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the attributes of her school and the wisdom of your choice
to attend it. She gushes, in her enthusiasm for the college,
“Our president doesn’t care if our teams are successful. One
of the delightful experiences you can look forward to here at
Bunkerschnives University is, on Saturday afternoons in the
fall, going to the stadium and watching our losing football
team. It’s absolutely inspiring. And, if that isn’t exciting
enough, during the winters months you can watch our losing
basketball team as well. Now isn’t that another great reason
to attend Bunkerschnives?” Not so much. The president does
care, because she knows the student body wants winning ath-
letic programs. Most incoming students investigate the quality
of the school’s athletic programs; from what I’m told, athletics
is usually the first link clicked from the home landing page.
Little-known and almost-tiny Davidson University marched
through larger, popular Division I programs in the 2008 NCAA
basketball championships. That team and that coach were
inspiring, and I’m not the only one that noticed them. In the
two months following the school’s unlikely NCAA basketball
success, the number of inquiries for enrollment at Davidson
increased by more than 45 percent. Winning sports programs
attract students to colleges. So coaches, no matter how much
money they can or can’t offer qualified prospects, must still
field competitive and usually winning teams. They know the
consequences if they don’t!
Twins were cut from a cheerleading squad as seniors in high
school, even though they had been members since they were
freshmen. Rather than spend a lot of emotional energy on
feeling sorry for themselves, they decided that they wanted to
do something at school to replace the busy lives they led as
cheerleaders. The school had a nascent swimming program so