Forget Football, Why Doesn't MU Do More With Speed Skating?

[Tugg Speedman]

I'm sick of the football threads.  Their is a better chance of an asteroid hitting Milwaukee than MU fielding a D1 football team.  Can we put this idea to rest for good?

Now a better idea would be for MU to offer scholarships for speed skating.  Milwaukee has the best training facility in the country and many speed skaters train their.  Some have even been MU students.

If MU offered money to get an education a few minutes away from a top training facility, MU athletes could dominate the US team.  Then every four years MU would get great publicity as their students take on the world's best for Olympic hardware.

What is wrong this this idea?

[4everwarriors]

Or Fencing?

[MU Avenue]

I'm sick of the football threads.  Their is a better chance of an asteroid hitting Milwaukee than MU fielding a D1 football team.  Can we put this idea to rest for good?

Now a better idea would be for MU to offer scholarships for speed skating.  Milwaukee has the best training facility in the country and many speed skaters train their.  Some have even been MU students.

If MU offered money to get an education a few minutes away from a top training facility, MU athletes could dominate the US team.  Then every four years MU would get great publicity as their students take on the world's best for Olympic hardware.

What is wrong this this idea?

While AnotherMU84 is misguided about the possibility of NCAA football making a return to Marquette University, he has a great idea about Marquette's offering scholarships to top-shelf speed skaters.

Milwaukee is home to the world-class Pettit National Ice Center, which is a short drive from the Marquette campus.

Having some of the world's finest speed skaters studying at Marquette while training at Pettit sounds like a fantastic mix.

This is a great idea with global implications for Marquette and Milwaukee.

[77ncaachamps]

Great idea because the natural progression from speed skating is to field a HOCKEY team!

[jutaw22mu]

why dont we de-siss-ify the speed skating and get a hockey team up in here? 

[Aughnanure]

I say squash, Trinity gets really into it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6hj9JrHtGs&feature=related

[mu ricer22]

Or Fencing?

How about Badminton.
Marquette could join the Badminton World Federation or the BWF

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfwqSBWDW_A

[HouWarrior]

Great idea because the natural progression from speed skating is to field a HOCKEY team!

Sometimes its the reverse progression path.

While in grade school in Madison, I played pee wee hockey against Eric Heiden.
I sucked; but Eric was good, ....

.....as were his team mates, Mark Johnson, and Bobby Suter, both future "Miracle on Ice" 1980 Lake Placid teammates.

Eric moved on from hockey and his kid sister Beth (who , I think, played soccer) followed their progressions and  moved on to speed skating--where, I think they did OK. . lol

[Tugg Speedman]

Or Fencing?

I know you're trying to be funny but do you realize that ND is a top fencing school?  Many on the Olympic fencing team went to ND.  NW is a dominant in Women's Field Hockey.  

Why is Stanford considered a top athletic school?  It's not their mighty record in PAC-10 football or basketball.  Rather it is the over 100 NCAA championships in things other than these sports. (and they do dominate in Badminton.)

From a cost/benefit prospective, having MU be the "go to" place in a secondary sport or two makes sense. Speed Skating is not a random choice but I picked it because of the Pettit center.  It plays to a strength that MU can offer that no one else has ... just like the University of Denver and CU offering scholarships for skiing.

[wildbillsb]

why dont we de-siss-ify the speed skating and get a hockey team up in here? 

I tried ice skating a couple of times when I was in grade school.  Wasn't any good though - my ankles were too weak and the second-hand skates my mother bought for me were too small for my big feet. Fell down a lot and got cold toes, too, so I spent most of my time in the warming house.  Baaaad memories; please change the topic.  Thank you.

[SacWarrior]

Marquette actually has a 2010 Vancouver Silver medalist in the Speed Skating relay team as a student. He lives on my floor.

He picked Marquette simply because of the speed skating center. It came down to that or Utah

[Coleman]

Speed skating is not an NCAA sponsored sport, per their website.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

ping pong.  would get more Asian students, which in turn would improve our academics.

[T-Bone]

Marquette actually has a 2010 Vancouver Silver medalist in the Speed Skating relay team as a student. He lives on my floor.

He picked Marquette simply because of the speed skating center. It came down to that or Utah

Awesome.  Good to hear info like that. 
Didn't we have another Olympian in the last 20 years?  Either biathlon or just shooting?

[Tugg Speedman]

Speed skating is not an NCAA sponsored sport, per their website.

Doesn't matter, we can still offer scholarships to speed skaters just like we offer scholarships for a myriad of reasons.

[tower912]

The USOC could work something out with MU completely independent of the NCAA.   In the 80's, I had a roommate who dated a girl from the East Coast who was only at MU because of the nearby skating center.   

[4everwarriors]

The USOC could work something out with MU completely independent of the NCAA.   In the 80's, I had a roommate who dated a girl from the East Coast who was only at MU because of the nearby skating center.   

Was she hot or did she have thunder thighs?

[GGGG]

I went to high school with a couple people who were speed skaters in Madison.  Those thighs could crush walnuts.

[wildbillsb]

I went to high school with a couple people who were speed skaters in Madison.  Those thighs could crush walnuts.

FYI, now's  a good time to gather walnuts, before the squirrels stash them all - tougher to find them under the snow. Although if one GPS' the burial location patterns of the neighborhood rodents, it can be done. Be sure to have a snow shovel. 

[willie warrior]

How about hula hoop twirling?

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

There are already too many Bonnie Blair types on campus.

With that said, I'd buy an MU speedskating suit in a second. You do that kind of thing when you have the goods to pull it off.

[🏀]

There are already too many Bonnie Blair types on campus.

With that said, I'd buy an MU speedskating suit in a second. You do that kind of thing when you have the goods to pull it off.

+1

[Benny B]

This is actually something I think would be feasible and make a world (no pun intended) of sense.  It doesn't create (or solve) any T-IX issues, it's relatively (and marginally) inexpensive, and all of the best speed skaters in the world would be competing for a scholarship.

Imagine in 2014 seeing podium after podium chock full of MU students/alums in Sochi.  One good showing in the Winter Games, and MU is on the world map.

Step 1: Collect Awareness
Step 2: *shrug*
Step 3: Profits

[🏀]

This is actually something I think would be feasible and make a world (no pun intended) of sense.  It doesn't create (or solve) any T-IX issues, it's relatively (and marginally) inexpensive, and all of the best speed skaters in the world would be competing for a scholarship.

Imagine in 2014 seeing podium after podium chock full of MU students/alums in Sochi.  One good showing in the Winter Games, and MU is on the world map.

Step 1: Collect Awareness
Step 2: *shrug*
Step 3: Profits

[MUWarrior4Life]

That could b a feasible alternative to D1 football. Most definitely