Sports Success = School Success?

[megagreen]

I thought this was an interesting article.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Departments/...ic&GT1=9178

Colleges Turn Athletic Success into Application Boom

by David Hirning

Quick, what do all these schools have in common: Duke University, the University of Kentucky, UCLA, and the University of Kansas?

If you answered, "They all have famous college basketball programs," go to the head of the class. These are fine universities, to be sure, but to millions of people around the country they are simply known as the mighty Blue Devils, Wildcats, Bruins, and Jayhawks. All have won multiple national championships and are regulars in the NCAA postseason basketball tournament, an event so popular it is known simply as March Madness.

But does athletic success translate into more and better applicants to the school? Can a university turn a top ranking in Sports Illustrated into a lofty rating in U.S.News & World Report? Well, yes and no. As the following stories show, athletic glory can give a school a burst of good publicity, but in the long term it is academic excellence that matters to most students (and employers).

Champions in two major college sports

This sports-publicity phenomenon was highlighted when the University of Florida won both the NCAA football and men's basketball titles in the last year. This unprecedented feat generated a tidal wave of media coverage and accolades for the school.

"We don't have any empirical evidence showing that athletic success leads to an increase in applicants," says Zena Evans, admissions director at the school. "But any type of national exposure such as championships can have a positive impact on applicants. Sports tend to get more publicity than other types of events because they cut across a variety of different parts of society."

Evans notes that applications this year total more than 25,000, a 9 percent increase over the previous year and the largest number the school has received in "quite some time." The jump has forced her staff to put in some long hours, perhaps one of the few groups at the university that isn't completely happy with all the attention.

Cinderella story

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Florida is George Mason University, a school of about 29,000 students located in Fairfax, Virginia. A year ago, most people outside the area probably knew little about the school or hadn't even heard of it. As for sports, George Mason was about as far from an athletic powerhouse as you could get.

All that changed on March 26, 2006, when the school's basketball team beat the University of Connecticut to reach the Final Four. Suddenly, everyone was talking about the Patriots, a huge underdog and great story. The national media and millions of college basketball fans clamored for details. Everyone wanted to know, Exactly where and what is George Mason?

Although the team didn't win the national title--losing to Florida in the semifinals--it created a flood of good publicity for the school. In particular, head coach Jim Larranaga became a tireless ambassador for George Mason, talking up the university at every opportunity.

"I owe a big debt to Coach Larranaga," says George Mason admissions director Andrew Flagel with a laugh. "The Final Four brought our school an incredible amount of publicity, which gave us more name recognition with potential students. It also gave our students a lot of pride and excitement." Flagel says applications have gone up a whopping 24 percent in the year since the basketball team's magical run.

The Flutie Effect

Flagel and several other admissions directors around the country call such a publicity windfall from sports "the Flutie Effect." This refers to the surge in attention that Boston College received in 1984, when the school's football team pulled off a miraculous comeback in a nationally televised game against the University of Miami. Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie went on to win the prestigious Heisman Trophy, and suddenly the college was the talk of the country.

Although Boston College received a big boost in applications from all the hype, some of the same officials noted that the following year the number of applications went right back down again.

"The Flutie Effect is actually kind of a myth," says David L. Warren, the president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and a self-professed sports fan. "It's often just a one-year bump in applications, and it also doesn't increase the quality of the applicant pool. Ultimately, it doesn't change the profile of the institution."

Warren admits that some schools can sustain their increased popularity if their sports team stays at a high level and continues to generate publicity. He cited Gonzaga University, a small Jesuit school in Spokane, Washington, that saw its men's basketball team rocket to prominence in the late 1990s. "Gonzaga's president has done a great job of using the basketball success to raise his school's visibility," Warren says. He also notes that the corresponding big jump in revenue--both from the team itself and from increased alumni giving--allowed Gonzaga to build a swanky new on-campus arena.

The rise of the Blue Devils

Another notable exception to the Flutie Effect occurred two decades ago at Duke University. Duke, located in Durham, North Carolina, was a well-known regional school at the time but lacked national name recognition. Then its basketball team, under young coach Mike Krzyzewski, made it to the NCAA Final Four six times from 1986 to 1992, including two consecutive national titles. Suddenly the Duke name was all over the national media, and high school students everywhere took notice.

"We've looked at this, and there does seem to be a related pattern between the rise of the basketball program and increasing admissions in the late 1980s," says Duke director of admissions Christoph Guttentag. "It definitely increased our visibility. Now when we go to high schools in North Dakota or Nevada or wherever, the athletic reputation is part of what people know about us."

At least one high school guidance counselor has noticed the same thing, citing Duke in particular. "I think the whole March Madness thing has an effect on how students learn about different schools," says John Vandermolen, a counselor at a high school in Bellevue, Washington. "The schools in the tournament get so much publicity that it raises their profile with students."

But Vandermolen and many of the admissions directors also say that athletic success can only do so much. It may draw attention to the school, but it doesn't make it better academically, which is the main factor that students look at when choosing a college. In other words, it can get a school into the conversation, but it doesn't seal the deal.

For confirmation of this, we may want to check back with George Mason University in a few years. This season the basketball team fell one win short of returning to the NCAA tournament. The clock may have struck midnight for this Cinderella story, but it remains to be seen if the same can be said for the school's future applicant pools.

About the Author

David Hirning is a freelance writer specializing in educational issues. He worked for 15 years as a journalist and as an editor for Encarta Encyclopedia.