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LZip...thanks for posting that link. It appears that there is no "THE" factor as to why someone chooses one school over another, which is what I was questioning about your post. Plenty of categories rank pretty high in importance with a majority of college freshman. I found it surprising that the College Ranking is #12 in percentage of people who found it important. This is good to know. It looks like my two criteria for choosing Akron are #4 and #10 on the list.

LZip....I'd like to see some data that shows that "college experience" is NOT "the" determining factor, as you say. Really. I'd like to see where student's minds are today. I'm sure plenty of students make their decision based on that. I went to school in the early 80s. Akron had a top-notch program in my field of study, but others were good as well. But I can tell you that my decision was completely based on Akron's proximity to my hometown, and the cost. I'm certainly not alone. In fact, I can tell you that several other people from my hometown were going to Akron for the same reason.

I have an idea. Make college athletics return to what it should be, which is an athletic competition between two schools. Nothing more. The cost for scholarships, uniforms, stadiums maintenance and travel was pretty much the total budget. Yale and Harvard certainly battled for what they thought would make their schools superior to each other, and gain the better crop of students. But it made sense. They WERE the superior schools, just trying to earn an extra edge. If people are going to SEC schools because they have the superior football teams today, it's for the wrong reasons.

Ah yes, the dreaded Title IX. As great as my wife and I get along, we are still on opposite sides of the Universe on this topic.

Here's the deal on the attendance for Pitt. I'll make this simple. Our 2010 home opener game against Syracuse drew 15k attendance. And I think it's a comparable opponent, EXCEPT that Pitt fans are going to be far more able to travel for this one. It's easily even a day trip. Pitt drew 40k last year at Heinz Field against us. So, I think that they will have 5k willing to make the trip to see the game again, which should get us to 20k. The 6pm game time, perfect weather, and Akron's win against Pitt last year could possibly get us to 22k. Those who have delusions of a massive Akron outpouring to produce a sellout, because of a good quality opponent, are nuts. See 2010 Syracuse game referenced above.

I got a few other interesting things out of this article. 1) The opinion poll about UA's BRANDING was to OHIOANS in general. The people that count right now are UA Alums (donors) and current/prospective students. 2) Out of those 4% who listed Akron as their favorite team, those folks overwhelmingly were against the branding change. 3) Ohio's largest and "flagship" University only has the support of half of the state? That's a testament to the saturation of large Universities in the state. I'd be very curious to see the results of a poll like this in the other two comparable states with similar situations, Florida and Texas.

I'm not sure Akron will land some kind of "business turn-around expert". But hopefully we'll get someone young and talented, who is eager to work hard and produce. We've had several of those types in the past, and that's what I expect. When I heard from Dan before he left to go back to Boston, I felt that this would be the next personnel news we got from out Athletic dept. I just didn't expect it so soon.

Wow. I just checked my e-mail, and have several message from fellow Zips supporters about this. I need to get caught up. But frankly, I am not surprised at all. And I will leave it at that for now. I'm in total agreement with Captain on his points above.

Hey Dave, As our resident "stat man", you should realize that making assumptions by pulling out very small snippets of time can backfire. In this case, it happened in the very next game. Even great shooters have slumps, and fans will try to find ways to attach a cause to them. I get it. But Curry's unbelievable scoring barrage in the 2nd half last night is even being referred to this morning as a "did-he-really-do-that?" NBA Finals moment.

Have you been drinking?

I'm very sorry LZip. Yes, saying anything negative about the ability of an athlete, especially members of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is indeed "completely uncalled for" on a forum in which sports fans voice their opinions about athletics. I promise to be much more thoughtful of athlete's feelings next time, before discrediting them in any way. And I will be sure to remind every sport fan and sport writer in America to do the same.

Hmmm. Funny how this happens right after they correct the injustice of the MAC Basketball Tournament brackets

Just an FYI for you LZip.....Rose was about 5 points over his per game season average during the Cavs series, including two 30+ point games. I'll also go out on a limb and say that 19 points will be Curry's worst performance, by far, in this series.

Dr. Z.... I agree about Dellvidova. He looks like that guy at the end of every basketball bench. When the coach waives him in, he gets all excited and runs out there and starts running at offensive players waving his arms all over the place. Somehow, it worked last night. Cleveland got the perfect recipe last night. Only one key Golden State player was scoring (although Curry still had 19). I don't know if they have a chance of holding them to 87 points in regulation any more times in this series, but that's what it will take. But for one night, that was an exciting game to watch, and it surely reignited hope for Cavs fans.

