hockey fund raiser

[jkahn]

Lost in all of this is, apparently, is that free internet is a recruiting tool.  We've got a number of current players who followed a teammate in junior hockey to Cornell.  Perhaps they occasionally tuned in to see how their buddy was doing, and it helped them make the decision that Lynah would be a great place to call home.  There are probably kids out there who might have caught part of this great season and decided to be future Cornellians.  Hopefully, this will be remedied next year.
As far as webcam is concerned, there is little question but that it was a retaliatory move, which only creates a lose-lose situation for all concerned.

[ugarte]

In the spirit of Al's invitation to stay within proper parameters ;-) :

While free internet COULD be a recruiting tool, I look very dubiously on the argument that it HAS BEEN a recruiting tool.  I would be very surprised if the hockeycam was really known at all beyond the eLF community and the CUAD.  Which is why it is the posters here who are most passionate about getting it back.  I also regret what might have been, but I'm still going to give.

I've had the Cornell Fund envelope sitting on my desk for a few months and I have finally decided that I am going to give.  I haven't even given in the past (I'm a lazy donor; I really need to be hit on the head to be reminded, and Hornby hasn't been around to give me the beating.)  I just think it is (1) time for this '92 to start donating for real (I support the Supreme Court database) and (2) the hockeycam issue, despite the AD's utter complete and unabashed stupidity and dishonesty about it, isn't enough to convince me otherwise.

Hey, maybe that is a solution for some of you: give to the Legal Information Institute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/members/member_start.php3

[Al DeFlorio]

Reads like a good cause to me, apple.  I especially like the line:  "No subscription fee limits access to LII services."

[bigred apple]

:-D

[Greg Berge]

This is a silly discussion.

None of this is a moral or ethical issue. Cornell is a business; a completely amoral commercial interest, no more and no less.  It is hardly "selfish" to withhold donations to a large corporation.

Cornell's decisions have pissed off a lot of hockey boosters.  That in itself means zippo to them -- while we are stakeholders, they really could not care less what a handful of alumni and boosters think, no matter how loyal we are, unless one of us is a Ralph Englestadt.  The only possible leverage an individual has on a corporation is boycott or lawsuit.  The latter is out.  So, if it is sufficiently annoying to you that Cornell has behaved so abominably in this case, then your only choice is to withhold the money.

Personally, I have no illusions either about Cornell or the possibility of ever influencing their decisionmaking by appealing to ethics, so selfishly I'm  paying them for an inferior level of audio service and a complete cessation of video service because I want to hear Adam's broadcasts.  I'm a scab for doing so, but there is nothing else I could do about it but cut myself off, and I'm not willing to sacrifice listening.  I'm screwed, and I know it.  OTOH, there's no chance in hell I'd donate a penny to Cornell, but frankly after shelling out so much for the degree there was no chance before, either.

Sure, it would be nice if Cornell behaved in some other manner than MBA Scumbag Mode.  But a company simply maximizes profit, that's all it is -- a profit machine.  Since we can't affect profit, we can't do squat.

Let's Go Red!*

(* And Fuck Day Hall)

[bigred apple]

I disagree with so many of your premises, Greg, that I don't know where to start.

First of all, while the tone may have gotten rough, and some of the accusations shrill, it is anything but a silly discussion, and it is unfair of you to belittle it in that way.  All of the people here care deeply about Cornell hockey, and have varying degrees of feeling about Cornell University.   How we negotiate the complex issues in their own minds involving how to deal with an institution we care for and hope to see succeed but feel slighted by is appropriate, and this is both the time and the place to air our feelings. First, because we are responsive to each other and second because even if they aren't as responsive as we'd like (or at all), it is clear that there is someone out there listening. (Even if the only person is Adam Wodon, he strikes me as someone who passes on our concerns. And I suspect that the AD's office has skulkers about to see what we are saying.)

Second, hate the administrators of the institution all you want, but Cornell will always be more to me that a "completely amoral corporate interest."  I admit and understand that you have certainly touched on an aspect of Cornell, but it isn't the part I choose to remember.  (And this is from someone who thanked Cornell in his Masters thesis dedication for "ensuring that my children will pay for a Cornell education, even if they never receive one.")  It was 4 years of my life that I remember mostly fondly.  It is associations with a time and a place and a city and an age that transcend the corporatist image of the school you are cynically invoking.  It is those associations that make you care so much about Cornell hockey.  I can't imagine that you could have none of those feelings and still care so deeply about a bunch of 20 year old strangers who live near where you used to live.

And I am paying for the service because I forgot to unsubscribe when the 14 days ran out, and I feel like I might as well keep it now.

I'll close by saying that I have seen no evidence that the school institution wastes the money that you think it acquires in "MBA scumbag mode" by lavishing wealth on its administrators.  From what I can tell, it pours the money into luring top professors, improving the physical plant and library stock, funding a HUGE athletic program and providing an excellent education to thousands of students every year.  It collects the money, sure, but it uses the money where it is supposed to be used.

I apologize for going on like this. First, because it isn't really directed at Greg - you were just the last person to post.  Second, because this is just so sentimental that I am going to throw up, and I thank all of you that hung in this long.

Lastly, Lowell: you convinced me, and I earmarked part of my donation to the pep band.

