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Essay: Taking The Next Steps

Originally published Summer 1999)

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.

For established football programs at Notre Dame, Michigan, and Alabama, college football brings in millions of dollars annually in ticket sales, merchandising, and TV revenues. It is a valued part of their college experience. To many other Division I schools, even those playing football, such rewards are only imagined.

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.

A non-scholarship team offers other benefits to a university community. These teams will be academically representative of their class, and compete with their fellow students, not for them. Not only is a non-scholarship program far less costly to a university, such a program attracts quality applicants who want the opportunity to compete at a college level while maintaining their academic pursuits, as well as non-athletes who are also attracted to a well-rounded extracurricular program.

Many smaller schools can point to a tangible increase in enrollment with the addition of football, and not just because of the team itself. In a larger sense, a non-scholarship football program raises the visibility of their school nationwide for providing students the opportunity to excel on the playing field as well as in the classroom. A program without scholarships eliminate a huge chunk of "fixed costs" (grants-in-aid) that add upwards of $2 million a year in costs which must be made up by ticket revenues or through deficit spending. Finally, the absence of as many as 63 additional I-AA scholarships does not upset the balance of men's and women's grants that will be battled in the emerging issue of Title IX and equal access to athletic programs.

You're not going to see such programs in the national spotlight, and no, you won't confuse a program at Siena with one at Syracuse. But what non-scholarship football does offer is opportunity--opportunity for the players to compete, for the coaches to teach, and for the fans to experience the heritage and tradition of college football on their own campuses. These are the kind of shared expeiences that are missing from many schools, and one which could only be enhanced by adding a football program consistent with the goals of a college or university.

Non-scholarship football isn't for every school. But if the alternative is no football at all, it's a choice worth considering.