So there are rumors all around campus of how we are going to have a football team of some fashion here at Campbell in the near future. With "Big" on the boards now maybe you can shed some light on this.

From a school that lost football, I sincerely HOPE THAT YOU GUYS GET A PROGRAM GOING, and make sure that you rub our A.D.'s nose in it. Show him and our moron president that you can have a top rate Pharmacy School and a football team if you have any organizational skills.

Campbell fans are invited to talk football on the Pioneer Football League board.

http://pflfan.proboards26.com/

if it going to happen, expect to know over the summer

I HAVEN'T heard anyone say we WON'T add football!!

I wouldn't get your hopes up. Football is a huge financial undertaking even on a non-scholly basis. My guess is that Campbell athletics doesn't support itself as it is. They need to finish fund raising for the convocation center and get it built. The next thing would probably be a new track facility, etc. Basketball is the only revenue sport that they have and you don't make money on 947 seats to sustain the athletic department. If it happens even it will be light years from now. By the way even the Campbell bookstore was selling "Campbell Football" shirts.

Yes, it's expensive. But that's not the whole story.

You would have 100+ tuition-paying football players on campus. They are going to play somewhere: 'might as well have them (and their tuition money) at Campbell. What's annual tuition at Campbell X 100?

These days, male students who meet your academic standards (and are willing to pay private school tuition) are hard to find.

Talk about getting a team after money is raised for the convocation center sounds like bait and switch. I hope Campbell has sincere interest.

The point is that Campbell has bigger things to take care of in the short term (next 5 to 10 years) with their athletic fund raising efforts and completion of projects in the pipe line than putting together a football team.

Rumor hearing:

Mr. Creech, teacher of Business Com said that Campbell is going over a Feasibility and Justification report for a football team. Meaningless way to relate the material or truth?

Football is how you build your program, period. That is the flagship sport in NCAA athletics, though an upgrade to existing facilities would be good first.
Get you're basketball arena built, and get some other new things done, and in the process build football. You have soccer, so ya have a place to play already.

football would not be played on the soccer field.....be patient and you shall find out

4/4/2006 11:02:00 AM Email this article

I wonder what conference they would join. ;-)

Great news. Thanks for posting the article.

People see but they don't believe....

Campbell is getting a football team!

When?

andone Wrote:When?

you will find out soon enough

The Fayetteville newspaper guesses 2008 or 2009. I think that's pretty accurate. In the meantime, they've got to build a facility.

Maybe they could follow Jacksonville's example and play scrimmages a year before the official startup. That would require hiring a coach within the next year and perhaps leasing a high school field for a few games...not that Jacksonville needed anything fancy...

2001 newspaper article follows:

Before JU kicked off its first season in 1998, football coach Steve Gilbert trained 86 players during the fall of '97 in The Valley, a large dip in the campus between the dormitories and Swisher Gym... Only 13 of those players remain on the team...The group responds to the nicknames: Valley Guys, Valley Boys and Valley Dogs.

JU's original 13 rise from dust

By Teneshia L. Wright
Times-Union sports writer

Moments after Jacksonville University's history-making 45-3 victory over third-ranked conference foe Davidson College last Saturday, Queen's rock anthem, We Are the Champions, blared throughout the Dolphins' Milne Field.

But Destiny Child's Grammy-nominated pop hit Survivor probably would have been a more appropriate selection, because it describes how the 13 players left over from the Dolphins' first year of existence feel.

"It was pretty rough," fifth-year JU linebacker Dan Irby said of the training conditions in 1997. "Our locker rooms were the baseball locker rooms. We had to drag the equipment from the baseball field all the way down to The Valley [the original practice field]. It's like a 10-minute walk and, after four days of practice, the grass was dead. It was like a big dust bowl.

Russell Cheatham, a fifth-year cornerback added, "Everyone was covered with dirt, and if it rained, everybody was covered with mud. It was real bad."

They went through all of that without a game in sight or any athletic scholarships to earn at the private university. JU, a non-scholarship team, didn't play its first game until September 1998.

Now, the 13 remaining players are seeing the fruits of their difficult labor. JU (2-0) is ranked No.3 in this week's Division I-AA Mid-Major poll for non-scholarship teams after ending Davidson's nation-leading 18-game win streak and beating its first scholarship team a week earlier. The Dolphins also stand atop the Pioneer Football League's Southern Division.

"It's good to see we finally worked up to something," Cheatham said. "In The Valley, there were just a lot of questions because we didn't know where the program was going."

But players are keeping things in perspective since the program recorded its first-ever victory by beating Davidson on Sept. 12, 1998, before finishing 4-5 in its inaugural season. JU has never had a winning season.

JU coach Steve Gilbert said he had this season in mind when he worked with those 86 players in 1997.

Gilbert trained them in The Valley, a large dip in the campus between the dormitories and Swisher Gym. The team has since moved to a practice field in the new Ashley Sports Complex, and uses a state-of-the-art athletic fieldhouse.

Players used to change in the baseball team's cramped visitors locker room, and dragged the football equipment through the woods to The Valley for practice in the fall of 1997. Once there, they had to share the messy field with fire ants and bugs.

"It was terrible," fifth-year quarterback Gary Cooper said. "I still have scars to this day from the dirt and the rocks that are out there. I call them my battle wounds. It's memories. I have these scars from The Valley."

Cooper got off easily compared to others.

JU trainer Kermit Quisenberry said four players suffered major injuries, including two knee tears, and are no longer with the team. He commended the remaining players.

"I have a lot more respect for them than I have for a lot of other people because they've been through a lot," Quisenberry said. "They practiced when they didn't even have any games to play on Saturday or anybody to perform for and they stuck it out."

Drawing from their experience in The Valley, the original members have developed a fraternity of sorts. They call themselves Valley Boys, Valley Guys and Valley Dogs, although they said the entire team is close.

Original team members Scott Kennedy and David Martin have graduated. Robbie Olson and Jeff Osborne used up their eligibility, and receiver Rico Tillman was murdered prior to last season.

Aside from those five former players, Quisenberry and senior Brett Palmi, an All-American receiver and punt returner, said others may have left for financial reasons, better opportunities or lack of dedication.

"We don't want quitters anyway," Palmi said. "We want the guys that are going to fight to the end, and that's what we have here. We've got a lot of fighters."

Whatever the reasons for staying or leaving, the remaining 13 are glad they stuck around to celebrate the two biggest victories in program history with the hopes of posting their first winning season.

"We're all proud of each other for still being here and just going through all the things we did," Cheatham said, "and we hope this season we can reap some of the benefits of going through everything that we went through."

Got the word from the board.............2008!

And One are you going to be at the press conference?

Wonder....I will be there