A Sea Of Red

Since I asked it earlier in another thread I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone here thought JF's vision actually was for LU athletics. The only response I heard was to compete at the top in all sports. Any others? And what do the words "top" mean? This is not some mamby pampy rip fest invitation. It is my opinion, that having this clarified would go a LONG ways to establishing our athletic department. One of those whold VISION statement things. (Not to be confused with the 80's classic Vision Quest with its' totally AWESOME sound track)

I could be wrong because I haven't been around as long as others, but here's what I think:

Have teams that consistently compete at the highest level possible. To me, that means at the top of the mid-major ranks for Men's Basketball, where women's basketball has been for the past decade. It means getting baseball up to the level Coastal is. It means getting football up to the level of App, where we are successful at our level, but if we were to move up we'd be successful as well.

Have facilities that rival anyone's in the country. That's pretty self-explanatory. The FOC is already there. The Vines can get to that. Others have more work to do, but I can see it happening in the near future.

Become a place that constantly draws the top Christian athletes. We get the occasional Katie Feenstra or Josh McDougal, but I think Jerry wanted us to be at the point where we were one of the first places that the big-time Christian athletes look at. We've got a while to go here, but it's improving.

I agree with all that Jon said, and I know most people on here have heard about Jerry saying he wanted us to go to South Bend and beat Notre Dame. I don't think he was joking.

Nice work SJ. To add a couple of extra points: We all know the infamous ND statement. But is that it? Was that his only vision? For some people it seems that way, so it needs to be looked at. Are there no other people who want to take up the "challenge"?

SJ has it nailed correctly.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that based on my experience around Dr. J that achieving I-AA championships was his ultimate dream. He constantly talked of his I-A aspirations in Chapel back in the '80s right up through his proclamation just a year before his passing. His vision was clearly to take the next step. Back in the '80s when we stepped up from DII to DI everyone thought we were nuts including the vast majority of the student body. It didn't take long for everyone to see that we were ready to step beyond traditional expectations.

Jerry never thought small and I-A membership was clearly his BHAG for football.

Otherwise I believe SJ summed everything things up very nicely.

As someone who has been around almost from the beginning, I would agree that SJ summerized it pretty well (for a newbie) There has probably been too much made of the "we want to play and beat Notre Dame" quote, although it was certainly NOT something said one time in delusional moment of grandeur. He had cut back in the last few years, but he used to say it pretty much any time he was discussing LU athletics and his goals for them. There is no doubt he originally planned/dreamed to play FBS football, but as big a visionary as he was, Jerry most definately had a pragmatic side, and was not entirely adverse to "adjusting" his goals. IMHO he will be doing up there if we reach the level of excellence they now have at App. State; which is to say that if we stay in FCS, it will be by choice, and not because we weren't good enough for FBS.

While people may try to quantify vision, I don't think you can. Especially over the past few years I saw the BHAG more than anything as for LU to achieve a level of excellence in every area which would glorify our Lord Jesus Christ. He wanted us to be an example to others of how to do it right, and he wanted to grow as large as we needed to be to meet the demand for this type of education, with a corresponding growth in athletics and other extra-academic areas to enhance the students experience.

An article was posted on here from cbs, it has since been taken down from the web, but it's about half way down:

http://www.flamefans.com/forums/viewtop ... ry+falwell

There's no doubt Jerry wanted us to be IA

There's no denying that he wanted us to be I-A. What I'm saying is I think he'd much rather us make the transition smoothly as opposed to getting beat 45-12 to Middle Tennessee St one week and then 55-10 by Akron the next. Barber has said he wants to get us to where we could make the transition and compete immediately.

And I agree with that SJ.

It's nice to see that there are still many who don't have to go "back to the basics". Even better is that some aren't oldsters. Good job SJ and Sly.

like I have said before.....Jerry wanted to be like Notre Dame and BYU in sports b/c those programs make big money from sports...

Competing is nice, but it's all about making the money