<p>" Do you think that the tour guides at Eureka back in 1981 should have refrained from mentioning their famous graduate because he “hadn’t actually done anything yet”?</p>
<p>Ah, by 1981, Reagan had been a movie star and a successful multi-term governor of our most populous state. That’s hardly nothing, and quite a bit more than being a first-term US Senator who hadn’t accomplished anything in that role.</p>
<p>People are confusing the boost in fame and awareness from a Flutie-type incident with actually wanting to go there directly BECAUSE of it. Flutie’s game-winning pass (which is still shown in highlight shows on sports networks to this day) made some people (who hadn’t heard of it) aware that BC existed, helped others finally get something tangible to distinguish it from Boston University, and made others aware that BC’s sports were not a joke, as nearly every other New England college’s programs infamously were (this was before UConn basketball got big).</p>
<p>By the way, I get the BC alumni magazine and email, and when John Kerry was running for President, I don’t recall any mention of him having gone to BC for his law degree. There was never any mention of it on the television news, either. It was all Yale Yale Yale (where he went as an undergrad). Think of how often we heard of the Clintons going to Yale Law, and of Obama going to Harvard Law. Kerry went to law school too, but never any mention of where.</p>