DoubleJayAlum wrote:I can't decide if you are serious and just absolutely clueless or just trolling.
Omaha is not only bigger than Wichita, but because of the white collar nature of the economy (there are very few manufacturing plants here), it is not as subject to the effects of a recession. Based on what I've read in the Wall Street Journal and other places, the airline manufacturers are in a state of decline and laying off workers.
As to work experience, Omaha is the international headquarters for Union Pacific Railroad, Conagra (makers of most of the products on your local grocery store shelves), PayPal, Mutual of Omaha, Omaha Steaks, Gallup, First National Bank (a bank holding company that owns banks throughout the midwest), Godfather's Pizza, TD Ameritrade, Peter Kiewit & Sons, Berkshire Hathaway and many others. Regardless of a student's interest, there are plenty of options for a student looking for experience. As DuBulldog astutely pointed out, one of the richest men in the country, Warren Buffet (a/k/a, the Wizard of Wall Street), the Ricketts family (owners of the Chicago Cubs).
I'd also add that Omaha is the home of the College World Series and paid the costs to cnstruct a brand new baseball stadium for that event, for which Creighton gets to be the primary tenant. Similarly, the city constructed, at the city's expense, an NBA caliber arena that Creighton gets to use to play its home basketball games in. David Sokol, the owner of MidAmerica energy, donated a large portion of the funds to finance the new arena where Creighton's women play their VB and basketball games. Yet another well healed donor recently has offered to fund the construction of a new basketball practice facility which is currently in the design stage. A few years ago, an alum that owns a series of Casinos in Las Vegas gave the university a $20 million dollar donation. Omaha business leaders started coming together over a decade ago to privately donate money to keep Altman at Creighton. Because of all of these things, one could reasonably argue that no single MVC school benefits as much from its relationship with the surrounding city as Creighton does.
I have no doubt that WSU benefits from being located in Wichita. But for you to unequivocally state that WSU has a big advantage over the other Valley schools because of its urban nature only shows that you really don't know much about the other MVC schools or the cities in which they are located.
To be fair, I was not trying to say Wichita is better than the cities of every other school. Like a lot of Wichita State and Creighton fans, I feel like the two schools have a leg up on the other schools for a lot of the same reasons. Please, don't try to make it a Omaha vs Wichita thing, because they really offer a lot of the same advantages. There is a reason Wichita State and Creighton have the largest foundations and the most money in the Valley to spend on athletics.
However, I do believe that Wichita has some unique attributes. These don't affect basketball much, but being the capital of an industry is beneficial for students looking to go into that business. It isn't a coincidence that the largest aviation research institution (NIAR), is located on campus. It isn't a coincidence that the school has high quality engineering facilities and offers business students a lot of opportunities to get connections.
There are things that Omaha is better at, and things that Wichita excels at. An aerospace engineer probably should go to Wichita, while a student looking to study law would be better off at Creighton (especially since Wichita State doesn't more than a "Pre-Law Focus.") Still, Wichita is known as the "Air Capital of the World" for a reason, and that helps the university. I'd don't think you can argue that Wichita State's biggest benefit is anything but the connections it has with the large aviation companies and the Koch brothers, because I think the school would be remarkably different without those connections.
(Also, Wichita does host the National Baseball Congress World Series. Not incredibly notable, but it has had some famous players play, including Satchel Paige, Roger Clemons, and Mark McGuire. I believe that there are about 100 alumni of the tournament playing in the major leagues now. Also, Wichita is noted for being the birthplace of Pizza Hut and White Castle. And speaking of money, the Koch brothers are each worth $31 billion, eclipsing the combined wealth of Buffett and the Ricketts family, and corporations like Boeing are worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion. But again, I am not trying to make this an us vs them argument.)
