This was in a magazine I was handed at work.

Quote:Scoring Big With New Football Teams

In an era when many schools are dropping team sports, a growing number are bucking the trend by taking to the gridiron.

By:Ron Schachter University Business, March 2012

The University of Texas at San Antonio campus is dominated by modern cream-colored buildings with dark red tile roofs and acres of parking lots, testimony to 40 years of serving largely as a commuter school for students from the surrounding area.

But last fall, it was also hard to miss the rectangular color posters attached to almost every lamppost—showing alternately a running back clutching a football, a tight end leaping for a pass reception, close-ups of a marching band, and enthusiastic fans doing the Wave. The pictures represented a low-key advertisement of a big-time endeavor: the first year of a brand new football team aiming to compete among the sport’s Division I elite.

Across the country in Paxton, Massachusetts, meanwhile, anyone turning onto the main drive of much smaller Anna Maria College gets the message that football has come to that campus, thanks to the sprawling new field and gleaming bleachers immediately visible to the right.

And while administrators and coaches at Anna Maria have more modest ambitions for their three-year-old, Division III football team than their counterparts at UTSA, the two schools belong to an expanding phalanx of colleges launching football teams during tough economic times—and realizing considerable returns on their investment, from higher institutional profiles and greater school spirit to new streams of revenue.

Over the past three years, according to the National Football Foundation, 19 new college football teams have taken the field at all levels of competition, including Georgia State University, Lamar University (Texas), and Old Dominion University (Va.). More than a dozen schools will be adding intercollegiate football in the coming three seasons, among them Mercer University (Ga.), The University of New Orleans, and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

“Football’s popularity has never been greater,” notes National Football Foundation President and CEO Steven Hatchell. “And the fact that so many schools are embracing it is a testament that more college administrators see the value of the sport to the student’s overall educational experience.”

UTSA’s Fast Track
Adding football, say administrators at The University of Texas at San Antonio, was a natural in a state where the nation’s top 25 rankings routinely feature such heavyweights as Baylor, Texas A&M, and The University of Texas at Austin. UTSA Athletic Director Lynn Hickey recalls her job interview 12 years ago with school President Ricardo Romo. “He asked, ‘Should we have football?’ and I said, ‘No sir, it would be cost prohibitive.’ But after being here for a year—living in this culture—I knew I had said the wrong thing.”

“San Antonio is the seventh largest city in America. We didn’t have a major college football program or a pro football team,” explains Romo. “What I’ve heard from folks on the streets is, ‘We’ve been waiting for a football program. We’ve been starved.’”

Romo also sees the new football team burnishing UTSA’s status as one of seven schools identified by the state as Tier I universities, which have access to a $600 state fund for expanding research facilities and personnel. “We’re attracting really good scholars. We now have a $3 million endowed chair in medicinal chemistry, and we’ve got three or four outstanding scholars in the field,” he reports. “The vision is to be Tier I in everything, including Tier I in football.”

Along those lines, UTSA hired longtime college football coach Larry Coker, who led the University of Miami (Fla.) to a national championship in the 2001-02 season. And while UTSA’s new team debuted in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division IAA) as part of the Southland Conference, it will advance to the Western Athletic Conference and the more competitive Bowl Championship Subdivision (nee Division IA) next season, playing the likes of Louisiana Tech University and the University of Hawaii.

USTA already boasts a big league home field, San Antonio’s indoor Alamodome, to which more than 56,000 fans flocked for the opening game last September. “It’s a focal point and a source of pride for the university and the city,” Coker says of his new team, nicknamed the Roadrunners.

The Roadrunners finished their inaugural season with a 4-6 won-lost record. But Director of Athletics Lynn Hickey concedes that in the not-too-distant future, USTA’s football teams will be judged on more than how they play the game. “We’re doing this big time,” she emphasizes. “Won-lost records will be important eventually, and that’s going to be a pressure we’ll have to handle.”

Big-Time Expenses
Aspirations of big-time football success come with greater costs than increased pressure. Hickey’s sports budget has soared to more than $14 million annually—almost 12 times greater than when she arrived 12 years ago—in great part due to football and the two women’s sports, golf and soccer, added to maintain a gender balance under Title IX regulations. Moving up to the BCS next season also means increasing the past year’s 60 athletic scholarships to 85.

