Editorial | Chanticleer success raises CCU’s profile across the country
In one sense, it doesn’t matter if the Coastal Carolina University Chanticleers win their game Saturday, though of course we will be cheering for victory.
The team’s trajectory into the national playoffs has already accomplished a university goal -- to raise awareness of the growing university on South Carolina’s coast.
Why does that matter? Because, as Education Week reported in July 2012, a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated “that each extra win from a major football program results in an increase of alumni athletic donations of $136,400.”
In addition, the researched showed that winning “also tends to increase the number of student applications, the incoming SAT scores on said applications, and a school's academic reputation.”
It’s too early to know what impact this season could have on giving to and applying for CCU, but the Chant’s first-ever rise to a third-round NCAA FCS playoff game, could signal the beginning of what President Dave DeCenzo sought when he replaced founding coach David Bennett with rookie coach (and former TD Ameritrade CEO) Joe Moglia two years ago amid much hand-wringing and nay saying.
The team’s subsequent performance on the field, paired with the back-story of the rookie coach has earned CCU plenty of positive notice. An article by Wayne Coffey for the New York Daily News is just one example of the CCU/Moglia buzz:
“Before some 80,000 fans in Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C. Saturday, the Chanticleers of Coastal Carolina took on one of the state’s resident gridiron heavyweights, the 12th-ranked University of South Carolina, coached by the renowned Steve Spurrier.
“Spurrier once won a Heisman Trophy, coached Florida to a national championship and had a short stay with the Washington Redskins. His team dismembered Coastal Carolina, 70-10, a blowout that doesn’t alter the fact that neither Spurrier nor anybody else has a coaching narrative like the guy who was across the field Saturday – the head man of a 10-2 Big South powerhouse, and the only man on earth who has authored books on football strategy (The Key to Winning Football: The Perimeter Attack Offense) and investment strategy (Coach Yourself to Financial Success: Winning the Investment Game), and been the subject of a book himself (Monte Burke’s 4th and Goal: One Man’s Quest to Recapture His Dream.), Coffey wrote.”
About three weeks after making the Moglia announcement, DeCenzo told reporter Ryan Young he was confident in his choice but warned it would be a few years before a verdict could be made on whether the out-of-the-box choice was on target.
“And as I’ve said,” DeCenzo said in that interview, “we’re going to sit here in three years and look back and say, ‘Was it right?’ And I’m confident that it was.”
Even a Montana Grizzlies fan was impressed enough to write a letter to the editor applauding the team, as you can see elsewhere on the page.
In his first appearance as CCU’s coach, Moglia made his goals for the team clear.
“Without question, we know we’ve got to win... We know we’ve got to not just be competitive in the Big South, we’ve got to be able to win, and one day that means we’ve got to be competitive enough to win a national championship. I know that. I understand that. Everybody we’re associated with is going to know that and is going to understand that.”
Whether this is the year they win a national championship remains to be seen. But the team’s performance thus far makes it clear that they are champions.
This story was originally published December 13, 2013 at 5:33 PM with the headline "Editorial | Chanticleer success raises CCU’s profile across the country."