Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sports, In this Issue...

Football fever spreading

GSU readies for kickoff as Charlotte tests the waters 

By Fulton Shelley

With regards to the insanely popular sport of college football, the question for schools without teams in recent years has been: to play or not to play? In the span of just a few days earlier this month, two Southern universities located in thriving metropolises further drop-kicked conflicting views on whether life is better getting in the game, or standing on the sidelines.

For Georgia State, the announcement of Bill Curry as the school’s first head coach was met with a joyous celebration to match any end zone festivities. A few hours up I-85 in North Carolina, school officials at UNC Charlotte painted a more sobering landscape with a report on a proposed football program. As it is now, Georgia State’s Panthers will tee it up for the first time ever in 2010, while supporters and protesters alike of 49ers’ football must wait until the fall to learn whether Charlotte’s school chancellor will make a recommendation for the sport to the school’s Board of Trustees.

BRING IT ON

At Georgia State, it’s been more than two months since University President Dr. Carl Patton and Director of Athletics Mary McElroy stood in the school’s student center to announce that Panther football would indeed become a reality in less than two and a half years. Sure, there is much to be done in that time, but a football feasibility study showed overwhelmingly that the Georgia State community—students, faculty and alumni—want football and are willing to pay for it.

They have, and they will. By this past spring, $1.2 million had already been pledged, and the students agreed to an activity fee of an additional $85 per semester to help make football Saturdays become a reality. It will take at least $7 million to get the program off the ground, but at least now the Panthers have an identifiable face to help raise that money and build something everyone associated with the school can be proud of.

“I met Bill Curry several years ago and found out for myself that he was everything people said he was: thoughtful, analytical and honest,’’ said Patton at a press conference announcing Curry’s hiring. Added McElroy that day, “Our mission is to educate young people on and off the field while building a first-class program that makes our university proud, and who better to instill those ideas into the fabric of Georgia State football than Bill Curry?”

So what if Curry, the former Georgia Tech player and coach who played 10 years in the NFL and participated in three Super Bowls, hasn’t coached a game since1996? Who cares that Curry (83-105-4 in 17 years as a college head coach) hasn’t had a winning season since 1989? Georgia State officially has a football program, and that’s something that students such as sophomore Shelby Fowler from Atlanta care about.

“I cannot tell you how fired up I am about this,’’ Fowler tells The Sunday Paper. “The students here, we all go home or go out of town on weekends because it’s no fun staying on campus. But I can assure you I will be staying in town for games. And when I graduate, I will keep coming and I will donate money to the program. Georgia State is stepping up.”

Stepping up, but at a cost. It’s estimated by school officials the program will compete in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) in the Colonial Athletic Conference at an average cost of between $2 to $3 million annually. The program has no equipment and still has no place to practice, and there will be other costs. But what it does have, in addition to a coach with a solid reputation for integrity and character, is a home field to play on—the Georgia Dome. And what an advantage that is.

NO PLACE TO PLAY

The folks in Charlotte don’t have the luxury of a venue to rent, like Georgia State does with the Georgia Dome or the University South Florida with Raymond James Stadium. Charlotte Chancellor Phil Dubois has indicated his school’s options are to spend between $60 million and $70 million for a new free-standing football stadium, or to renovate an on-campus track complex at a cost of $20 million.

Under the model proposed, Charlotte would begin play in 2012, but unlike Georgia State, Charlotte intends to move up within four years to the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A), where both expenses and revenues would increase. Dubois estimates that the annual operating cost for football at Charlotte would total $9.4 million.

“People think that when you start a football program, the money comes rolling in,” Dubois said at a press conference announcing findings from an exploratory committee. “But there are only about 20 programs in the country that make real money with football.”

ALL ABOUT EXPOSURE 

Georgia State won’t be winning championships anytime soon. But maybe one day the Panthers could join the Southern Conference, where natural rivalries exist, including one with Georgia Southern. The Eagles have a program to be patterned after, considering they’ve won six national titles in Division I-AA since hatching football in 1982. South Florida, which started football in 1997 and was ranked as high as No.2 in the country this year, and Florida Atlantic (2001), which won the Sun Belt crown in 2007, are examples of programs that started with even loftier goals (and more money and alumni) than does Georgia State.

So why is GSU getting into the football business if the reality is that it will almost never make money? The real purpose is to bring school spirit, enthusiasm and pride to GSU and its alumni, and create the collegiate atmosphere it’s always been missing. Other by-products of the football program are an anticipated increase in applications and greater alumni involvement and donations.

“Everything is present for football to work” at Georgia State, Curry said at his hiring announcement. “The only question is how well we do early and how quickly do we make decisions that move forward at the right pace.”

And if, somewhere down a long road sure to be filled with its share of bumps and potholes, the Panthers should pull a real Saturday afternoon shocker, say over a team from Athens or maybe the one down the street off North Avenue, well, that would be just peachy, too. SP