>>I think it's no better here - look at your universities. What's the biggest scientific achievement they are proud of? What do they boast with? Their football teams. And how do they pick their best candidate students for the next generation? By intelligence, of course, and the academic success so far - but being a prospective player overrides it all.
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>I think that varies. The schools at the top end of the intellectual scale boast about their Nobel Prize winners much more than their football teams.

It really does vary, as your story confirms. OTOH, I have two daughters studying at VCU, and one of the staff just got the Nobel prize. No big deal - they haven't noticed any big news, notice boards or any significant event about it around the campus. And here in Charlottesville we have the UVA - I really don't know where are they with science. Local papers are full of dispute about their plans to build yet another garage, and there's pages and pages about their staff... namely, the footbal coach. They could probably nominate a total moron to be chief of any science department, and nobody would notice. But if the coach is less then a strategic genius, two pages at least.

This may be the perceived picture as I get it through local papers, but then most of the editors are local alumni.