[jtwcornell91]

bigred apple wrote:

I'll close by saying that I have seen no evidence that the school institution wastes the money that you think it acquires in "MBA scumbag mode" by lavishing wealth on its administrators.  From what I can tell, it pours the money into luring top professors, improving the physical plant and library stock, funding a HUGE athletic program and providing an excellent education to thousands of students every year.  It collects the money, sure, but it uses the money where it is supposed to be used.

The RealPass fiasco illustrates that this is not a zero-sum game.  Given that the Athletic department has said they're not making a significant amount of money off it, that means that most of the money they're taking from hockey fans in this way is lining the pockets of an outside company, RealNetworks.  Since they chose to do this rather than pursuing an avenue that could have given the fans basically what we had last year instead of charging us for this year's inferior product, it's completely reasonable for all of us to use whatever leverage we have to convince them to change their ways.  (If this includes withholding donations from the University or the team, be sure to let both that entity and the athletic department why you're doing it.)

[jtwcornell91]

One thing that we know is a recruiting tool is the support the team gets from its fans.  Hopefully the Athletic Department will eventually get it through their heads that alienating those fans is a really bad idea.

[Adam \'01]

Big Red Apple, I understand your point about how hockeycam COULD be a recruiting tool and HASN'T BEEN thus far.  But I respectfully submit that it's potential is more important than its current state.  For example, ask any banker (the industry that I consult to) and they will tell you that opportunity diminishment is far more dangerous than simple balance diminishment.  In other words, it's the promise of potential down the road of someone/something (long term) that makes it vital to foster it early on.  Instead of cutting hockeycam all together, the department ought to give it support and let it live up to the future state potential as an amazing recruiting tool.

[jeh25]

John T. Whelan '91 wrote:

CUlater '89 wrote:

Finally, didn't they pull the plug because the operator acted inappropriately in a business context?  I don't think that's stupid; that's the real world.

AFAIK, they never explained why they pulled the plug, which in itself is hardly appropriate behavior.

Well, maybe they never explained it to you, but I think Age has a pretty good idea why they pulled the plug, even if he doesn't agree with the decision.

In any case, a business that ends a relationship with business partner has no duty or responsibility to explain their decision to a 3rd party.

[CowbellGuy]

big red apple wrote:

While free internet COULD be a recruiting tool, I look very dubiously on the argument that it HAS BEEN a recruiting tool.  I would be very surprised if the hockeycam was really known at all beyond the eLF community and the CUAD.

This isn't something I wanted to share with everyone, but since some parties are completely oblivious... I know for a fact that a recruit who was on the fence  decided on Cornell because a current player's family showed the recruit's family  HockeyCam. Believe me there are many other similar happenings that extend far, far from the confines of the eLF community and the CUAD.

[ugarte]

I'll respond all at once:

To JTW:  I agree that the OCSN decision was a mistake, but that only proves that the administration isn't wise, not that they are nefarious.

To Adam '01: I don't think I said anything that disagrees with your point.  I regret the loss of hockeycam, and think it was a terrible, terrible mistake.   But I had no idea that I would have to  . . .

thank Age for setting me straight (even though I wish he hadn't called me "completely oblivious"; you held back the info, Age, and I can only know as much as is out there).   If the hockey parents are sharing the information with potential hockey parents, then that is where we want to be, and we could have be there already (still, actually). Shame on CU for f'ing this up.

Still going to give, though.

[CowbellGuy]

I'm not going to run around posting everything a player or parent tells me. I didn't even feel particularly comfortable with my last post, but rest assured there are plenty more where that came from.

[CUlater \'89]

Although it may be true that the quality of the webcasts of men's hockey games this season has been "inferior" to last season, that is something that can and should be fixed (I hope all subscribers are complaining to the service provider as well as the AD).  But the service for which we're asked to pay includes more than just play-by-play of the men's hockey games.   Don't they provide more things overall than were available overall in 2001-2002?  So in some respects, the service is superior (perhaps not for those of us only interested in coverage of men's hockey games, but maybe for fans of other sports or fans interested in highlights etc.)  I can only assume that such superiority was a goal of the AD in choosing this path and that it assumed that technical problems, if any, could and would be easily remedied by the corporate service provider.

I doubt that one of the goals of the AD was to figure out someway to pay money to RealNetworks. And since the AD is making little money off of this, it is unlikely that lining its own pockets was a major motivation for the decision.  So isn't it safe to say that at the time the AD made the decision to use this pay-service, it's goal was to benefit the Cornell sports fans overall?  And, at that time, wasn't it reasonable for them to think it was in the best interests of Cornell sports fans in general to give them more things overall via one-stop shopping, while also establishing a relationship with an industry leader so as to be able to take advantage of technological advances and to upgrade coverage in future years?

Sure, in practice, there have been problems.  And as Jim pointed out again, the real problem is the lack of any response (good or bad) from the AD to our complaints.  But like BRA said, I don't think the problems mean the AD was acting nefariously at the time it made its decision.

That's why I have chosen not to hold back donations, but continue to request the AD to restore video coverage of the Lynah games.  I sure hope that Age or someone else has informed the AD about the successful recruit.

[CUlater \'89]

I'm with you, BRA.