Jump to content

Claggs & MUTiger


Taj79

Recommended Posts

The thread below was getting too long ....

I for one have to say "so what" about Claggs statement on KFNS. In some cases, I'd tend to agree with the "total college experience" and it not being totally available at SLU. Many times I ownder what it would have been like with five or six home football games a year to go to as opposed to being bussed out to Fenton for home soccer games at that time. The only game we went to was the Bronze Boot at Busch and its hard to get excited with 50K empy seats staring down at you. I too might have pined long and hard for the total experience.

Currently, we have two kids away at college .... Gem City Fan has one at Notre Dame and one at Illinois. Going to parent's weekend is a thrill at both places. He constantly reminds me how we might have missed out by going to SLU. But to the person who raised the issue about more things to do in a city as opposed to middle of nowhere, you are right. Nothing comes without sacrificing something.

My kid is a high school junior to be. I keep looking at things around here for her. I have to admit I'm pushing UMd for bigger and better things in athletics for the old man to go to. Maybe adopt a second school. Just can't believe I'd root for ACC football ... the new or the old version. But what a trip that might be for basketball, eh?

Oh well to each his own. Mizzou football might be like Billiken basketball anyway .... not in that elite group that is destined to rule the gridirons year in and year out. No matter the coach ... what's he going to sell Mizzou on to some future recruit? The chance to play Nebraska, Texas, K State and Colorado each year? The chance to play AND get the crap kicked out of you each and every year? I would argue that based on Mizzou's past 30 or so football editions, they have just as tough a sell in football as we might in basketball.

As for my kid, she doesn't care. She seems afraid of the size of a larger university but her aunt is a Terp grad so its not all that bad. Time will only tell.

If Claggs said what he said, so what. Its probably true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I am not real sympathic to this lack of "total college experience" at SLU argument. In order to have a "total" experience college, is it necessary to stage 6 home mardi gras each fall? Don't know about the rest of you but I partied my brains out at a very laid back and staid jesuit school (i.e., creighton) and managed to do the same thing in law school at SLU. In my mind, the "total party experience" can be a detriment as I am sure my acedemics would have suffered even worse had there been greater distractions in my backyard. Can anyone say "road trip"? Any enterprising college or graduate student can do the total party thing should it move him or her.

SLU is never going to be Wisconsin or even Mizzou when it comes to partying ... but is that really what we are striving for? Is that the face that we are selling to recruits or potential students? If partying is one of your great selling points, then you are in the running for the next Ricky Clemons that comes down the pike but would miss on a kid like Polk. Dwayne Polk is an honor student who wants an education to go with his basketball career. There are always two sides to every coin. If we put a successful product on the floor, recruiting shall take care of itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few years ago my cousin (Iona College '94) and myself (Marquette '98) were at a Michigan State/Michigan football game and my cousin said to me "this is where we should have gone to school." True? When I worked in Madison Wisconsin-Madison grads used to say that the only good college experience includes college football? True as well? I will say this, as a student I have experienced few "college experiences" better than the upset of Louisville and rushing the floor with my fellow SLU students.

Perhaps, college football can be a very enjoyable experience, especially when the team is playing well. My little brother is at MSU and was really excited about football season last year - until the team crashed and burned and nobody gave a damn anymore. I do wonder what it would have been like to have gone to MSU or a football school sometimes but I have no regets over spending 4 great years at Marquette nor my last year at SLU (with 2 more to go). So you get to go to 6 football games a year and get bombed out of your mind before the game. You can do that at SLU or MU, just you do it while watching 8 games a day on TV like my buddies and I did! My sister went to Michigan, she went to 5 football games in her 4 years. She still feels she had a great "college experience." For some, going to school in a city where you don't have to go to the same old places for 4 (or more likely 5) years is a great college experience. College is what you make of it, no matter where you go.

I am always reminded of the comments by one of my interns in Madison who grew up wanting to go to Marquette but went to Wisconsin-Madison after his brother, a MU grad, talked him out of it. "Why go to MU where you work your a$$ off for 4 years when you could go to Madison and spend all your time drunk and high out of your mind?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am a huge college football fan, Auburn University Sporting New's Preseason #1 pick. I have attended numerous games there it was ranked as the #2 best college football atmostphere by the same publiciation in 1995 (or 96). Do I wish I had that experience of going to the games as a student? Yes. Would I trade my SLU experience? No.

Do big state school students get the home phone # of their professors? Do they have a like experiencing of walking over to the Jesuit house and eating dinner with their professors? 10 PM Sunday Night Mass everyone is there. 97% of all professors have a terminal degree in their field. Small class size. A community large enough to accomodate numerous groups/interests but small enough to know people wherever you go. We received a different experience.

