Why no football team for SLU

[VTIME]

Why doesnt a school SLU's size have a football, especially with the revenues it would bring in. If Ivy League Schools have football, why not SLU?

[Billikenbooster]

would cost too much and not actually add $. word was that the first female AD we had, the one now at U of Md, asked Biondi about football, and his response was the next time you ask that question, it will be the last you ask as AD at SLU.

mhg

[VTIME]

>would cost too much and not actually add $. word was that

>the first female AD we had, the one now at U of Md, asked

>Biondi about football, and his response was the next time

>you ask that question, it will be the last you ask as AD at

>SLU.

>

>mhg

Too much money? Everytime I look up SLU's throwing up a new building.

[thetorch]

Look up title 9 VTIME. Scholarships for men and women must be equal. You want to add a sport for men with 80 scholarships? Where are you going to get 80 scholarships for women?

The Ivy league has football because of 1.Century long tradition 2.Wealthy benefactors. There is no way a school in the Ivy league could just create a football team out of the blue today. Impossible.

St Louis already has a pro football team. You think people would show up for a D-2 or 1AA football program? C'mon don't be so dense.

[VTIME]

>Look up title 9 VTIME. Scholarships for men and women must

>be equal. You want to add a sport for men with 80

>scholarships? Where are you going to get 80 scholarships

>for women?

>

>The Ivy league has football because of 1.Century long

>tradition 2.Wealthy benefactors. There is no way a school

>in the Ivy league could just create a football team out of

>the blue today. Impossible.

>

>St Louis already has a pro football team. You think people

>would show up for a D-2 or 1AA football program? C'mon

>don't be so dense.

Lindenwood is NAIA and there games are pretty packed. SLU doesnt have wealthy benefactors? They have plenty dont they? How do the schools with football teams handle the Title IX situation.

[kevinfootes]

Biondi wouldn't want that!

Football would require SLU to have a serious athletic program, one that Biondi coudln't just give lip service to every now and then.

[VTIME]

You know me, I'm just trying to bring up interesting topics until basketball season starts. I'm making an effort to make sure they are SLU or at least college basketball related. I know SLU's soccer team is always a contender, and I was a fan for a brief period during the Will John tenure, but I just cant get into soccer. Women's Olympic soccer with Mia Hamm, Judy Foust, and Brandi Chastain was the most soccer I ever watched.

[thetorch]

SLU has

Mens soccer

Mens Basketball

Mens Swimming

Mens track

Baseball

Mens tennis

Mens cross country

Womens soccer

Womens basketball

Womens swimming

Womens cross country

Womens track

Womens softball

Womens Volleyball

Womens field hockey

7 mens sports and 8 womens sports. To have a football team we would have to add several more womens programs and right now we can't support programs like golf even.

Mizzou for instance has

Football

Baseball

Track

Cross country

Golf

Swimming

Wrestling for men

Women have

Basketball

Volleyball

Cross country

Track

Gymnastics

swimming

tennis

soccer

golf

softball

Because they have football they have to have 10 womens teams to 7 mens teams and I doubt every male athlete at Mizzou has a full ride, unlike the women for the most part surely do. That situation exists also at SLU to a smaller degree.

And a couple thousand at Lindenwood does not make for a D-1 program that a town would support. To be a decent football team you have to ahve a 20,000 seat stadium even at D1AA school.

[Pistol]

Nearly all Jesuit schools cut football in 1966 because it was costing way more than it was bringing in. Now, because of Title IX restrictions, it is nearly impossible for any of the schools to bring it back even if they thought they could make money on it (which is very, very unlikely). Ironically, the U of San Fransisco Dons won the national title in 1965, and their program was cut before the following season because of the Jesuits eliminating football across the board.

[Box and Won]

I'd love to see football return in any form, whether it be as a non-scholarship Division I-AA, a la Dayton, Villanova, Georgetown, Fordham, etc. or as a club team like Marquette fields (and Xavier is attempting to start). It would do wonders for building school spirit and a sense of community on campus.

