Mullahs, stay with me on this...it has to do with Ohio v. Ohio State football this week....

Back to my question, who is the last big act that UPC has lured to campus in recent history? I still say it was Barenaked Ladies in 1996, but feel free to debate me on that. FYI, Jesty Beatz doesn't count as a big act. Nor does:

Ekoostik Hookah - Those bastards were basically paying to play by the end of their horrific run.
Chris Logsdon - The Nick had to shut its doors for good to make him go away.

According to the UPC Website, there are 14 Executive Chairs appointed through a lengthy selection process and 13 Executive Vice Chairs. That's 27 people PER YEAR for the last 15 years that have sat on their laurels and brought diddly poo in terms of name acts to the Ohio Student Body. UPC HAS FAILED in its mission. 27 people. There are NYSE listed companies with fewer Managers in the hierarchy. What are these 27 people doing???

Here is my issue:

1. As I see (and hear) it all too often, one of the biggest problems facing Ohio Athletics is the lack of funding. It is my personal hypothesis that a great deal of potential money leaves Athens with Ohio graduates, and is spent on Ohio State tickets, merchandise, and even donations. I concede this has been happening since probably the early 70's, about the time when Ohio Athletics started to fade from the National Radar. Obviously, if that money was back in the Ohio coffers, things would be radically different in terms of our financial landscape. Let's just say an IPF would be the least of our worries.

2. It is my opinion that there is a deficiency in the ENTIRE college experience that kids are getting in Athens. The deficiency is that there is absolutely NO UNITY being forged among students during their time in Athens. Some of you will say a MAC Basketball title or the NCAA defeat of Georgetown really brought the campus together....not really. Maybe people were watching in different places (Apartments, dorms, bars, etc) but they weren't there together to see these events take place, to join as one and to will the 'Cats to victory... as most college students didn't have the means to travel to Cleveland or Providence for the games. (There were approx 4 students in Providence btw). Sure they gathered on court street, but only for a fleeting couple of minutes.

I contend that the feeling of unity with your student peers is something that will intrinsically last a lifetime. If our students were unified, every single one of them would know that they can always come back and be welcome in Athens.  

3. I feel that you have to bring the student body together as one for a common cause or event as much as possible, in order to facilitate building that unity. As I see it, you have several avenues in which to bring the student body together as one:

1. A speaker/lecturer with some recognizable or noteworthy accomplishments (I.E. Hilary Clinton '97ish)
2. An entertainment act
3. Athletics

Let's be completely honest with ourselves...we do a TERRIBLE job as a university in unifying the student body. Hell, if the only thing I had to hang my hat on as an OU student was the party - I would just as soon support Ohio State (or Kansas in my case) athletics as well. 

99% of our graduates had an experience where they went to class, got drunk at the CI, may or may not have been involved in greek life, saw some bad sports, got their degree, and moved on in the world.

This rant is exactly why I am so angry at Jim Schaus and Frank Solich for their heinous non conference home football schedules. There is absolutely nothing redeeming (key word) about bringin Wofford, Idaho, etc to Peden. You are not enriching the student experience one iota with this crap. The casual kid at James Hall is going to sit and watch the Sweater Vest beat up on our MAC Brethren rather than walk the 120 yards to Peden to watch his own school play....and that's a DAMN SHAME to me.

Now, UPC...bring an act to town for god's sake. How far we've fallen from the days of Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, The Temptations, and Billy Johl....to Jesty Beatz and Jim Gaffigan. Good lord. I'm serious, it's an absolute disgrace. I'm sure it's "budget this and budget that", and "we can't get anyone to come to Athens" and a whole bunch of veiled excuses. This UPC organization has done a great job of flying under the radar for too long. If these people can't start getting real acts to Athens, then they need to be forcefully disbanded. Instead of unifying, they have been stagnating...and it should not be tolerated one second longer.

If our students had events to rally around, I truly think you'd see a different University in only 3-4 short years. Donations would be up, Athletics would improve, and the general malaise of the place would start to dissapate. However, we continue to allow the non-unifying forces in Athens to keep us as a non-unified entity.

