This may sound crazy or insensitive (not my goal at all), but how about limiting the amount of foreign students at GT? Sure, they're great for the school's academic reputation, but they don't seem to enrich the legacy or tradition of the school at all. They mostly get their degrees and leave. What was the school's demographic in the 1950s? Apologies to my asian and indian friends, but it would be nice to see more American kids walking around there and going to games and being loud!
This already exists. To take it a step further, if you look at the make up on GT campus, the majority of students actually come from Georgia. Part of the problem is that the kids coming out of Georgia schools playing at the elite level of football are not prepared to handle the rigors of Tech. I'm not saying they can't do it; obviously, many do. However, the level of effort necessary to succeed at Tech in the least rigorous degree program is significantly higher than what is available at other schools. There are kids that go to factory schools and enter difficult programs, but most of these schools have programs that are not as demanding.
If we want a higher-aiming student-athlete coming out of Georgia high schools, the high schools have to improve. With five school-age kids, I'm familiar with both the public and private schools in Northeast Atlanta. I recently moved from Atlanta to the North Chicagoland suburbs, and I'll tell you there's no comparison in school systems. I came to Tech from Connecticut, and there's no comparison. Georgia needs to step up in education, and that starts with demanding more from the students and putting teachers in place that know how to educate. It also includes putting your money where your mouth is. In this area of Chicago, the school system spends approximately $15k/year/student, where Georgia is somewhere around $5k/year/student. The teachers are well paid, and the schools demand the best from the teachers. The taxes suck, but after providing shelter and sustenance to my family, my children's education is my most important job. Painting with broad strokes here, but I think you all get what I'm saying (even if you don't necessarily agree).
That being said, that will only solve half the problem. We also have an image issue. As pointed out earlier, we need to market our brand to the general public. When Dodd was coaching (pre-Falcons), GT was the game in town. We had as many, if not more, sidewalk fans as UGA. Our own arrogance (including Dodd's as an AD), went a long way to drive away many of those fans. Our lack of continued on-the-field success has also hampered that. We had momentum under Ross, and with the right hire when he left, we could have built on that success. Instead we made probably our biggest coaching mistake in school history with Bill Lewis (it's taken two decades to even be able to write his name in a post). We recovered with George and Ralph, but then hired super-conservative Chan Gailey, had Flunkgate and were perennially 7-5. Every time we start to make progress, we kill ourselves.
Floating around here because I'm tired, but if we can continue to win all the games we're supposed to and start winning some of the toss-ups, we'll gain momentum. Those kids that are currently high qualifiers that are going to good out-of-state schools (Stanford, ND, etc.) will stay. We need to be able to reproduce 2007 and then maintain that recruiting momentum. 2007 shows we can do it with the current restrictions from the Hill, so we have to find a way to sell our brand to these kids. I'm optimistic, because it's better than being pessimistic.
I know I didn't end where I was pointed at the beginning, so I apologize. But I who cares, it's Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all and Happy Holidays to those who don't celebrate Christmas.
