Brad Edwards and Lamar Butler on Sportstalk - Newschannel 8

[GSII]

How about a big golf clap for Pablo? He's on point all the time.

 

[GMUgemini]

http://eagle.gmu.edu/newsroom/591/.

A lot of that is organic growth that got attributed to the final four.

Secondly, donations to the university have continued to increase every year even after the shine on the Final Four wore off and Larranaga left.

So how much of the growth and success of GMU academics do you attribute to men's basketball?

Athletics plays well with a certain demographic of student, it helped raise the profile of the school in places where we were not already known, because our reputation had not already been established.

But I can tell you at Miami, no one really believes that it was Jimmy Johnson who made the reputation of the Frost School of Music or the University of Miami Medical center. I think anyone who tells you a crappy basketball team will diminish your degree is selling you something.

 

[Walter]

If you want to point to the start of Mason's rise then it would be 1986 when it was announced that James Buchanan had won the Nobel Prize in economics.

What did Larranaga say in countless interviews? He pointed to the two Nobel Prizes. He was able to say, Mason is more than a basketball team that made it to the Final Four, look what we have done academically.

There should be three statues on campus: Buchanan, Vernon Smith and Larranaga. Those are the guys that put Mason on the map.

 

[Five Two]

That's great Five Two, but two things:

1) This started about 40 to 50 years ago, not 20 and two

2) Athletic success or failure really has nothing to do with the actual institution's quality. So we can lament all day long that our coach sucks and he's going to run our basketball team into the ground, but that has little to no effect on the quality of the institution that George Mason University is. Athletics feeds itself.

Correct, it did start 40-50 years ago. I did a poor job of correlating TOC's start at Mason to my point; he came to Fairfax around 20 years ago.

 

[gmujim92]

Obviously Mason is far more than just a basketball program.

But while this may seem ridiculous, the university gained more attention from winning 4 basketball games in 2006 than it did for hiring either of our Nobel Prize winners.

Treating the Final Four like a quaint little fluke was an enormous blunder, based on an essential misunderstanding of the peripheral benefits that come with big-time athletic success.

Too bad that Cabrera and Edwards weren't running the show back in 06. Safe to say those guys would've been smart and aggressive enough to fully capitalize on that incredible opportunity.

 

[Pablo]

While we can debate whether Mason should have capitalized significantly more from the Final Four, there is no doubt IMO that substantial benefits have accrued from this athletic success and, that, it has impacted the school's core mission.

 

[GreenLantern]

I am just glad for the fact that Edwards and Cabrera have placed athletics in the position it should be. I am getting a good vibe from this.

 

[KAOriginal]

There should be three statues on campus: Buchanan, Vernon Smith and Larranaga. Those are the guys that put Mason on the map.

And a George Evans jersey in the rafters......with some others....

 

[KAOriginal]

What did Larranaga say in countless interviews? He pointed to the two Nobel Prizes. He was able to say, Mason is more than a basketball team that made it to the Final Four, look what we have done academically.

Let's not forget Larranaga worked for the same man as TOC. They knew the company line they had to get behind to make the paycheck signer happy, who happened to be an "old school academic." Larrananga is as good a salesman as anybody. He knew what the big guy wanted to hear.

While athletics does not have to be the be all end all.....it is a marketing and outreach opportunity that is far easier to use to reach the masses than an academic paper on water filtration research or once in awhile floating we hired a Noble Prize recipient 30 years ago.

 

[GMUgemini]

Let's not forget Larranaga worked for the same man as TOC. They knew the company line they had to get behind to make the paycheck signer happy, who happened to be an "old school academic." Larrananga is as good a salesman as anybody. He knew what the big guy wanted to hear.

While athletics does not have to be the be all end all.....it is a marketing and outreach opportunity that is far easier to use to reach the masses than an academic paper on water filtration research or once in awhile floating we hired a Noble Prize recipient 30 years ago.

Depends on who you are marketing to. If you are trying to recruit the next Nobel prize winner in water filtration, the academic research will play better than an A10
Championship.

Successful basketball does get our name out there in places we wouldn't normally be visible and that's a good thing.

 

[Walter]

we hired a Noble Prize recipient 30 years ago.

Why are you phrasing it like that? Both Buchanan and Smith were awarded the Nobel Prize while on staff at Mason.

 

[psyclone]

Why are you phrasing it like that? Both Buchanan and Smith were awarded the Nobel Prize while on staff at Mason.