The party issue: as an ex-social chairmen I take offense that MU has better parties than SLU. That is simply not true. I have been to numerous parties at MU and none were better than the parties that we(my fraternity)had ie Player's Ball (bring as many dates as you can), Derby Days, Luau. SLU campus has changed a lot. I graduated in 2000 and it continues to change most now live on or right off the campus it is no longer a commuter school. As for the football issue well, we compensated by having our pledge class play other fraternities pledge classes in Tower Grove Park and had a keg right there on the sideline (just as emotional as Auburn vs. Bama). Harold Ramis went to Wash. U. he wrote Animal House he must have had some frame of reference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

oh i dont know, i know of a college president that let's the lower echelon academic and behavioral students come over to his house for beer, barbq, babes, dirt bikes, four wheelers, etc. i know i never got to party with the slu president. heck, my dept chairman, dr baricevic never even invited me over to his house once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was having a problem w/ the financial aid office in my Jr. year. I happened to run into Fr. Lawrence Biondi outside DeBourg one day and I brought it up to him then next day I had an appointment with a higher up member of the SLU staff that cleared it right up. I don't think that happens at 99.9% of other schools in the country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

but he never took you over to humphreys or flipped you the keys to the golf cart? i mean at columbia it's just one big happy family.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Geez, how soon we forget. Good ol' Father O'Connell, who LIVED in a freakin' dormitory (Marguerite) in our day, and ate with students virtually every meal. I never had a similar privilege with Irving Shane when I went to the University of Wisconsin (although I bet he had a snowmobile). Of course, Dan did drop hockey and *wanted* to make basketball a D-2 sport, but no one could ever accuse him of being aloof.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Big state schools have a lot to offer socially that is unavailable to students at smaller private schools. Urban schools also have a lot to offer socially that is not available in college towns.

My brother and I were less than two years a part; he went to Indiana, and I went to SLU. We often visited each other. We both received quality educations and had a real good time along the way. He enjoyed tailgating for football games, on-campus frat parties, and 20,000 co-eds. I enjoyed knowing half of the undergrads on campus, hanging out at Humphreys and BBC, and wandering off-campus to attend a Cardinals or Rams game, to listen to blues bands in Soulard, or to do some last minute Christams shopping at the Galleria. I am sure I would have had a great time at Indiana, and I am sure my brother would have had a great time at SLU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent points - the issue is that both types of schools have + and -. People make their decisions based on what they think they need most overall. My son went to MU and loved his experiec. When he was deciding where to go to graduate school he ultimately ended up at SLU after weighing all his offers/options. He finally decided to go to SLU for a variety of reasons but I he would tell you at first at least that his preference would have been to pick a big university again. Now that he has been at SLU, he would tell you that the opportunities available to him that he found at SLU far outweigh all the other stuff. For him, he learned that regardless of where you end up going, you typically find the gems available and take advantage of them. So I agree that kids should make their decision on the whole picture not just if there is football or not and where is the best place to get shxx faced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went to SLU because it was the big city. I fell in love with the town one night on a two-week trip to see colleges. SLU wasn't even on my radarscope when we left eastern PA. that summer. We saw ... in order .... Ohio State, Dayton, Butler, Indiana Central, Saint Louis, Notre Dame, DePaul, Marquette, Michigan, Michigan State (okay maybe reverse those two), Detroit, Niagara, Canisuis (sp?), Gannon, Pittsburg, Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne. My second choice was Marquette.

The big schools scared me, frankly. Even though the first stop, Ohio State, had a gorgeous blonde coed riding her bike in front of our car, downt he middle of campus in cutoff shorts with her black lace udnerwear hanging out the bottom ... I chose to try and find her at Saint Louie Ewie. I would not revisit my decision. The experience I had there I would not trade for the world .... even though I kno bonwich and broy personnally now. Live and learn.

All I said is that whatever Claggs said, it wasn't that bad and not that far from the truth in some minds. Frankly, I do not believe I would have graduated from a big school or not. More speculation. I suspect not but who knows. Who said this is like the grass is always greener? Could be. But would I change what I did? Am I sorry? H-E-L-L no!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i have an older sister that went to the university of illinois. i will never forget the feelings of fear and awe everytime i visited her simply because of the vastness of the champaign campus. my gosh, tens of thousands of people. a football complex that would hold the entire slu campus, just huge huge huge. she would come home with stories of lecture halls with 200+ students in the class. if she didnt get there early, she couldnt even make out the face of the professor. she never got an opportunity to have a professor become a friend/mentor. the whole thing seemed so impersonal.

at slu, i dont remember a single class i had that had more than 30-40 people in it. i could walk from xavier hall to the busch center (for those of you unfamiliar with the campus, in 1979 that was about as close to one end of the campus to the other as you could get) in a matter of minutes. i still look back at my teachers at slu and realize that folks like avis meyer made a huge difference in my life and decisions because of the personal attention i got while at slu.

true i never got a chance to tailgate on a few selected fall saturday afternoons, but i worked full time while i went to school full time (the only way i could have ever went to school) so it wouldnt have mattered anyway. my point is that the real test of the college appearance shouldnt be based on taligating and frat parties. it should be about school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whoah, Roy "Frat" Parties are important too now. More important is being a well rounded person. A person who is not socially inept but also educated and a benefit to the community. That is what Saint Louis University is all about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's an excellent post, Roy. I attended MU as an undergraduate, and frankly at that point in my life focused too much on the other stuff rather than school. I think a good education is there to be had at MU, including getting to know your professors, but you certainly have to work harder at it, especially when you are a freshmen or sophomore and have the big lecture hall type classes. At least when I went, by the time you are a junior and senior and are taking classes in your major, you have much smaller classes like you described at SLU. Regrettably, MU and other big schools just can't offer that all four years.

I attended SLU's law school several years later. At that point, I was married and was a much more focused student. I actually did significantly better even though law school is more challenging. I got to know many of my professors well and still run into them occassionally out and about St. Louis or at various functions. I very much appreciate and value my education from SLU.

My sister went to SLU for her undergrad, and she has no regrets whatsoever. She had no desire to go to a big state school for many of the same reasons you did not. Also, she was an athlete (a swimmer) and is now in the SLU athletic hall of fame. So she is very pleased with her decision.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...