Here's the thing, we might never be able to go toe to toe in number of fans, but we can still compete with the factories. Our stadium seats 55,000. We have the fan base to fill it, we just don't. We tout the financial success of our graduates, yet we lament that our athletics are woefully underfunded. There is a disconnect between a good portion of our student (and eventually alumni) body and the athletic fan base of GT. Our branding initiatives need to do better at bridging that chasm. (It's more than just a gap) We need our alumni who don't really care for sports to understand how important athletics are to the Institution. It's the other side of the Total Person Program put in place by Homer Rice. If we only pitch that to our athletes, we are failing as an Institution. What we can do is create an endowment for athletics and work to fund it. Leverage the ingenuity of GT students and researchers to pursue innovations in the athletics arena. There is no reason why we can't compete, except that we are not willing to pay the cost of competing. From what I have seen so far, TStan understands this, and hopefully we will begin to see changes in the near future.