Any funding for the intercollegiate teams comes from increased student activity fees, ticket revenues, and private donations, says Romo. And while the $425 million university budget endured a $12 million cut this academic year, he continues, “We have different buckets that our money comes out of. There’s not a single dollar coming out of academics for football. We’re one of the few schools that had merit raises for faculty this year.”

Hickey is hoping the new team will do more than hold its own financially. “It costs money for football, but for the first time [at UTSA] a sport can make money,” she says, noting that 12,000 season tickets were sold. To compare, she says, the University of Houston, which finished with a 13-1 record the past season and among the Top 25 in national college football polls, sold 7,000.

Hickey adds that UTSA realized more than $1 million in ticket sales in its first season, with an average home attendance of more than 40,000. Annual student activity fees for the school’s 31,000 students, meanwhile, add up to more than $13 million and are rising over a five-year period through 2013.

“We had the largest turnout for a student election in the Texas University system, and the fee increase passed overwhelmingly,” Hickey says.

UTSA Faculty Senate President Carola Wenk says faculty opinions about football there were initially split. But that has changed for the better. “When I arrived here in 2004, the running joke was that everyone was walking around in the t-shirts of other schools. Now everyone has a UTSA t-shirt. We’ve had an immense increase in school spirit, and in the city as well. My personal banker is saying ‘Go, Roadrunners!’”

“Our value has risen so much because of adding football,” says Hickey. “It brings the other 16 sports with it. We never had a marching band. Now we’ve got 220 kids in beautiful band uniforms.”

UTSA’s athletic department is also building long-term good will by giving away tickets to local children who one day may become USTA undergrads. Romo recalls one recent encounter with a 12-year-old girl and her parents. “The father said that they didn’t know about the college before we started the football team.”

The Division III Advantage
Philip Dubois, chancellor of The University of North Carolina, Charlotte, which is in the process of forming a football program to launch next year, says he’s not expecting the team to make money for the school. “There are perhaps only 20 schools in the entire country that make a profit on football.”

That’s 20 Division I[ital.] schools, Anna Maria College President Jack Calareso might say in response. For Calareso, adding a football team three years ago at this small school less than an hour outside of Boston has meant increasing revenues substantially, but not by the usual means employed by Division I and Division II football-playing institutions.

“When the Board approved our strategic plan in 2007, it called for enrollment growth,” Calareso points out. “How do you grow enrollment? By starting programs.”

Thanks in part to several new graduate programs, Anna Maria’s total student population has risen since then from 900 to more than 1,600. That growth spurt includes 400 additional undergraduates, of whom at least 100 are football players. As a Division III school, Anna Maria does not offer athletic scholarships, although many of its athletes receive other forms of financial aid.

“At the Division III nonscholarship level, enrollment growth means revenue,” Calareso points out. “Here’s the simple math. Figure you have a hundred students who wouldn’t have come here otherwise. Our net tuition revenue averages $15,000 per student. Football generates $1.5 million a year in revenue that we would have never had.”

The football program has funded technology, the library, and new faculty positions, Calareso continues. “The people who took the time to understand the metrics understood that the return on investment was extraordinary. While other schools have been freezing salaries and cutting things, we’ve been giving raises."

Anna Maria converted the grassy expanse near the college entrance to a football field, installed light towers, and added a shiny set of metal bleachers that seat 1,000, although attendance at games has reached as high as 2,500 on Parents Weekend. As with most Division III athletic events, admission is free.

The extreme makeover cost $2 million, the initial supplies and equipment for the new team ran another $110,000, and the annual operating costs come to $255,000, investments that have reaped other kinds of returns, Anna Maria’s administrators insist.

“Many times athletics is the foremost way that students and parents hear about a college,” says Executive Vice President Mary Lou Retelle, who notes that applications continue to rise. “And there’s nothing like a football game on a Saturday afternoon, to see tailgaters out here, a marching band, and all the hoopla. Nothing beats it.”

“At our very first home game,” adds Vice President for Student Affairs Andrew Klein, “a senior came up to me and said, ‘Thanks for bringing football to us.’”

The only order of business that remained was winning a game, which Anna Maria took two-and-a-half years to accomplish, with a 35-33 victory over rival Becker College in November.

