flameshaw wrote:I just don't buy the fact that our views on certain things are keeping us from conference affiliation.
How thick is your bubble? Spend some time in secular academia and you'll buy it quickly.
Think of all the reasons why we were told that we wouldn't get an invite -
1. Lack of a major media market.
2. Outside the SBC footprint.
3. Lack of on field success/product.
4. No "room" as in no spots were available.
5. Reputation (whether you believe it or not, it is out there, quite heavily, their perception is their reality)
Now understand the Sun Belt invited Idaho and JMU before us.
1. Our market is bigger than both Idaho and JMU
2. Footprint goes without saying
3. Idaho is terrible, only JMU beats us here
4. Certainly there is a need for new SBC members
5.
Again..Idaho...Not sure what else you need to know... Sure they're football only, but it seems painfully obvious what is going on when you consider we're 229 miles from Boone, the next closest SBC member, and Idaho is more than 2,000 miles away from their next closest, is terrible, plays in a dome that seats 16,000 (averaged 12,581 last year) and spends 17 million yearly on athletics to our 30+.
Now having said that I still think we'll get an invite as JMU doesn't seem interested and no one else is ready, but to say that our past and present political forays do not have an impact is burying your head deeeeeeep in the sand.
I applaud Chancellor Falwell for coming out and saying this publicly -
Falwell, 50, acknowledged that Liberty’s image continues to be influenced by the legacy of his late father’s political activism. The elder Falwell, who died in May 2007, was a polarizing figure — beloved on the right, despised on the left.
But his son said Liberty has turned a page.
“We’re not the Moral Majority anymore,” Falwell said, referring to the religious conservative movement his father founded. “We’re not a church. Our mission is to educate.”
I find it entirely possible to still "Train Champions For Christ" without the political backlash.