Boston Globe Article On NE Football

[AustinHoya03]

I hesitate to post this here, but here it goes:

www.boston.com/yourtown/brookline/articles/2010/10/03/yes_theres_life_after_football/?page=full

[TrueHoyaBlue]

[pulls pin, tosses grenade]... tick tick tick tick tick tick...

[rosslynhoya]

It's a really well written article and I hope that Jack, the new AD, and everyone who cares about Georgetown football will read it carefully.

One thing to distinguish Georgetown from the schools that have dropped football, of course, is that we've been running our program on the cheap (i.e., $1.5M per year instead of the $3M that NEU was spending). We're not investing a lot of money into a stadium and thanks to lacrosse, the MSF isn't going anywhere even if football's gone. We don't have a slate of scholarships to simply transfer to other deserving students, and if my understanding of the PL academic indexing is at all close to correct, it's not like we'd see an influx of more academically meritorious students in the student body in lieu of incoming football recruits.

Most importantly, the fundamental assumption of this essay is that the money spent on FCS football can be better spent by the University president elsewhere, and that BU and NEU prove it. As anyone who's experienced Georgetown will attest however, the savings from cutting football here are more likely to be spent on magic beans.

The article is still a very good read though.

[The Stig]

Another important factor with BU and Northeastern is the fact that they had another flagship sport that the student body could unite around (hockey in both cases). Georgetown certainly meets that criteria with basketball.

That factor also connects to rosslynhoya's last point, which I agree is very important. When BU cut football, they followed it up with a huge investment in their other sports. If Georgetown were to drop football, then immediately turn around and build a new basketball practice facility, I don't think too many folks here would complain. But would that happen? I doubt it. Of course, in an ideal world we'd have a new practice facility AND a winning football team.

One big difference to note is the apparent lack of interest in football that BU had even when they were winning. I think there's still an appetite for a winning football team at Georgetown. If we had a team that was fun to watch and was competitive every year, I think the MSF would be bursting at the seams every week and nobody would be talking about cutting the team. BU played in front of 18,000 empty seats even during an undefeated season.

[DFW HOYA]

The issues facing Boston University, Northeastern, and Georgetown are somewhat disparate.

Boston University played good football, it had a creditable if old stadium, and drew well for a I-AA school (5,612 a game in the last season before it was cut). What BU faced was the visceral hatred of football from school president/chancellor John Silber dating back to his days as dean of the University of Texas (when his public criticism that UT was spending too much on football got him a bus ticket out of town).

Silber cut that team out of spite and BU athletics isn't any better than it was in 1997--it's still hockey and everyone else. As to facilities, the Agannis Center was not built on football's savings, but was a huge cost overrun common to Hub projects (the arena and dorm construction budget reached over $325 million, necessitating a major donation from John Hancock & Co.) and basketball was never supported by Silber enough to make a go of it.

The year BU dropped football, the Terriers drew 1,229 a game at the 1,800 seat Case Gym. Now, in the 7,000 seat Agannis Center, it draws just 956 a game. But this was the same Silber who justified dropping football at BU saying "they don't play football at the Sorbonne."

Northeastern was never very good in football but fell victim to a city power-play on a new stadium. NE's stadium, Parsons Field, was even worse than MSF, located two miles from campus in a residential neighborhood where errant kicks could land in someone's back yard. Parsons had maybe 1,000 permanent seats (the stands went only six rows up) and they stacked 5,000 temporary seats across the field for football every fall and took them down for baseball season. Northeastern (drawing under 1,500 per game by this point) attempted to move games to White Stadium, a 20,000 seat high school field in a rougher part of town, but when the Mayor's office pulled funding for a renovation it gave them cover to drop the team. Playing in the CAA, where football budgets approach $5 million a year, didn't help either.

Both schools could have fit the PL criteria but neither was (or is) interested, as the PL can't attract any new members to its philosophy. The cost of scholarships was a contributing role to each school's slippery slope, but it wasn't the only issue.

[derhoya]

Oct 12, 2010 13:28:30 GMT -5 The Stig said:

If Georgetown were to drop football, then immediately turn around and build a new basketball practice facility, I don't think too many folks here would complain.

Ya, I wouldn't complain (too much), I'd just completely purge any memories on where I was from 2003-2007. Bunny suit and all.

But luckily things of that order won't happen, and thanks to DFW to add further context to that article.

[thebin]

Trade in football for a practice facility? Practice? Practice? We talking about practice??
I don't want football to go anywhere by any means, but can we please make the hypothetical trade-off a full blown on-campus facility with 7-8K seats plus? Practice......

[The Stig]

Like I said, the football for practice facility "trade" is a pure hypothetical. Let's face it, if the current GU administration cut football, the money currently used to fund football would just disappear into thin air.

The point I was trying to make was that I think cutting football would be acceptable if it were part of a larger cohesive long-term plan to make substantial investments in Georgetown athletics, as was the case at BU (at least according to the article, DFW obviously disagrees). However, asking Georgetown to make a long-term plan on anything related to athletics seems to be asking too much, unless it involves paying a failed former coach for a very long term (when does Esherick comes off the books?).

[Jack]

Oct 13, 2010 10:09:25 GMT -5 The Stig said:

(when does Esherick comes off the books?).

I seem to recall him mentioning something about another 30 years. Did that not come to pass?

[TC]

Oct 13, 2010 10:44:51 GMT -5 Jack said:

Oct 13, 2010 10:09:25 GMT -5 The Stig said:

(when does Esherick comes off the books?).

I seem to recall him mentioning something about another 30 years. Did that not come to pass?

Unfortunately for Esh, I don't think he has Bobby Bonilla's agent.