Ron Schachter is a Boston-based writer who covers sports for National Public Radio.

http://www.universitybusiness.com/articl...ball-teams

Linked from the same page

Quote:Getting Ready for the Opening Kick: UNC Charlotte
A New Team, and Stadium, in North Carolina

By:Ron Schachter .University Business, March 2012

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte could well claim kinship with The University of Texas at San Antonio as a large (about 25,000 students), relatively young school on the outskirts of a growing American city, with a mission of putting itself more prominently on the regional map and building school spirit in the process. The school is building a football team of its own—and an on-campus stadium—in preparation for the 2013 season.

“The football program to me is a piece of marketing to the university and giving students a full-blown college experience without going away on weekends,” explains Mac Everett, the former chairman of UNC Charlotte’s Board of Trustees, who also chaired the school’s football feasibility study in 2007.

“It’s also been very difficult over the years to tie the university to the city and to gain the city’s ownership of our university. Because of UNC Charlotte’s young age, our alumni have just begun to get into leadership positions in our community.”

Similar to UTSA, the football program will be funded through: annual student fees, ticket sales and seat licenses, and private donations to defray the $6 million start-up cost for the team and its continuing operation. The $46 million stadium—which is under construction and will seat 15,000 but is expandable to 40,000—is being financed through a bond issue.

As for tackling these projects in a flagging economy, Everett insists that there’s no time like the present. “There would never be a time when the money to start a football program would be readily available,” he says. “To reduce it to a discussion of finances misses the chance to develop the larger vision of the university.”

UNC Chancellor Philip Dubois agrees that there’s more than the bottom line at stake. “Looking down the road 20 to 25 years, how would the university compare to the institutions with which we’d like to be compared? We’d be one of the biggest institutions without football,” he concludes.

Over the past 15 years, Dubois point out, UNC Charlotte has transitioned from a largely commuter college to a more residential student body, “and they’ve been clamoring for more college activities.” He adds that the current climate of low interest rates has created favorable conditions for financing the new stadium. “At under four percent, that’s almost free money to us. I think the stars are properly aligned.”

The football team will debut in August 2013 unaffiliated with any conference in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision. When, and if, UNC Charlotte moves to the Football Championship Subdivision remains to be determined, says UNC Charlotte Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Judy Rose, who admits that the challenges of hosting games at the school’s own stadium will rival those of any big time program.

The football team’s preseason spring game in 2013 will serve as the testing ground for operational logistics, Jones says. “The one big takeaway from visiting other schools that had started football programs was that football will expose every weakness, whether you don’t have enough change at the concession stands, or the parking is a mess.”

http://www.universitybusiness.com/articl...-charlotte

This is great! So how are WE going to make this happen?

And if any of you boys (or women) are voting for Ron Paul, you better not be on this band wagon! Because deficit spending is something ETSU would have to do before this is going to happen. I'm assuming you're all comfortable with that, because that's precisely what's happening at all of the schools making this happen in these articles.

I'm all for it. Where's the money?

(03-09-2012 11:02 PM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  This is great! So how are WE going to make this happen?

And if any of you boys (or women) are voting for Ron Paul, you better not be on this band wagon! Because deficit spending is something ETSU would have to do before this is going to happen. I'm assuming you're all comfortable with that, because that's precisely what's happening at all of the schools making this happen in these articles.

I'm all for it. Where's the money?

All of these schools know it is in their best financial and other interests to play football. They are not run by a pack of idiots like has been at ETSU. Times are a-changing.

(03-09-2012 11:02 PM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  This is great! So how are WE going to make this happen?

And if any of you boys (or women) are voting for Ron Paul, you better not be on this band wagon! Because deficit spending is something ETSU would have to do before this is going to happen. I'm assuming you're all comfortable with that, because that's precisely what's happening at all of the schools making this happen in these articles.

I'm all for it. Where's the money?

No, it's "show me the money" -- you know that witty Dave Mullins saying.

Oh, where's the money? Start with that $11 million a year ETSU athletic budget - larger than the athletic budget at Georgia Southern and larger than all but one of the other FCS state schools in Tennessee. You know, the money that was stolen from football in 2003 and significantly increased, mostly on the backs of students, over these past nine years. Reverse redistribution would be a good starting point since the original Stanton/Mullins redistribution model didn't work out very well.

Indeed 66. Indeed.

I think it's pretty funny when you guys say 'money was stolen from football' when football was losing money hand over fist.

