1/2NELSON wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 12:31 pm
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come"....Alexander Pope
Nice touch LUEngineer/HFO with the reminiscience of the GLORY-DAYS via Caruso - Peritore - Stuart! My alma-mater, Washington H.S. wrestled against St. Benidicts back in the early '60's, and my first glimpse of Mike. He beats our returning NJ State Champ Kenny Carswell, 4-0, in what I thought a very respectable match, and I pinned his brother Fred as we upset the BEES on a foggy night in Newark. I soon became a FAN of Lehigh, and Caruso in particular in the years following. Have spoken to Mike on occasion at matches, and he's SHARP,..remembering in detail their match with the Blue-Streaks that night.
Would love to see Lehigh compliment our 4-HORSEMEN by picking up a few stellar Free-Agents, but consider it a long-shot compared to what other schools might offer. But ya never know..
Hope is not a strategy. Action is. As my grandmother would say, "MORE DO, less talk!" in her thick Pennsylvania Deutsch accent. The other was "Shit or get off the pot!" Either we have a university, AD, coaches of action, or we do not. The competitive landscape for good or bad has changed.
Strategically, I think the route of Grad transfers is palatable to the administration and easier to implement. Lehigh has a call out to Lehigh alum to enroll in School of Business programs because they are not getting enough students to maintain the operating costs of individual programs. While undergrad is getting enough applicants, it is very easy to admit a graduate student to Lehigh, if there is a program that a wrestler is interested in. While I would stretch to a NCAA qualifier and a rank of 33 when we have nobody below 50 for a weightclass, I would have no problem if they say we will only go after a grad transfer who has degree in hand, is a R12 NCAA and is admitted through normal graduate admission process.
Not going after available talent in any industry is just plain stupid. In orthopedic surgery, we would poach the guys who were getting the all the operating room time to our practice. We aren't going to allow them to take market share. It is the same in wrestling, either you go after the "guys" or to your peril somebody else will.
So if it takes getting to this NIL endowment pool getting to $20 million to distribute 5% of the money each year, then so be it, we have to get there sooner than later to other institutions. It isn't like we don't have alumni with the ability to do it. You have to sell it why it is important to Lehigh.
It is important to Lehigh because it is likely the only sport to consistently deliver National Champions and All Americans.
Also, shout out to Lehigh Lacrosse. I watched 4Q comeback on 3 goals on man down. As I used to have a home on Lake Skaneateles, I am very familiar with the people and tribal lands of the Onondaga Tribe and their invention of what is lacrosse and the lacrosse stick. In fact, I used to buy original Alfie Jacques, the famed maker of the Tribe, when I would see them at flea markets in Central New York.
