Same stuff, just bigger and more of it.
Which leads me to believe that the biggest thing we need in Starkville is jobs jobs jobs. That will take care of the school system, restaurants, bars, everything.
Starkville
- Thread starter AttalaDawg72
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Which leads me to believe that the biggest thing we need in Starkville is jobs jobs jobs. That will take care of the school system, restaurants, bars, everything.
FYI this article states 5600 first time students in residence halls alone Maybe I’m missing something but that’s a huge number.
www.msstate.edu
'Our people' remain Keenum’s ‘No. 1 priority’
This Starkville place must suck. I hate everything about MSU and my life. Based upon this msg board thread, I think I'll drink bleach***
I hate some segment of our fanbase. We find flaw in everything. FYI....25% of Ole Miss's record freshman class will either withdraw or flunk out in December. It's what happens when you admit EVERYONE.
I hate some segment of our fanbase. We find flaw in everything. FYI....25% of Ole Miss's record freshman class will either withdraw or flunk out in December. It's what happens when you admit EVERYONE.
State keeps the Greek numbers low, about 80 pledges per class. OM allows pledge classes of 150 or more to drive up numbers.
As a result OMs out of state female numbers are growing. However good or bad, depends on how you want to look at it, their pledge classes are over 50% out of state.
Hell, it was us in the 80’s who came up with phrase “StarkVegas”
Now….the label is worn proudly as a trademark
Olive branch hs numbers are shrinking. CH is steady. DC and Lewisburg are crowded. However Lewisburg is still the smallest school in 7a.
With Mississippi’s population continuing to shrink, we are insane if we keep ridiculing OM for their percentage of OOS students. We need to be doing the same
Correct. Everyone is leaving the state anyway so if some suckers will pay us 30k let’s take it. We need dollars annd bodies. And I think sorority quotas hurt us a little. Like it or not, it means girls can be less likely to get what they want and that word filters down. Now do I think the OM pledge class of 270 at one of them is silly and useless? Yes.
I don’t disagree. We should strategically pick some places where there is a direct pipeline of what we do. I wish we could get a direct flight from GTR to Houston, and recruit the hell out of that place.
Clemson chose NY/NJ. Auburn has GA and FL at their fingertips. aTm doesn’t need out of staters.
Where are our biggest alumni groups? I’d start there. Then pick a strategic area (probably already have that with west TN and Alabama. Then continue to recruit MS.
270 is great for finances, both at the sorority and university, only.
But we need to be growing the Greek system as much as possible. They end up being some of the most active and loyal alums.
A sound strategy — ATL and HOU are probably tops.
Still — however — the area has to find a strength (competitive advantage) to build upon.
It’s not clear what that might be (other than MSU)
That’s the damnable misery of it. I can’t come up with much, outside of simply being an SEC school, which is something I suppose. Can’t tout academics. Can’t tout partying. Can’t tout a big city.
Guess we just need to accept reality and enjoy what we got. But so many won’t even accept that reality.
ETA: we don’t even have any cool outdoor recreation. Need to do something in conjunction with the Refuge and other areas around a lean into our ‘rurality’. Need more golf courses, etc.
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Remember when Springsteen wasn’t allowed to play at MSU because of “Dead Days?”
I give you….M….S….U
See my earlier post - I was told that the school ("Keenum" is how it was said to me) is somehow trying to prohibit freshmen from going to parties. I asked if that was true, and someone here said it was not prohibited, but basically the school was "encouraging" them not to go out. Not sure where the truth is - I just know that rumor would be really bad for recruiting, especially going head to head against OM for incoming freshmen.
It would be similar to OM giving cars to all their incoming football players while we announce we're not participating in NIL any longer. Would just be really really stupid to say it out loud.
We need to drastically increase our out of state recruitment for sure. There’s a huge number of students from Alabama here, especially from Birmingham. Memphis metro, Birmingham/Huntsville, Jackson metro, MS Coast are probably our main areas for student recruitment. We need to really dig into Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, and Houston to grow. I don’t remember the stats but an insane amount of Arkansas’s student body is from the Dallas metro. People want to go to an SEC school and we need to use that to our advantage.
Yep, and males follow. That's a universal truth, and it works. It's why bars have ladies' night.
The Refuge is such a missed opportunity at the moment. They need to add a bunch of quality hiking trails and other amenities to encourage that.
Just the absurdity of Keenum or anybody high up in the administration thinking the school could legally or practically prevent freshmen from going to parties makes me think this is a baseless rumor. I'm sure there is something in literature available from student life or student services or wherever encouraging students to go to class and not spend all their time partying and drinking, and I would not be surprised if an administrator took a shot at ole miss and other party schools and said it's not practical to do engineering and party five nights a week, but I have trouble believing anything has been said or done beyond that.
Kind of hard to justify w/ only 7 football weekends, 13 basketball home games (only 5 on weekends) and roughly 35 home baseball games w/ only about 9 home series and some of those early season non conference (and we know yall keep saying its only a club sport and nobody comes). You're only talking about 30ish potential sports series a year. There's graduation, move in weekend, and some others but it takes a lot to keep an "upscale hotel" afloat and open 365 days a year. It would be dead in summer, dead during Christmas, Spring Break, etc Then there's the issue that it can't be a "for profit" for a non profit school. They had issues w/ that when they took over Hampton, Comfort and Marriott.
I’d hire someone full time in Houston and Atlanta. Arkansas gives great deals to out of state students in bordering states and Illinois/Georgia. A 3.6 gets you 80% the OOS amount waived.
But Georgia, Auburn, Texas and other big schools are turning kids away. Auburn really has no money to give and doesn’t have to bc they have enough apps. Plenty of kids to get after.
