Astros, UHCL face growing pains

Cody Hardin
The Signal
Folks, brace yourselves because this may be the only coverage that The Signal gives the Astros this year.

In a few words, they’re terrible.

Now that that’s out of the way, as bad as the Astros may be, they’re in the middle of a large turning point in the franchise as Major League Baseball seeks to move them from the National League to the highly touted and star-studded American League.

Soon-to-be new owner Jim Crane and Astros players  have met the suggestion with opposition publicly, but the underlying question remains: Would change be a bad thing?

A move to the AL could signify many things for the Astros, with the biggest result being a possible rise in attendance due to facing new teams. Every year, teams such as the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox come into town for inter-league play, and every year they draw in sellout crowds, no matter how bad the Astros are doing.

Similarly, UHCL is being faced with its own expansion, with the passage of legislation allowing for freshman-and sophomore-level classes to be offered as early as the fall 2014 semester. While it remains to be seen if budget cuts will delay this expansion, is it the best thing for the school, even if it were to be implemented in, oh say, three years from now?

Where the situation with the Astros makes perfect sense, it seems to me that downward expansion makes little sense at all, especially in the current economic climate.

Now don’t be mistaken, I’m brimming with school spirit. If we had a mascot, or say, a team sport, count me in for a pre-order for a hat or T-shirt. I just don’t see why downward expansion is necessary now or in the near future.

Allowing freshmen and sophomores to enroll would put UHCL in competition with community colleges for those same students, whom without a mascot or even a strong intramural sports community, would have little reason to pay higher tuition when 10 minutes away they can get the same results. These colleges also offer other programs that UHCL doesn’t bring to the table, such as music and theater.

Speaking of tables, in addition to the need for a bigger parking lot and office space for the new faculty we’ll need to hire to teach these lower-level courses, how are we to feed these students? As it stands, UHCL currently only offers Montague’s Deli. If this were to be the only meal option available to those freshmen living in student housing, then UHCL is looking at a hard sell not only for those students, but for the parents sending them as well.

I get that budgets are tighter than ever, so let’s work with what we have and build UHCL  to become a stronger higher-level school, then start planting the seeds for downward expansion. Students need a reason to come here, so give them one in the form of diversity. This could be done by simply tweaking current programs we have and using our existing resources to make a newer, exciting curriculum out of them.

As it stands, the question to ask is simply why should a student come here, and what about us is going to make students continue to come? Let’s find that answer, and then make sure every prospective student in the area knows.

Do I think eventually we’ll make a desirable four-year university? Absolutely, but let’s solve our current issues right now and then make the big push.

As far as the Astros go? They’ve got the facilities, they’ve got the fan base, and sure, the team is more than likely to get demolished for a bit, but all it’ll take is one Cinderella year for fans to get behind them. Everyone loves an underdog, and the Astros have the potential to be the ultimate dark horse team.

It’s a gamble that Crane must take to keep the Astros relevant. It’s also a gamble that UHCL must take to build its own relevance.  As far as I’m concerned, my money’s on red, blue and green.