Regardless, I'm still waiting on that illustrious plan to be hatched on this message board which supposedly drives the media. Been asking for that for about 5 years. I think Gold told me there's been numerous plans, but I haven't seen a one. I suppose he may have it confused with Kennesaw since he 'roots' for the Owls now.

Need some donors.

I still need it explained to me how a "financially strapped" university like ETSU could start a division 1 soccer program from scratch. There seems to have been plenty of money for what Mullins wanted. Funny. Also need it explain how every other peer university in Tennessee can easily play FCS football with no financial problem. Austin Peay and Tenn Tech have schlorship football with all the other sports funded and all of their NCAA requirements fully met and complied with. Funny. Also these peer schools have smaller enrollments than ETSU and yet have no problem playing football. Funny. Also their overall athletic budgets are less than ETSU WITH football. Funny. So funny we need a steam cleaning of the athletic department. It is not funny anymore.

(03-10-2012 06:43 PM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  I think it's pretty funny when you guys say 'money was stolen from football' when football was losing money hand over fist.

Regardless, I'm still waiting on that illustrious plan to be hatched on this message board which supposedly drives the media. Been asking for that for about 5 years. I think Gold told me there's been numerous plans, but I haven't seen a one. I suppose he may have it confused with Kennesaw since he 'roots' for the Owls now.

Need some donors.

The plan will not be "hatched on this message board". The "plan" will be revealed after its already been decided upon. Much like the plans for the soccer stadium, the softball stadium, the baseball stadium, the new dorms, the clock tower, the parking garage, the fountain and the rotary were. All these are great projects, football will be too. Dr. Noland doesn't have his head in the sand.

(03-10-2012 06:43 PM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  I think it's pretty funny when you guys say 'money was stolen from football' when football was losing money hand over fist.

Regardless, I'm still waiting on that illustrious plan to be hatched on this message board which supposedly drives the media. Been asking for that for about 5 years. I think Gold told me there's been numerous plans, but I haven't seen a one. I suppose he may have it confused with Kennesaw since he 'roots' for the Owls now.

Need some donors.

And this present Stanton/Mullins athletic model isn't "losing money hand over fist"? "Losing money" has been the favorite line from you folks since football was dropped. It's always been a phony argument (a lie) since you never get around to pointing out that where this subsidy for football was redistributed (with a lot more subsidies added to that) is now losing more money on a subsidy vs revenue ratio because much of it was shifted to sports that do not generate revenue. Which, of course, means it was shifted to sports that DO NOT bring more fans to ETSU athletic events.

It's real basic. All these other football start up schools get it. And, all the other established football programs at state regional universities get it and didn't follow ETSU's lead. Why doesn't ETSU get it? If you're going to pay to play, that is run a highly subsidized athletic program, you better offer sports that have the best chance of offsetting the subsidies as much as possible and get the most fans as possible to your athletic events. That, obviously, starts with football.

It is REAL BASIC?

Then why the hell are college football teams (in the top 2 NCAA divisions) in Tennessee (not counting the Vols) a combined 29-50 last year??? Do they really have it all figured out? In 2010, they were a game worse, at 28-51.

So yes, they are FIELDING a team, but that's about it. Oh yes, Tennessee Tech made the playoffs this year, for the first time since 1976. They went out, not shockingly, in the first round.

I'm all for having a football team that wins, at least sometimes, or at least has the chance to win. I would say based on the funding model we have in this state, we can field a team, but it's chance of winning is abysmal, which was proven when they existed. Either the funding model has to change or the amount of private money pumped into it has to change for it even to have a chance.

They seem to be working to improve. TTU, UT-C, and yes even TSU are doing things to better their results on the field. Memphis is trying to, we'll see how it plays out down there. MTSU until this year had been going to bowls yearly, Martin, and Peay are bad. Tusculum/Carson Newman normally are good programs but struggled for various reasons last year.
We've said all along the funding model at ETSU doesn't work. What are they spending 11 million a year on?

(03-12-2012 10:57 AM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  It is REAL BASIC?

Then why the hell are college football teams (in the top 2 NCAA divisions) in Tennessee (not counting the Vols) a combined 29-50 last year??? Do they really have it all figured out? In 2010, they were a game worse, at 28-51.

