- 26,276
- Houston, Texas, USA
- JMarine25
This isn't a question, but something based on something I read maybe a month or two ago. These days, if you follow college basketball, you may remember some popular names. Especially in Big East basketball, some of you may know about Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, and Saint Joseph's. Places such as these don't have a program for football. If you read my weekly reports of college football scores, you may have seen all sorts of teams with a prescence in college basketball. Examples of such teams include Georgetown, Florida A&M, Southern Illinois, San Diego, Robert Morris, and even Northern Iowa. In terms of other schools involved in football or never had such a program, these include St. John's, St. Josephs, Gonzaga, Marquette, North Carolina-Charlotte, Texas-San Antonio, Lamar University (Beaumont, TX), Pepperdine, and Vermont among MANY others. Some schools have either had programs in the past and was ditched, or never had any at all. To prove my point on why there aren't as many programs, here are some long excerpts from what a Georgetown University student typed in an essay back in 1999:
from: (no real website as of now, may update in the future)
"It's no secret that football is an expensive sport at the Division I level, so much so that nearly one-third of the Division I membership does not offer the sport at all to its students. There is no football at well-known schools like Providence, Marquette, George Washington, Seton Hall, or Wichita State. Each of these schools dropped the sport many years ago, while younger schools, such as UNC-Charlotte and New Orleans, never sponsored it at all.
To compete at the highest levels of the sport is now a multi-million dollar investment. In its last year of college football before dropping the sport, the University of the Pacific spent nearly $2.8 million in expenses to compete--that's over $1,000 for every student on the campus! Even with generating over $1 million for the program, the numbers didn't add up Pacific joined a growing number of West Coast schools--Long Beach, Fullerton, and Santa Clara--that have walked away from the sport. This is not an argument against Division I-A football. Indeed, there are
schools who have maximized the ability to raise the interest and support of its schools through scholarship football, and neither alter nor damage their academic status as a result. Others have realized that there are significant costs and have made plans to deal with it proactively-- the University of South Florida, for example, announced it will raise $10 million just to start their program in 1997, with expectations of joining Division I-A within five years. But while major college programs can bring in large sums of money with huge fan bases and major TV contracts, but smaller schools, especially private schools and second-tier state institutions, cannot. For those schools which have dropped football programs or hesitate to sponsor football at all, there is another way.
As a result of NCAA restructuring after the 1992 season, Division I schools playing football must either play in Division I-A or I-AA. Of the 27 schools directly affected by this decision, one moved to I-A (Alabama-Birmingham), one dropped the sport (Santa Clara) and 25 moved to I-AA. Rather than try to battle with more scholarships and more money, these schools maintained their programs and sought to build from within rather than trying to become the next Notre Dame or Nebraska. From this change came three new I-AA football conferences--the Metro Atlantic, the Northeast, and the Pioneer, to join the Ivy and Patriot Leagues in providing competitive Division I-AA football without the high cost of athletic scholarships. At these and other schools, including the Ivy League, football players receive the same need-based financial aid available to any other student, without regard to athletic ability. These students compete not for television audiences or for a pro contract,
but for the fun of the game itself."
GTPlanet, do you think more universities and colleges should get a chance to have legit football teams, even considering the ones who been in the sport and left? What could be the advantages and disadvantages for more colleges and universities to join the football ranks? Here are two main points I'd like to suggest. (1) There is a special exception to basketball-only colleges and universities. The biggest example is Fairleigh Dickinson University in Florham, New Jersey. The FDU Knights have a Division 1 basketball program. However, the College at Florham is on the FDU campus, and the FDU College at Florham is home to a Division 3 football program, with the FDU College at Florham Devils. (2) San Antonio has the AlamoDome, but I do not know a single team that plays there. You normally see it for the Alamo Bowl, but the Div 1 basketball school close by is Texas-San Antonio. Again, no football team or no fully-funded scholarship team.
GTPlanet, what do you think about all of this?
from: (no real website as of now, may update in the future)
"It's no secret that football is an expensive sport at the Division I level, so much so that nearly one-third of the Division I membership does not offer the sport at all to its students. There is no football at well-known schools like Providence, Marquette, George Washington, Seton Hall, or Wichita State. Each of these schools dropped the sport many years ago, while younger schools, such as UNC-Charlotte and New Orleans, never sponsored it at all.
To compete at the highest levels of the sport is now a multi-million dollar investment. In its last year of college football before dropping the sport, the University of the Pacific spent nearly $2.8 million in expenses to compete--that's over $1,000 for every student on the campus! Even with generating over $1 million for the program, the numbers didn't add up Pacific joined a growing number of West Coast schools--Long Beach, Fullerton, and Santa Clara--that have walked away from the sport. This is not an argument against Division I-A football. Indeed, there are
schools who have maximized the ability to raise the interest and support of its schools through scholarship football, and neither alter nor damage their academic status as a result. Others have realized that there are significant costs and have made plans to deal with it proactively-- the University of South Florida, for example, announced it will raise $10 million just to start their program in 1997, with expectations of joining Division I-A within five years. But while major college programs can bring in large sums of money with huge fan bases and major TV contracts, but smaller schools, especially private schools and second-tier state institutions, cannot. For those schools which have dropped football programs or hesitate to sponsor football at all, there is another way.
As a result of NCAA restructuring after the 1992 season, Division I schools playing football must either play in Division I-A or I-AA. Of the 27 schools directly affected by this decision, one moved to I-A (Alabama-Birmingham), one dropped the sport (Santa Clara) and 25 moved to I-AA. Rather than try to battle with more scholarships and more money, these schools maintained their programs and sought to build from within rather than trying to become the next Notre Dame or Nebraska. From this change came three new I-AA football conferences--the Metro Atlantic, the Northeast, and the Pioneer, to join the Ivy and Patriot Leagues in providing competitive Division I-AA football without the high cost of athletic scholarships. At these and other schools, including the Ivy League, football players receive the same need-based financial aid available to any other student, without regard to athletic ability. These students compete not for television audiences or for a pro contract,
but for the fun of the game itself."
GTPlanet, do you think more universities and colleges should get a chance to have legit football teams, even considering the ones who been in the sport and left? What could be the advantages and disadvantages for more colleges and universities to join the football ranks? Here are two main points I'd like to suggest. (1) There is a special exception to basketball-only colleges and universities. The biggest example is Fairleigh Dickinson University in Florham, New Jersey. The FDU Knights have a Division 1 basketball program. However, the College at Florham is on the FDU campus, and the FDU College at Florham is home to a Division 3 football program, with the FDU College at Florham Devils. (2) San Antonio has the AlamoDome, but I do not know a single team that plays there. You normally see it for the Alamo Bowl, but the Div 1 basketball school close by is Texas-San Antonio. Again, no football team or no fully-funded scholarship team.
GTPlanet, what do you think about all of this?
