LUEngineer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 10:29 pm
I am not talking about the Lehigh students as they have become true nerds & don’t support anything but themselves.
Not sure if nerds describes them. Lehigh is not a school that kids go to if they are looking for that big school sports atmosphere. Those kids will head to Michigan, PSU, and Wisco or a myriad of ACC choices now - and they'll do it more cheaply. These kids are hyper plugged in with smartphones in their hands and always looking for the next social activity. If we ran a cocktail bar (they don't even drink beer) up on the mezzanine you might get some to show up, but student interest in LU sports has, to a large degree, shrunken down into athletes supporting other athletes in person.
Lehigh will just never be a sports factory. Its been an increasingly large hurdle to jump over for the last 40 years, but especially so in the last 20. In my mind Villanova is a good example of a place that has built name recognition by funding a single sport - an especially good basketball team. Yes, FUNDING it. The school has reaped huge benefits from it in terms of brand building and no doubt they have closed the reputational gap on Lehigh (and perhaps surpassed it) in the last 10-20yrs.
The times, they are a changin'