So yes, they are FIELDING a team, but that's about it. Oh yes, Tennessee Tech made the playoffs this year, for the first time since 1976. They went out, not shockingly, in the first round.

I'm all for having a football team that wins, at least sometimes, or at least has the chance to win. I would say based on the funding model we have in this state, we can field a team, but it's chance of winning is abysmal, which was proven when they existed. Either the funding model has to change or the amount of private money pumped into it has to change for it even to have a chance.

How do you survive with so much sand filling every orifice?

(03-12-2012 10:57 AM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  It is REAL BASIC?

Then why the hell are college football teams (in the top 2 NCAA divisions) in Tennessee (not counting the Vols) a combined 29-50 last year??? Do they really have it all figured out? In 2010, they were a game worse, at 28-51.

So yes, they are FIELDING a team, but that's about it. Oh yes, Tennessee Tech made the playoffs this year, for the first time since 1976. They went out, not shockingly, in the first round.

I'm all for having a football team that wins, at least sometimes, or at least has the chance to win. I would say based on the funding model we have in this state, we can field a team, but it's chance of winning is abysmal, which was proven when they existed. Either the funding model has to change or the amount of private money pumped into it has to change for it even to have a chance.

Go,
There you go again, changing the subject. Let's try it this way. I'll ask you some questions and request that you to specifically answer each one:

(1) What is your definition of "losing money" at the mid-major college athletic level?
(2) Is this Stanton/Mullins athletic model at ETSU generating more revenue on a subsidy vs. revenue ratio than when there was football in the sports lineup?
(3) Is this Stanton/Mullins model bringing more total fans to ETSU athletic events than when there was football?
(4) In your opinion, why have NO other state regional universities in the nation adopted the Stanton/Mullins athletic model?
(5) What sports lineup for the highly subsidized ETSU athletic program, in your opinion, has the best chance of generating the most revenue to help offset the subsidies?
(6) In your opinion, what sports lineup has the best chance of bringing the most total fans possible to ETSU athletic events?
(7) Finally, was ETSU football dropped due to "losing money" or in order to help fully fund the minor sports by shifting the football subsidy to them?

Look forward to hearing from you.

(03-12-2012 10:57 AM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  It is REAL BASIC?

Then why the hell are college football teams (in the top 2 NCAA divisions) in Tennessee (not counting the Vols) a combined 29-50 last year??? Do they really have it all figured out? In 2010, they were a game worse, at 28-51.

So yes, they are FIELDING a team, but that's about it. Oh yes, Tennessee Tech made the playoffs this year, for the first time since 1976. They went out, not shockingly, in the first round.

I'm all for having a football team that wins, at least sometimes, or at least has the chance to win. I would say based on the funding model we have in this state, we can field a team, but it's chance of winning is abysmal, which was proven when they existed. Either the funding model has to change or the amount of private money pumped into it has to change for it even to have a chance.

Should those other schools that are a combined 29-50 drop their football programs?

The questions to ask are:

Why haven't those schools dropped their programs but instead added scholarships (Austin Peay), and upgraded facilities (UT-C, Tenn. Tech, MTSU) since 2003?

Why have so many schools ADDED scholarship football at all levels, even the beloved College of St. Scholastica, which at one point was a school for NUNS, or the University of New Orleans, who was hit so hard by Katrina they were at point discussing dropping athletics altogether before saying D-3, then D-2, and now are not only remaining D-1, but adding scholarship football which per NCAA rules will at a minimum be Division I FCS?
The "it wasn't right for ETSU" mentality is just a little backwards when it was right for all these programs who have added the sport to improve their schools' curb appeal, less a couple of private northeastern schools and a cash strapped school that doesn't graduate anybody in West Virginia.

I love crap like this, because it's so beating a dead horse.

'66 - You're right, I did "change" the subject. I changed the subject to something critical: WINNING. What blows me away is that all you guys seem to want is to have a football team, as compared to having a winning football team.

A program losing money is one that spends more money than it brings in. How much money was football bringing in with their paltry attendance numbers and medicore performance? I don't know what the subsidy/revenue ratio is, but in terms of bringing more total fans to events: Of course. ETSU is fielding more sports now for one thing, and these other sports are winning at a better rate than they were pre-football. Baseball set a record for wins last year. Men's basketball has been to the post-season 4 times in the past 8 years. I know - the Bucs went to the tournament 4 straight years from 88-92, but that team dive bombed after and didn't really full recover until the early part of this decade.

