Coming soon....

[sectionee]

http://sectionee.blogspot.com/

I'm adding a second writer as well.  The new writer is a VU student who will hopefully bring a different perspective (that of the student vs. that of the casual fan) on the team and the games as he watches from the rejuvenated student section.

[vuweathernerd]

is this student working to rejuvenate the student section?

[agibson]

For lack of a separate thread, I'll comment on EE's latest blog post here.

Youngstown has won a surprisingly large number of Horizon League titles!

Of course, they haven't done much in the flagship sport...

[sectionee]

YSU is right in the middle of the HL in terms of students enrolled with 14,682, Valpo is at the bottom with 3,874 (this according to horizonleague.org).  In high schools typically the bigger the school population the better the teams are.  I understand college and high school are completely different but I wonder how things might be different if Valpo had 10,000 students running around campus.  Butler has done an amazing job, go figure, in having success in the HL (see their 8 McCafferty trophies) despite being only 4,200 students strong (ahead of only Valpo).

[valpo04]

YSU is right in the middle of the HL in terms of students enrolled with 14,682, Valpo is at the bottom with 3,874 (this according to horizonleague.org).  In high schools typically the bigger the school population the better the teams are.  I understand college and high school are completely different but I wonder how things might be different if Valpo had 10,000 students running around campus.  Butler has done an amazing job, go figure, in having success in the HL (see their 8 McCafferty trophies) despite being only 4,200 students strong (ahead of only Valpo).

I am always amazed at schools like Wake Forest, decent in the ACC with only 4,500 undergrads and 7,000 total.

[jack]

I think once you get to college, all bets are off when comparing school sizes to athletic success. It certainly holds true for high school as you have far more athletes to chose from then the smaller schools. When scholarships are involved, talent can be drawn from anywhere. Butler is a prime example. Once a school has some success, it makes it a lot more attractive a place to be for the student athlete. another good example is Gonzaga. Until they broke into the NCAA tourney, not many people had even heard of them. Once they had success, they were able to draw talent from all over the country. I'm not sure of their enrollment size, but I'm guessing they're smaller then Butler. In that vain, I don't think that having 10,000 students running around here at Valpo would have much, if any, impact on the success of the sports programs to a point. It would have a huge impact on fan support, which would create more revenue - but, I feel that the biggest impact in luring quality talent is to have some success, nationally.

[sectionee]

I think once you get to college, all bets are off when comparing school sizes to athletic success. It certainly holds true for high school as you have far more athletes to chose from then the smaller schools. When scholarships are involved, talent can be drawn from anywhere. Butler is a prime example. Once a school has some success, it makes it a lot more attractive a place to be for the student athlete. another good example is Gonzaga. Until they broke into the NCAA tourney, not many people had even heard of them. Once they had success, they were able to draw talent from all over the country. I'm not sure of their enrollment size, but I'm guessing they're smaller then Butler. In that vain, I don't think that having 10,000 students running around here at Valpo would have much, if any, impact on the success of the sports programs to a point. It would have a huge impact on fan support, which would create more revenue - but, I feel that the biggest impact in luring quality talent is to have some success, nationally.

Completely agree!  The only impact more students would initially have is a louder ARC, potentially.  It is pretty amazing what schools like Butler, Wake Forest, Gonzaga and others have been able to achieve and sustain with such a small student body.

[vu72]

Here is some info on Gonzaga.  Very intersting in that they are similarly ranked academically, offer similar degrees and majors andlike Valpo, have a law school.
They have 7837 total enrollment, not quite double Valpo's.

http://www.gonzaga.edu/About/ataglance.asp

[BulldogBully]

ya i totally agree with you on this. Seeing on these small schools doing soo much