I'm calling on any Administrator reading this to openly call out UPC and figure out what's going on under that veil of secrecy. If I'm wrong and there have been world class acts in and out of Athens, then please let me know and I'll stand down.  Otherwise, UPC is now firmly on the LOVE's hit list with the garbage Non Conference Football schedules that are keeping big dollars flowing West on 33 instead of staying right in the middle of Athens.

I love the place, don't hate me for it.

LOVE

I've long said that the affinity that folks (mostly students, of course) feel for Athens isn't kept well enough after people leave Athens.  Our giving as a % of whatever measurement should be much higher.  Love is on track in a general way here.

Maybe having more vice-presidents would solve things.  Seems to work for banks.

Excuse my editing it down a tad, but I think the above thesis is fairly compelling. It's long been my opinion that Ohio University (especially Athletics) has one a big marketing fail on their hands (which I'd say is a synonym for the above paragraph with "TERRIBLE" in all caps). Are there organizations outside of Athletics or Marketing who should be able to help there? Absolutely. (Though I would say that Marketing should be there coordinating everything... but alas)

I have no knowledge of the UPC beyond the 2 minutes I spent on their website, so I can't say confidently if they're a problem or if they could potentially help make things better, but I'm intrigued to see how the grenade lobbing towards that group plays out in the coming days/weeks.

The student excitement for the upcoming basketball season is huge.

However long we spent on Court Street last year celebrating the Georgetown win, it was long enough...

Everyone on Court Street that night ranks that as one of their top 3 college moments.  EVERYONE.  The majority would say they never had a better time at OHIO.  Some of them probably never even went to an Ohio basketball game....  But all of them will end up at one now...  Between the buzzer-beater against Miami, and the amazing run we had, there are a lot of students who think the basketball games are FUN.  I can't say the same for the FUN we are promised watching OUr football team.  Beat OSU, that will change...  That would be one of those unifying moments that we do need for football, I think...
The students who missed out on charging Court Street still wish they were the ones stuck in Athens with that late exam.
The current freshman were blowing up about it on the social media sites last year...  From my direct contact with them so far, they are going to show up in full force when hoops season rolls around.  They think it's going to be the place to be.

I think back to a conversation I had just the other night with some random girl I was criticizing for wearing OSU gear...  I asked her who she'd be cheering for next week...  She said OSU, because of the possibility of the NC and how she grew up in Cow town, blah, blah, blah...  (Although she did say she'd at least be wearing Green and White at the game.)  But basketball?  Basketball got her and all the other people around excited...  Why?  Georgetown.

Love, I agree with you, we absolutely need unity among the students, and we get that through defining moments like the Pitt game, or the Georgetown game...

Here is the issue with football.
We didn't follow through with the Pitt game by building off the excitement.  The defining moment draws people in...  It doesn't keep them.
Football needs another big win.  A lot of students now couldn't tell you we beat Pitt...  We didn't capitalize while we had the chance...  Some might say the two bowl games in five years is pretty successful, I'd agree, especially with our history in football.  That said, "pretty successful" is not enough to get us to break through on the fan support level.
But basketball...
Yeah, we've got a chance right now.  The buzz is here.  We had that defining moment...  Now it's a matter of building on it.  Last year alone was enough to bring in a lot of die hards who will be lifelong fans...  That number could seem pitiful to the die hards we could get this year if we win like we all hope we can...

I completely disagree with this opinion.  The students and alums of OU love this place.  From 50 years ago, 20 years ago, and 2 years ago.  So much so that I joke around and call it a cult quite often.  Don't mistake apathy towards football and basketball a lack of unity.  You know what those kids chant when they are burning couches on Palmer Street?:  "OU OU OU OU..."



Probably true.  If home and homes with New Mexico State and a BCS conference school cost the same, why not do the BCS school?  I don't get it.  (If not, then the answer is $$$$.)