I’d almost play off the fact our location is odd. A great college town in the middle of nowhere where you can get away.
I don't think State is keeping the greek numbers artificially low? I think like 90% of people that go out for rush get bids? At some schools I think that's under 75%. I think what's keeping greek numbers artificially low is lack of interest.
This could be way dated, but when I was there, I don't think there was any limit on fraternities. The sororities had a quota system, but that was not meant to limit the number of members overall but to level the field between sororities. I'm not sure it was a bad system as on the fraternity side you had much more separation, so guys might drop out if they didn't get a bid from one of the few they thought were "good". I think there were a good many more sorority members than fraternity members and I think that was a big reason.
I hope you're right. I was told this at the game Saturday by a guy with a kid in school now and it shocked me. I had already had a couple of football waters, so I am a little fuzzy on the details, but he made it sound like his daughter had been told "underage freshmen can't go to bars or fraternity parties."
Like I said, I hope you're right and this is only a stupid rumor. It sounds like damn communism to me. Some of my best memories are from those places.
Now this is something right here. Great idea. We can be an oasis, especially to kids in Dallas and Atlanta who want to get out.
Continue to improve the Cotton District area and this could be easily achieved.
Not to be the guy that mentions Ole Miss, but how do they make it work with theirs? They are in the same boat as we are. I think they just market Oxford much much better. We do a terrible job of marketing ourselves.
Exactly. They have a Graduate. It started bc they just kept showing up to town and spending money 25 years ago.
We live in the Jackson area. Own a house in Starkville for games. And my wife still goes to Oxford with her girlfriends 2 or 3 times a year to go shopping.
I checked on this with an impeccable source, and it’s 100% not true of the Greek system. Can’t speak for the university as a whole.
The idea of recruiting from big cities is a great idea. I always thought they should build an amphitheater like the one in Brandon for events year round. Do you want families to use hotels in the summer? Get hardy to help you book some names in said amphitheater. The city transportation needs to become more reliable so we can access all areas of starkville easily. When I would goto school there I didn’t use my car unless I was going home. I at least like how the city is investing in new “festival type weekends”. King crawfish is amazing I try to go and cook in it every year.
Starkville needs residents to spend money when school is out. It needs retail that can draw people from the surrounding areas. It needs a larger bar/club scene for the younger crowd. It needs a medical community. But location is the biggest problem. All that, but it's growing pretty fast.
Starkville is a really nice college town as far as a great place to send your kids, and the local eats are as good as anywhere really- Bar scene isn't bad either. Retail is growing but the price to live in Starkville is astronomical for MS.
Starkville is a really nice college town as far as a great place to send your kids, and the local eats are as good as anywhere really- Bar scene isn't bad either. Retail is growing but the price to live in Starkville is astronomical for MS.
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I know nothing about Oxford hotels, haven't been on their campus or in their town in about 50 years and have no plans to go for another 50.
I do live in Starkville though and there are times that this place is dead and an "upscale hotel on campus" just sounds like a disaster. There are complaints on this board about lack of attendance for basketball, football, and even occasionally baseball. I'm not against it at all, have no reason to be, I'm not in the hotel business. It just makes no sense now.
"Build it and they will come" is easy to say for those that don't have a stake in the building...................
I have not read all 4 pages, but 4 LANE 182.
Seriously, Starkville needs a another through town route to get east and west. Yes, it's not a nice area, NOW. It would be. Give businesses another place to build. There is a 1/2 block area at At Montgomery st that will be an issue,
Where? Tupelo has it's own, south Houston/Amory/Aberdeen folks go there. Columbus has some things, and they used to pull a little of the extreme West Alabama folks due to taxes or something, but again, rural area. After that, what you have? Macon folks? Ackerman? Louisville and Eupora area bout the best you're going to get. Anywhere south of there can just go to Madison/Flowood.
Starkville is going to have to grow itself out of this, where that is Starkville itself or the surrounding immediate areas (East Webster area).
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www.houstonchronicle.com
We have to get direct flights into GTR from Dallas and Houston. But a lot of potential Aggies would wear our maroon. Out of state to MSU is the same as in state at A&M. and we are generous with scholarships....
Marketing matters, but mainly it's just that when we had decades of a bunch of blue haired baptists that essentially wanted to take money from the school but not actually be anything like a college town, they had a town that appreciated the college being there and recognized that embracing the university would make the town better.
That's really the only difference, is time spent encouraging development. They also have an advantage in the fact that they were so small and had a town square that it naturally lended itself to a walkable commercial district, which is actually somehow something of a novelty in the southeast. That made it a little easier to get momentum going and having the university, cotton district, and downtown be arranged in essentially a straight line has been something of a disadvantage for Starkville.
That said, the walking distance from the far end of downtown to Davis Wade or the Hump is less than 1.5 miles. Starkville actually can actually support more development if and when it gets enough momentum. I think the higher education bubble and college sports bubble may pop before it gets there though.
OB's numbers are lower because of politicized redistricting, but the facility is full. There are areas in Olive Branch proper (like Eastover subdivision) that are districted to Desoto Central schools. We can get into why that was done in a different discussion.
Lewisburg is the smallest school in 7a for the same reason the other desoto schools are smallish for 7a - there's five of them in Desoto County - Hernando, DC, Southaven, Horn Lake, and Lewisburg.
Y'all are depressing. It's not complicated. Only five years ago OM had HC Matt Luke, AD Ross Bjork, and some dork chancellor whose name I can't remember. They went 5-7 and 4-8 in 2018 and 2019. Their teams sucked, enrollment was down, oxford was stagnant. Then they hired Kiffin, the football program turned around, enrollment is booming, the town is booming, and everything's great for them. It's the football, stupid.
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