If you go back a few months I stated an objection to the Football Foundation's idea that you could work with this current administration to bring back football.

I think it was naive. COMMON SENSE says you do not ask the people who killed football to bring it back.

I will never forget when Kim Reese went on here and said "Don't you worry your pretty little head about this," in the most condescending manner possible to me.

She was the most naive of all. They actually took her job away from her over this, but now they were going to decided they shared her athletic vision after all because of the "Top Men" working on it.

Who were the "Top Men?" Phil Roe- a man running for re-election? Think he's going to start a campaign to remove Paul Stanton?

It would be political suicide.

Diplomacy did not- and would not- work.

It's time to go to war!

How do you suggest this war be conducted.

Its time to face facts and deal with the fact that football won't be at ETSU and that we better focus on ETSU in its current situation and not its situation pre 2003.

The first thing we have to ask ourselves is what we want out of the athletic department.

Do we want to keep things like it is with golf and tennis leading the way and basketball success primarily lying in the weakness of the conference? Will there ever be enough support for baseball to stay in the A-Sun for that sport's sake?

Or do we want to make a bold try to be the next MTSU, the next Marshall, the next South Florida?

Or- the next Gonzaga?

Now, I happen to think it would be a better bet to have football and try to follow the lead of the three schools I mentioned (and Troy. And Florida Atlantic. And Florida International. And Boise State. And . . . you get the picture).

But then again, if ETSU ever could be a 1977 Marquette (and there was the belief that dropping football would make ETSU "Another Marquette") then maybe it would be for the best to fully embrace "basketball school" status.

But the way to do either one of them is-

A- You start the criticism of Stanton and Mullins. THE FIRST THING SHOULD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TO REALIZE THESE TWO WILL GO WHATEVER WAY THE POLITICAL WINDS BLOW.

Stanton stands for the medical department. Mullins stands for tennis. They do not stand for ETSU to compete with Virginia Tech and Tennessee. They stand for our inferiority complex.

Get 'em out. That's the first thing. Don't buy tickets to games. Follow the team on the radio like I do, all while vowing never to buy a Johnson City Honda.

B- You replace them with people who believe big time athletics are important for the University standing within the community and for the Community to be recognized through the country.

C- You distance yourself from the Atlantic Sun. You're in it until 2011 (leading to the obvious question that only I asked- why then you would start a football team up in a non-football conference in 2010?), but it's never going to be where you want to be in the Big Two sports.

That means you don't host the basketball tournament (why didn't we do that in the So Con, by the way, when the arena would hold 14,000?). You don't talk about this great rivalry with Kennesaw State (who are they?).

D- Instead, you start thinking "What does it take to get into, say, the Sun Belt Conference?"

Sun Belt has room for a new member. Sun Belt has 13 schools- nine for football. Sun Belt isn't what it once was, but it's far better than the A-Sun and if you look at enrollment and public-private makeup is a better fit for ETSU.

Same with Conference USA (though there isn't currently a space for ETSU in Conference USA. But maybe someday- we can't predict 2015).

PLAN B IS SIMPLY TO HOLD THE PEOPLE WHO RUINED ETSU ATHLETICS RESPONSIBLE- TO NOT GET INTO PROPAGANDA MODE AND SAY LAST YEAR'S ETSU BASKETBALL TEAM WAS BETTER THAN THE DeCHELLIS TEAMS SO YOU GET COMFORTABLE WITH THE CURRENT SITUATION- AND TO START THINKING OF ETSU AS A SCHOOL WHOSE SIZE, MAKEUP, AND LOCATION MAKES IT A CANDIDATE TO BE AT THE VERY TOP OF THE MID-MAJOR LIST INSTEAD OF THE BOTTOM.