Hofstra drops football program

I'm not sure how this would fit into this debate, or if it would, but my friends and I talk all the time about how we'd go about choosing a college if we could do it differently. None of us played college sports, obviously, but we all agreed that we'd pick a school based on their athletic programs. A lot of us picked George Mason because it was one of those "far enough away from home, but still pretty close for weekend visits" places. But at GMU, we never got to tailgate on Saturday afternoons. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but it kind of was looking back.

Just sayin...

 

I completely get that, Ryan.

I think athletics are a huge draw for the BCS conference schools, and a handful of other schools like Gonzaga that have used the NCAA Tournament to raise their profile. At a place like Florida or Gonzaga or a few dozen other schools - certainly fewer than 100 - athletics has become part of a brand that acts as a force-multiplier in terms of reputation and fundraising and school identity.

But those schools are such the minority.

 

I applied to Appalachian State and accepted because it did have a football team. I was in marching band in high school, and wanted to continue that in college. I selected ASU over UNC Asheville and Winthrop. Neither have football teams, thus no marching band...and as a result, no expendable. So, yes, a football program can play a major role in where someone goes to school, and where one doesn't.

 

No doubt an athletic program can enhance a school's image, if done right. Butler expressly used a bigger investment in sports, men's basketball in particular, to raise its stature so people outside of Indiana would have heard of it. But the men's basketball program fits the image the school is trying to project: a plucky institution that won't get the best of the best, but gives students the opportunity and resources to work hard and compete with the best.

It is possible to have sports that fit the academic mission of the school -- Notre Dame, for example, where intercollegiate and intramural sports are part of the image it tries to project of excellence in mind, body and soul (and why it's so important for the school to win at football its way.) But in most cases, the athletic tail has long since wagged the dog, and if resources are harder to come by, at many places asking students and general fund money to support something that supports a small percentage of students becomes too much to bear.

 

Two percent is about right, but I ask what other academic club/organization recognized by campus is around two percent of the school. Not many. A study of ETSU would be a good place to see what killing a football team can do to a school. ET had a hell of a marching band when I was in school. But that's now gone, along with the football team and several cheerleaders.

 

Expendable -- as I mentioned earlier, when ETSU students voted on whether to see their $75 athletic fee raised over time to $350 to support the return of football, they turned it down. So you might argue that East Tennessee's students see the disappearance of football as a positive.

In doing a little bit of research, I find that ETSU is setting enrollment records, in part because of an expansion of its pharmacy and health sciences programs, and its first-in-the-nation PhD in sports physiology. One could argue that if ETSU had to keep sinking money into a low-grade D-I football program, it could have never done these things, which are going to have a much greater effect on number and quality of student -- and number and quality of alum -- than the football team ever could.

At least with using basketball as your D-I image enhancer, maybe you don't have the potential to make as much money, but you also don't spend nearly as much money, either.

 

Quality of graduate students, sure. Not so sure about a 18-year-old general college student. ETSU killed its football program because the president of the school didn't like football. Plain and simple.

 

My cousin chose James Madison in large part because of their marching band. And she was in awe of their journalism program, producing such luminaries as ... she's going to JMU for the marching band.

 

Expendable: maybe the ETSU president "hated football," and maybe Hofstra's and Northeastern's did, too. But if there were massive student and alumni support for the program, the president's feelings don't matter -- it stays. What most college presidents like more than anything is collecting large checks from well-heeled alums. They don't do a damn thing that would threaten that. Why do you think Gordon Gee folded the athletic department into the general school structure at Vanderbilt, and not at Ohio State?

Anyway, someone picking a school because they wanted a major-league experience being a fan of school sports was never going to pick ETSU or Hofstra. I'm sure for every students who turns them down on that basis, there are 50 to 100 other applicants who either don't care or are happy their money isn't being spent on something they don't care about.

 

And by the way, ETSU would rather have that grad student than the general 18yo college student. The grad students pay more, study more, research more, and probably make more money eventually. Generally your college's academic prestige comes from your graduate schools, which is why as an undergrad you have to set in a math class with 500 of your closest friends.

 

Most music majors at ASU would rather not be in marching band, but they either have to participate in wind ensemble or marching band (which is needed, given the music school turns out mostly educators).

Oh, and as for the popularity. ETSU football always had to compete with big owarnge, and to a lesser extent Appalachian (a lot of people affiliated with ASU or who hold jobs in Boone live across the line in Tennessee, because it's either cheaper or they can buy fireworks). ET would have drawn better, except for that big airplane hangar it had to play in. And as for alumni support, it takes a while, but a president can slowly work at cutting support the same way he builds it. One donor at a time. Bring in your supporters (many of whom have never stepped foot on campus) who will fund other programs while hacking off the ones who write the checks for athletics. Giving doesn't take a hit, so the board of visitors (many of whom are also new to that position and are on the same page as the president) are happy. Athletics doesn't have the money coming in it used to...have to make cuts. First place is marketing. The fans you did have become less aware of the product and numbers dive. Then, the only logical choice is to cut the big-football, because it's been dragging down the championship tennis team. We'll put that money into the remaining programs....but the remaining programs rarely ever see a dime of it.


I'm sure ET would rather have the grad student. Who wouldn't? But, the university's mission is to educate young men and women of the region it serves. Having medical and law schools is great, but that could, and should be done without turning away from the schools stated mission.

 

I don't think many people go to a school just because they have a football program, but in marketing it's all about getting your brand in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Having a football program, even at smaller schools, can be a great marketing tool.

If you're a high school student and a recruiter talks to you and you've never heard of the school, odds are against you going to that school. If that school has a football program and maybe you remember 10 years ago when you and your dad went to a game that one time they were in the playoffs, or you remember reading about that team some years back in the paper (yes, I read the paper when I was younger) or you saw the local tv news report about that team, you're more apt to give that recruiter the time of day. Athletics can help with marketing your school, particularly football. You can't measure that kind of value.

If you can get 10 percent of your student body, plus the marketing, plus the potential alumni connection it generates, plus the potential (if the team is good) for enhancing overall school spirit, plus the potential tie in to the local community (again, if the team is good), all of these factors lead to football being a benefit, not a drain, on an institution.