Actually according to a story that I heard, Buchanan was interested in getting closer to DC (policy implications of his work) and let it be known to George Johnson that he was on the short list for the Nobel Prize. It's certainly not uncommon for rumors to spread about who the Nobel committee would be considering in a given year. Johnson took the plunge and hired Buchanan and his entire lab and in a very few years Buchanan won the Nobel. So while he was hired before he won the Nobel, most of his career accomplishments happened prior to his arrival to Mason.

 

[Walter]

Not sure that is relevant. He was awarded the prize while at Mason. He moved the Center for the Study of Public Choice and all its faculty to Mason. So when he was awarded the prize, the place to study Public Choice was Mason. Who cares if he (and Smith) had been at other universities? The fact that he (and Smith) were on the faculty at the time they were announced sent the message that serious academics are on staff at Mason.

BTW, three key factors influenced Buchanan and Tullock to move to Mason: (1) Tech pissed him off, (2) he was told he would rule the roost, and (3) many like-minded free market economists already were on the faculty at Mason.

Does Larranaga having coached at Bowling Green reduce the exposure in any way that Mason received by making it to the Final Four?

 

[A.-Siegfried]

With Maryland putting Len Bias into their Hall of Fame, should that help open up the roadblock to Carlos Yates here at Mason? Saw a tweet or two on this.....

 

[gmutom]

With Maryland putting Len Bias into their Hall of Fame, should that help open up the roadblock to Carlos Yates here at Mason? Saw a tweet or two on this.....

Without question. I have a bias (no pun intended) because I knew Carlos, but he absolutely belongs in the Mason HOF. While it was regrettable that he got caught up in the things he did after graduating, he should be judged by what he did when he was at the university.

 

[psyclone]

Not sure that is relevant. He was awarded the prize while at Mason. He moved the Center for the Study of Public Choice and all its faculty to Mason. So when he was awarded the prize, the place to study Public Choice was Mason. Who cares if he (and Smith) had been at other universities? The fact that he (and Smith) were on the faculty at the time they were announced sent the message that serious academics are on staff at Mason.

BTW, three key factors influenced Buchanan and Tullock to move to Mason: (1) Tech pissed him off, (2) he was told he would rule the roost, and (3) many like-minded free market economists already were on the faculty at Mason.

Does Larranaga having coached at Bowling Green reduce the exposure in any way that Mason received by making it to the Final Four?

I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't worth doing or somehow didn't "count" because most of Buchanan's work was done elsewhere. Indeed, I agree--it did send a message that serious academics are on the Mason faculty. It was a real coup for Johnson and generated lots of good publicity among the larger academic community. A few weeks after the award was announced, the NY Times published a lengthy story on Mason (front page, if I'm not mistaken) to the effect of "who are these upstarts?" A somewhat smaller scale forerunner of the type of stories that were being done during our final four run.

Clearly it was a big breakthrough in the history of Mason. And Buchanan and company did cut themselves a good deal as I believe his Center was able to keep a larger % of grant money brought in that normally would go to central administration to cover "overhead" expenses.

My earlier post merely meant to make the point that in some ways we did "buy" a Nobel prize or at least gambled that Buchanan would win won once he got to Mason. It was a gamble that paid off big time.

By the way the Larranaga analogy doesn't work; he gained fame for Mason and himself based on what he accomplished AT Mason, not for his years at BG. Buchanan's research reputation was already established by the time he arrived
here.

 

[GSII]

Clearly Johnson did well with that Buchanan hire. Now the Westhead hire, well that was a disaster. But he used the same logic which some have not learned from.

 

[polepino]

Good to hear Edwards. One thing I did notice is he was talking about Mason being a 5,000 student campus that grew to a 30,000 student campus 'because' of the Final Four run. I thought that was a pretty big issue amongst GMU fans at the time because we knew that GMU was already that big before the run not because of it. Anyone else think anything of it? I know it was a minor thing in the interview but it was confusing to hear.

 

[GSII]

If he wants to say that I have no problem with it. Anything to get more credibility in the AD. Ya know, kinda like at Kentucky when academics needs a new building, they call the basketball lords for money.

 

[Dawgs99]

Edwards tweeting yesterday about improving the internet broadcasts on gomason.com. This guy seems to get "it". Pretty embarrassing state of affairs with the mason athletics stream. Now sell the naming rights to the Pat Dome and build an academic support/basketball practice facility. Also on a personal not please replace the seats in the pat center, hard plastic sucks.