I thought this wouldn't be worth talking about, until last night. All I've heard all season from the lingering LeBron haters is that they need to let Irving do more, or let Love do more. Bull. We learned something last night. The Cavs ARE LeBron. Not LeBron and Irving. Not the "Big 3". There is no "Big 3". This isn't LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. It's LeBron and a bunch of other guys who have never even played in the playoffs until this year. This team was the worst in the NBA over 4 years with Irving running the show, even when surrounded by a bunch of other high draft picks. Not just a bad team, but the WORST in the league. Even adding Love might have barely made them a playoff team. To the contrary, LeBron took the Cavs to a FINALS with himself and a bunch of role players in 2007. Note to David Blatt: Let LeBron play POINT GUARD, make the offense always run through him, and you still have a chance in the series. LeBron as the PG might even be your best option moving forward, even with a full roster next season. Another Note to David Blatt: Get J.R. Smith to the bench as quickly as possible when the game is on the line. I don't think I have ever seen one guy make more stupid, critical errors in such a brief stretch as I saw last night.

I think Zip-O-Matic's post about the endowments, and how they would decrease per student if there was a merger, is a really fantastic point. I know schools need money, and need to increase enrollment to bring in more tuition money. But, where does that put us if we can't utilize our resources to produce a better level of education for our students? So, it seems like we're seeing a Quality vs. Quantity issue here. How do we elevate the University of Akron as a University? More students, or more notoriety for the quality of education and the students that it produces? I think it's definitely the latter. I would have originally thought that having a mega-sized student population, creating more alums, and more potential future donors would eventually provide more resources. But that might not be the case.

Of course, I've always thought about the 51 years as such a long time without a title when you have 3 major sports teams, but someone really put it in perspective yesterday when they said that the Bay Area of Calif. has had 16 TITLES in that same period of time. I love that the U of A is using this situation, and used a picture of LeBron with Zippy to make an Akron connection. Now there's a #TeamOhio connection that makes sense for us.

That made me laugh, Dave. Good stuff.

Dave, Dave, Dave. Thanks for ruining a little fun on an Akron forum. I'm well aware of the numbers. Just poking fun at a situation where a Governor is asking for reduced spending when his alma mater is the biggest spender. I happen to be a huge Kasich supporter. Maybe the better solution here is to apply Barack's "spread the wealth around a little bit" philosophy. What a perfect way to demonstrate that the #TeamOhio concept is in full force.

I remember the article. And I'll post the same comment I had back then. If Kasich is warning state universities in Ohio to cut costs, I wonder if he is telling his alma mater in Cowlumbus to stop spending over 100k per athlete, per year, on athletics.

Dave, Again, I wish I had a Nickel for every failed marketing strategy I've witnessed in my career. It seems as if you are at least somewhat comforted because certain considerations were taken. And that's fine. But, everyone who produces these plans believes at the time that they were "well-planned to produce positive consequences". For example, I'm sure Purdue feels that designating ONLY the TECH SCHOOL was the right move. Different data maybe? Who is right? Nobody knows. I'm just calling it like I see it at this point. And like I've pointed out, the model for "re-labeling" yourself with this kind of across-the-board designation, by any diverse school of any kind of size, is nonexistent.

Very true, Dave. And back then, we were the little "Washington State Tri-Cities" of the college world. So, nobody probably cared much about the risk/consequences.

So, for those keeping score, I think this is where we stand. Virginia Tech - Long standing Polytechnic University (Impossible to compare our situation to theirs) Purdue - Will put a Polytechnic designation on their TECH SCHOOL ONLY (this surely won't help the tide of opinion in Akron) However, there's still a Silver Lining. Wisconsin-Stout and Washington State Tri-Cities are identified as our companions so far in this cause.....two completely unknown branch schools with a COMBINED enrollment of less than 10K between the two of them, and likewise nowhere close to the diversity of academic disciplines among their enrollees compared to Akron. I guess we're going to be the Major Pioneer of something here, good or bad.

I love coach Dambrot, and I think he may have started this "travel to Penn State" excuse, but I think I've heard enough now. Nobody was complaining that we were fatigue when we won 3 out of 4 games in 5 days this past March, while playing something like our 40th game of the season. So, I can't buy this when it's November.

I got ya. I haven't made final judgment either. Just my professional and personal opinion at this point. But, I really have wanted to point out that this shouldn't be some great revelation that a major University is taking a stab at a marketing/repositioning/differentiation, or whatever anyone wants to call it. I'd be disappointed if they weren't always examining potential ways to better themselves. I don't think you are seeing emotional reactions though. I think that people who have received degrees over the preceding decades, and those who are actually paying for degrees right now, have some very legitimate concerns over the value of what they have paid/paying for. EDIT: More information in the Beacon today. Interesting part concerns my point above. Finally, a school of some stature, The Univ. of Purdue, is giving this "Polytechnic" designation to their Tech School ONLY. I think this validates the concerns of those outside of the STEM academic areas. I also found it interesting that a UA vice president acknowledged that this roll out of the definition of "polytechnic" is going to be "a marathon".