Certainly when you look @ men's basketball attendance, attendance follows success of the teams, because the low point in attendance over the past 20 years was in 1998 (when we had football), and the high point since the glory years of 1989-93 is 2006/2007. So the attendance argument doesn't work. In terms of questions 5 & 6, bring back football to increase fan attendance, I'm for that. However, bring it back and give it proper support to WIN so you can maintain it.

THAT WAS MY POINT: Why are these football teams in Tennessee not winning? Fielding a team? Yes. But for the most part they are not winning, and you have to win to put butts in the seats. I mean, look @ other states at least in our region, and most of those states contain at least some I-AA programs that are winning, or are winning at a better rate than schools in TN. Why is that? I'm not being saracastic - I'm really asking the question: Why is that?

Certainly, if ETSU brings back football, obviously the first couple of years we would assume they wouldn't win, and I'm willing to be patient. But the new program needs to be properly supported. Build a nice venue, put it outside, and promote the crap out of it.

Our first priority is restoring our football program back on campus and giving the opportunities to student athletes that are now being denied. The same goes to band members. ETSU is currently the only state school without a marching band. Stop that first and then we can work on improving the programs to winners and making the playoffs. Those will be goals every year and if we do not then we can boost our fund raising and marketing to get the program winning again. Like all the other state schools do. If they do not win they usually fire the coach and go in a different direction to improve the team. Right now we have absolutely nothing to work on and to improve. Nothing. If winning were the only criterion then half the teams in America would cancel football but they DO NOT. They work harder to win. I think Dr. Noland will be shocked to see the campus of ETSU on Sept 1st when all of his peer schools in Tennessee will be kicking off and ETSU will have a dead campus with nothing to do but toss frisbees. Hopefully this will be the last year of this embarrassment.We can then start working together to make the team a winner. But you have to have a team first to make it a winner.

81: Schools in TN are NOT doing that - making the program a winner. That's my point: They are NOT winning. Simply firing the coach and going in a different direction is not working in these cases. WHY are they losing? I ask this to everyone. Is it just financial or something more?

If you bring it back, it has to be a whole lot different, and with the population base and financial base you have here, you have to provide a lot of support. It can be done, but it's moving mountains, which is changing the way people think about ETSU as a whole. However, I think support needs to improve across the board in all sports, and I'm just not convinced that will happen for any sport with the current culture. I mean: Look at some of these mid-major programs that are winning in basketball, for example, like Creighton, Wichita State, Gonzaga, Butler -- I know none of those guys field a football team, but they average a whole lot more per game than we do in basketball. Creighton I think averages over 10,000 a game. VCU is another one that does field a decent football team and is winning. We need to emulate some of these programs. What are they doing and why is it working?

FYI: ETSU's "dead" campus in the fall of 2013 has about 4,000 more students enrolled than it did in 2003 when football was dropped.

(03-15-2012 08:38 AM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  81: Schools in TN are NOT doing that - making the program a winner. That's my point: They are NOT winning. Simply firing the coach and going in a different direction is not working in these cases. WHY are they losing? I ask this to everyone. Is it just financial or something more?

If you bring it back, it has to be a whole lot different, and with the population base and financial base you have here, you have to provide a lot of support. It can be done, but it's moving mountains, which is changing the way people think about ETSU as a whole. However, I think support needs to improve across the board in all sports, and I'm just not convinced that will happen for any sport with the current culture. I mean: Look at some of these mid-major programs that are winning in basketball, for example, like Creighton, Wichita State, Gonzaga, Butler -- I know none of those guys field a football team, but they average a whole lot more per game than we do in basketball. Creighton I think averages over 10,000 a game. VCU is another one that does field a decent football team and is winning. We need to emulate some of these programs. What are they doing and why is it working?

FYI: ETSU's "dead" campus in the fall of 2013 has about 4,000 more students enrolled than it did in 2003 when football was dropped.

Yes 4000 more students with nothing to do but toss frisbees. A dead campus with lots of students. All the othe schools have football for a reason. Because they are not run by idiots. You cannot improve a team if you do not have a team. The solution is to get a team and work hard to improve it. Not stick your head in the sand and act like the most popular sport in the South does not exist. We will never be a Creighton but we CAN be a Murray State. Let's do it.