So I'm calling horseshit on the "we don't have doctors and lawyers".... We don't have as many snobs who take over their dad's business as Ole Miss.
ETA: MSU also has a higher starting salary. I think people are just shitheads and don't want to donate $100+ to the athletic department.
I'm a member and a season ticket holder but I love college sports and especially MSU sports, but not everyone that goes to ANY college will care much for sports. I do agree though that 9K is rather pathetic and that likely translates more from our poor history of performance in athletics, primarily football, than anything else. A lot of folks don't necessarily want to get emotionally invested in something they think is going to be a constant letdown. Percentage wise though for the Bulldog Club it has grown tremendously from when Mullen first arrived. If Mullen can produce a consistent winner I think it will continue to balloon.
60% of enrolling OM students are from out of state. Some of this is likely leakage from Memphis, but there are apparently a lot from Florida, Texas and Georgia. I'm guessing those students tend to come from wealthier parents, who can afford the OOS money. Whether or not they are as loyal or not, who knows? I think the biggest issue with both state schools (other than money) is you have to like a small town, and relatively rural environment. Otherwise, it's a stepping stone. Starkville is not Tallahassee, but Brewster is from a town smaller than Starkville, so I thought it might be a fit. Maybe it's a matter of city preference and not just$$
all the virginia prep kids that aren't smart enough to get in uva or unc or duke or maryland or something end up at ole miss. there's tons of them.
Also a few from Alabama who presumably couldn't get into UAT or Auburn, or even some of the smaller state schools. And the party reputation goes a long way if the parents are into that sort of thing for their kids, and a lot of them are. However, I think there are more who go to MSU from this area than go to Ole Miss. And most likely that's because of the engineering school. That's been going on a long time. One of my roommates at MSU was from Huntsville, and he was pretty smart too. A couple who are good friends of ours sent their kid to Ole Miss and he took 6 years to get out ... too much fraternity and not enough studying. He eventually got a degree in marketing, one of the easier majors.
That really sounds weird that a parent would push a kid to go to a school because of a reputation for partying. I can hear it now, "Hey little Johnny you ought to check this school out, they drink like sailors and the women there are fast and loose. Sounds like the place for you."
Perhaps partying parents beget partying students. And some people never grow up. Lots of parents want their kids to be in the limelight, and sometimes it's them living the lives they wanted through their children. Weird to most parents, but not some, or at least that's the way I see it.
