…those little tram cars you take up to the top of the arch are a bit tight. You might have to buy me a drink first. Then we can hitch a ride to Kansas City for the CBE.

Or, how about we settle it the new old-fashioned way instead.

As embarrassing and painful as the football program has been, the last 2 years of missing the NCAA tournament combined with the 2 years before that of losing in the first round of the NCAAs, has been more painful than anything football can throw at us. But I am also much more of a basketball guy and always have been, even when Syracuse had a good football team. And maybe I’ve become numb to the football team’s failures. Not that I don’t expect more someday, I just don’t expect much right now.

Here’s another thought: Even though the Big East has been underrated in football for a long time, I still don’t think it’s ever been a diehard football conference. SU may have a rich football history, but I think a lot of that occurred unrelated to the Big East. And what in-conference rivalries do we have? Is there any football rivalry that comes even close to comparing with our basketball rivalries?

I agree Sean. Football hurts a lot more. Right now we are a basketball school, but the school craves football even if it doesn’t realize it. Students will say they don’t care, but if we had a solid, winning football team we would be football crazy. I believe that. Gameday tailgating would be intense. The Dome would scare the shit out of opposing teams.

Most people are going to say basketball is more important, but I think if they lay in bed at night and were truly honest with themselves, they would take a top ten football team over basketball success. The only caveat is a championship victory. I would take another NCAA tourney title over a BCS football team. Of course I would take a BCS champion team over a championship basketball team. You get the idea.
I do agree with the rivalry argument to a point. I think we do not really have any good rivalries, but if we were a good team, I think they would develop. WVU and Pitt I believe would become rivalries. Perhaps UConn. Nothing builds animosity with teams like kicking their ass.

Also, the argument is being made that basketball gets more national attention and therefore is more important to be good. Well they get the attention because they are good. If our football team was a good team (consistently ranked) we would get tons of ink. With the number of Cuse alums in the sports journalism world, we would get more national attention than we would know what to do with if we played like the football teams of old. Possibly even more so considering how bad we’ve been. Rags to riches ya know?

1. Identification of Syracuse as a “football” or “basketball” school has a lot to do with generation. I know a bunch of older Syracuse-types that will always see SU as a “football” school simply because college football used to rule the roost since college hoops was in its nascent period. On the flip side, younger partisans see SU as a basketball school due to the exponential growth in popularity of college hoops.

I think this is best epitomized in the conversations about Archbold and Manley; those that see Syracuse as a football school tend to speak more about Archbold; those that see Syracuse as a hoops school tend to talk about the good old days of the Manley Zoo.

2. The second point deals with Syracuse’s alumni and student make-up. Being a private school that pretty much draws its student body from a national stage, students (and alumni) have predispositions of sports they like best due to their pre-Syracuse sporting preferences. Thus, the kids that come from football-first backgrounds (Pennsylvanians, etc.), will always identify Syracuse as a football school simply because that is the sport they followed most fervently. Those that come from hoops-centric origins (NYC kids, people like me from Connecticut), will see Syracuse as a basketball mecca.

This factor has had a huge impact on how the fanbase views Syracuse, simply because the majority of Orange Nation is somehow tied to its alumni base (sorry, locals).

3. The final point has to deal with league affiliation. Traditionally, I think this moves into the camp of Syracuse as a football school. The Orange maintained a more consistent football schedule — Penn State, Maryland, Colgate, etc. — than it did a hoops schedule. I think when you can point to consistency in opponent (and the development of rivalries), you naturally create incentive to care and watch.

But with the affiliation of Syracuse into the Big East, the game changes. Dave Gavitt invented the Big East to be a basketball powerhouse. When Syracuse joined, it tacitly agreed that its future was built on hoops, and that the university would always support a basketball program. I think that erodes my first “historical” point, but is necessary for the discussion.

I know that this was about 1,000 words that doesn’t have a conclusion, but it does reach the sentiment that Syracuse isn’t any kind of school, hoops, football, or otherwise.

But in the end, that doesn’t really matter to me because I like lacrosse season the most.

The House That Katie Rowan Built

I think this question depends very much on who you ask: students or regional fans.

The students are most likely to identify with the team that is doing the best at the time because that is what is exciting. You always have people who like football the most or basketball the most, but in general I think students care about the team that is the most fun to watch and that then stays with with them. Right now, and for the past decade really, that team is basketball.

Now the regional fans, I think, want a good football team. Why else would people still be tailgating? There isn’t a lot of it, but there is some and that means people are clinging to what little football enjoyment they can find. The region is a football one and I think the natives want a strong return to national prominence on the gridiron. They enjoy the basketball team and root for it all the way, but if football returns you will see much more passion for that I believe.

And if all else at least we have the lacrosse team. They almost never disappoint and even when they do, they win national championships within a couple of years.