Shaughnessy gives us a profile of Jeff Jagodzinski, the new head football coach of the BC foootball team. Some interesting stuff with the main themes being that 1) BC has risen to elite academic status and is no longer an academic "safety" school; 2) the expectations for the football team have also increased--fans want something more than than a car parts bowl game; 3) the new coach has a balanced view of the world and will not be sleeping in his office to sacrifice family life--which I think is pretty cool.
Shaughnessy will inevitably get a dig in on someone or in this case some place - this time, taking a swipe at hee-haw towns like Clemson, SC and Morgantown, WVa implying that these schools have lower academic standards and a backwards way of life as compared to BC. As someone who grew up within an hour of Clemson, I can tell you Shaughnessy's characterization is so provincially myopic, it's not even funnny--and it is one of the things that lie at the core of my distaste for Shaughnessy--his penchant for making off-handed, baseless and yet arrogant comments. Makes me bristle.
Actually, BC is still a safety school, but not for kids from Catholic Memorial -- 70 percent of the applicants accepted by BC choose to go elsewhere, and yeah they're a more selective bunch than the kids accepted in the past, but a 30 percent enrollment rate has 'safety' written all over it, albeit safety for people with some pretty prestigious first and second choices.
ReplyDeleteWho wouldn't prefer Chestnet Hill to Morgantown W.Va. or Clemson S.C.? Don't be so obtuse you can't see the point.
OB--
ReplyDeleteObtuse? Dont be so provincial. Plenty of people would prefer Clemson or Morgantown to Chestnut Hill.
That being said, the BC campus is beautiful and is a wonderful school. I've not been to WVa but I can tell you that Clemson is also a great school with a great campus. Have you ever been there Mr King of Objectivity?
Dave M
You have to understand that to many people in Massachusetts and Boston, you would simply fall off a cliff upon exiting the Turnpike in western Mass. Nothing else exists. It's all laughably myopic and provincial, but that's the way Shaughnessy and many in Massachusetts view things.
ReplyDelete'Chestnet' Hill is lovely, but milk would spill out of my nose with laughter at the mere thought that the 'learned' and 'esteemed' (let's not forget the necessary qualifier, 'elite') Dan Shaughnessy has ANY leverage to be handing down ratings and rankings like this. We wonder whether Dan made any mention of the SUPPORT that the team on 'Chestnet' Hill gets. Not at ALL good, if game attendance is to be used as a metric. And the 'Car Parts Bowl' is BC's lot in life until and unless they can pay their dues by filling the stadiums where these 'third-tier' Bowls are held. Then, and only then, will BC even be remotely considered for an upper-echelon Bowl (aside from winning the ACC outright).
"Who wouldn't prefer Chestnet Hill to Morgantown W.Va. or Clemson S.C.?"
ReplyDeleteUm, me.
OB, real people prefer Clemson SC and Morgantown WVA to Chestnut Hill - those are towns of real people, Chestnut Hill is a town of condescending snobs.
ReplyDeleteYou want yahoos? Last time I went to a BC game about five years ago, a brawl broke out in the parking lot. Yaaa-hoo! And whatever you do, make sure you're not black or a minority if you go to ANY Chestnut Hill bar following a BC football game. Not exactly a warm and fuzzy feeling.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that the BC campus is beautiful or special is a joke. It is jammed between Beacon and Comm Ave. Every state school surpasses BC.
ReplyDeleteBC isn't the only bad campus - I have to deliver stuff to Brandeis almost every week and that campus is just a bunch of buildings on bad roads up a big hill. Has Shank ever said anything about Brandeis?
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to get my son into Clemson. It aint chopped liver academically, besides being a beautiful campus. The big issue for people with historical perspective is that several of the campus icons -- Thurmond and Calhoun, fr instance -- are pretty famous racists.
ReplyDeleteThe BC campus went to hell in a handcart when they leveled a hillside and dumped acres of cement to create a plaza in front of the monstrosity that is called the Tip O'Neil library. It's as ugly as Boston City Hall plaza and was followed by a building spree that turned a suburban campus into urban blight.
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone can explain to my how Cleveland Circle or Brighton Center, which are right by the pieces of three communities of the Chestnut Hill neighborhood consist of "condescending snobs"
Cleveland Circle and Brighton are no more
ReplyDeletea part of BC than Allston is a part of Harvard.