Once again, if football was such a driver of academic success, then why is it that the SEC isn't far and away the best academic group, outside of the Ivy League? WHY? Football and sports are a marketing tool, nothing more. What really matters is having people that want to donate to the academic side, which means you can draw in the faculty, and the RESEARCH DOLLARS that really fuel a school's rise. It's not an accident that Stanford hasn't won much of anything in our lifetimes, but are far and away the best private school on the West Coast. WHY? Because they got linked in with Xerox and other Silicon Valley companies in the seventies, and became the incubator of that industry. That money, that RESEARCH money helped them build, because they needed facilities. Stanford was **** good before the bubble, but it got really, really good afterwards.
Had the City of Miami stayed small, the school most likely wouldn't have grown the way it did, even if the football program thrived. The City of Miami growing, and becoming an international city was far more important to the school's rise than 12-13 fall Saturdays.
By the way, I have a BS from Miami(Biology major if you actually wanted to know), as well as my JD. That said, it's obvious that you don't have any **** clue how any world class institution operates. I find it hilarious that you are whining about Dr. Shalala accepting that check. So, she was supposed to know something the FBI and the SEC couldn't nail down? Yep, mouth breathers like yourself would have been beyond ****ed had she NOT accepted the money at the time, because NO ONE KNEW this guy was running a scam. That's how these high level scams are able to operate. Some people may have not liked Shapiro, or suspected something, but not liking someone or suspecting something isn't a reason to turn down money, especially when you are short on funds as is. If that was the case, we'd lose most of our donors overnight, because a lot of them are unlikable as ****, and have made their money in sketchy ways.