It seems to me that UPC spreads itself too thin and we end up with an overprogrammed campus.  Maybe less is more.  Also, when you have 18-21 year olds in charge, the product is gonna suffer.


Also - what's about to happen this Saturday in Columbus ain't gonna help rally this campus around athletics.  I just hope Tressel respects Solich enough to not run it up past about 44-0.  But.....

From what I have seen, UPC has brought in some decent musical acts to Mem Aud. The problem is that there is so much pop garbage out there, not really sure who you could bring into the Convo that would bring in students and the surrounding area as a whole. It also doesn't help that this generation will always be lapped by the amazing collection of musical acts from the 60s & 70s. As far as comedy, Gaffigan is pretty funny but I can see how some people aren't fans of him. Love, do you want UPC to try to hit a home run and bring in Dane Cook?



Oh cool, we already have a preview of some potential post-game comments and threads.

Flomo, fair to say that other coaches (ie Groce) have a decent amount of say in their scheduling? Does Solich have that much more pull? I think it has been discussed ad nauseum the differences in scheduling philosophy between football and basketball so we don't have to drift over there.

I believe Joe McKinley was a member of the UPC/SPB during the early 1980s. Perhaps he has some insight.

I haven't followed the issue for 5 years or so, but wasn't/isn't the problem our hang up with not being involved with Ticketmaster? I'm thinking at some point in my tenure Fiami brought in Dave Matthews, and our counter was Jason Mraz. Fiami pulled it off because they were perfectly willing to sell-out to get him, and we failed miserably thanks to UPC's self-righteous idealism.

This may have been the inspiration for the guy who ran for Student Senate President on the platform that we should get Pepsi to sponsor the entire university. Completely tongue-in-cheek though it was, the point was well taken.

1. Jim Gaffigan never played Athens as far as I can tell...His work on My Boys is top-notch. Lord.
2. Wilco is a good call. Big act. Approx 25% of the campus probably likes that Alt-Country stuff. Very unifying.
3. I'll even give you Wilco...so we've had 1 big act in 15 years? Pretty rough for a group with 27 executive members.
4. Gaffigan is playing the Nokia Theatre in NYC in December 2010. Capacity = 2100. Not quite MSG bud.
5. Barenaked Ladies are still bigger than Wilco and more appealing to a wider base. You are completely missing my point.

Cake, Ben Harper (twice I think).  Both great shows.  Although Cake was awhile ago....

 

1. I must have missed your original point then, because you brought up Jim Gaffigan. I assumed you brought him up because he'd come to Athens. I guess you were just using him as an example of a terrible act? In which case, my over arching point--that you have no credibility on this issue--still stands. 

2. You don't listen to Wilco. "Alt-Country" hasn't accurately described a single album they've released since the 90s, and if you honestly believe that more 18-22 year olds in Athens would prefer to see Barenaked Ladies than Wilco, your grasp of the OU student population is severely lacking. You know there's a difference between appealing to a wider base, and appealing to the lowest common denominator, right? Maybe you would prefer Barenaked Ladies and Larry the Cable Guy to Wilco and Gaffigan, but don't forget, Ohio University is a university, where people are supposed to be encouraged to you know, think. 

3. You're the only person who cares how many executive members the UPC has. But really, the rest of this board is super excited that you've got a new pet cause to rant about for the next couple of years. 

4. I said the Theater at Madison Square Garden, capacity 2000, not Madison Square Garden. Which is still gigantic for a stand up comic, considering most comedy clubs hold 200-300 people. The point was, he's one of the biggest comedy touring acts in the country right now. But, you don't think he's unifying, I guess. I wonder what Gallagher is up to. Oh, and when I was in school, Zach Galfianakis came to OU. So did Mitch Hedberg. So did Doug Stanhope. 3 of the biggest names in comedy in the last 20 years, easily. 

5. Not completely missing your point at all, just disagreeing about what makes a "unifying" act, and questioning whether or not you know anything about what 18-22 year olds want to see. 

When was Mitch Hedberg on campus?  I'd love to have seen that.