Two weeks ago, Adam Sparks and Joe Rexrode started tag-teaming Vanderbilt over the issue of a new football stadium. Today, Vanderbilt finally came back with something of a response.
Vanderbilt University is incredibly proud of the on-field and off-field accomplishments of our student athletes, and the coaches and staff who support them. Over the last 10 years, they have won four national championships, 14 conference championships and nine Coach of the Year awards. Our football team has played in five bowl games after a 26-year drought. Last year’s graduating seniors finished their Vanderbilt careers with more than 1,600 total wins, two national championships, eight Conference Championships, 31 postseason appearances, and included 17 All-Americans and 45 all-conference recipients. Academically, our student athletes have earned over a cumulative 3.0 GPA every year for the past 13 years. In the NCAA’s recently released Academic Progress Rates (APR) for the 2016-17 academic year, a total of 11 Commodore athletic programs finished with perfect 1000 APR scores and Vanderbilt football finished #2 in the nation.
All of this achievement is supported by a loyal and dedicated fan base that is critical to our overall success. We will continue to invest in our student athletes and as we contemplate a capital campaign for the university, athletics will be a significant part and will include efforts to raise funds for improvements to athletics programs and facilities, including the football stadium.
This is better than “no comment,” but let’s be real: that last paragraph is a lot of words with no meaning. It’s a lot of legalese to say nothing more than “we’ll think about it.”
Which, again, is better than nothing. That it took two weeks for you to come up with that is, well... not good. There are no specifics, and it’s so noncommittal that if Vanderbilt decides later that it doesn’t want to do anything — well, they just said they’ll think about it.