Here's a link to a recent New York Times article about colleges that have re-started their football programs and the impact it's had:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20...10colleges.html

[Pistol]

I agree, I would love to see it happen, even if it's a club team. SLU's rugby club team does really well, draws a decent amount of fans, and has a great time. No reason we couldn't have a club football team like Marquette as well.

[cheeseman]

Lindenwood is a different animal - they use their sports teams to recruit students. You play football - not a terrible player but not someone who will get a schollie for it so Lindenwood says, come play for us and we will give you a football schollie for $5,000. The player says wow they think I am good enough so he accepts it and then gets several loans to make up the difference. After a year or two, he realizes that the $5,000 he got is actually a loosing proposition and drops off the team, maybe transfers, or simply borrows more $ to finish. Either way, he was inticed to the school but then gets shafted in the end. Lindenwood even gives these inticement schollies out for roller hockey, debate, fencing, whatever. It actually has been a big money winner for them. Kind of like a lost leader to get you in the store but they make up with the other high priced stuff you buy.

[billiken_roy]

vtime,

when you factor in title IX, and the cost of scholarships, additional coaches and insurance, there is no way that the schools make money on football. it is my guess that maybe 40-50 schools nationwide are self supporting on ticket and media revenue and survive basically on alumni support.

that said, considering that slu is folding programs like golf now, struggling to come up with the money to build the arena for the school's only cash cow, basketball, why in the world would you think it was possible.

now if they want to consider a club sport, that would be one thing, however fyi, slu club sports are pretty much on their own with little to no financial support from slu. to outfit a football team and pay for field rental and such would be quite the price tag for the average student to pickup. my guess is they would have trouble finding the numbers to make it work and when you get in a scenario where the kids are bucking up, everyone gets to play.

[Box and Won]

Some people at Santa Clara REALLY want to bring back football - this site is a great resource:

http://www.letthemplay.com/

Here's a link to Marquette's club team page:

http://www.marquetteclubfootball.com/

[davidlee]

cheeseman

You give a very good description of why Lindenwood, McKendree and most of the other small colleges around Missouri and Illinois have added football.

One other foctor I believe to having football and other traditional male sports (McKendree has added hockey) is to help draw more male students. Many of these schools were women's colleges at one time and still have a greater % of female students than male. By adding football they help increase the total number of males in their student bodies.

[alameda bob]

thanks for those sites Box, I really enjoyed reading the history parts. Is there a site anywhere for the history of SLU football? The first team to use the forward pass!

[MU88]

>Look up title 9 VTIME. Scholarships for men and women must

>be equal. You want to add a sport for men with 80

>scholarships? Where are you going to get 80 scholarships

>for women?

>

>The Ivy league has football because of 1.Century long

>tradition 2.Wealthy benefactors. There is no way a school

>in the Ivy league could just create a football team out of

>the blue today. Impossible.

>

>St Louis already has a pro football team. You think people

>would show up for a D-2 or 1AA football program? C'mon

>don't be so dense.

Simply not true. Title IX deals with participants, not scholarships. Adding non-scholarship football would cost between $300,000 and $800,000 per year. These are full tuition paying students. Adding women's crew would add another 80-100 women athletes at a very reasonable cost, around $100,000. Many, many small schools are adding football because it attracts male students to campus. In case you don't know, there is a huge shortage of males on college campuses.

If you wanted to field a scholarship program, say 1-AA, you would need around $3 to $4 million per year. The numbers for females would not change. D-1A would require around $8-$10 million per year. A substantial amount, however it is doable. You need a commitment from the student body (a student fee) and from alums (donations and season tickets) to make it happen. It would be a multi-year project, but it could be done. For example:

Institute a $7 per credit fee for football. Have it voted on and passed by the student body. This would raise a minimum of $2.2 million per year at a school like SLU.

Present target goals to alums:

1) Raise $10 million and we will restart football. The $10 million could endow non-scholarship football and crew

2) Raise $40 million and we will move up to 1-AA football. The $40 million plus the student fees would fund 1-AA football and crew.

3) Raise $100 million and sell 15,000 season tickets and we will go 1-A. This would generate $5 million per year from the endowment and at least ($20 x $15,000 x 6) $1.8 million, without any tv, conference or parking revenues. This puts you around the $9 million per year in revenue needed fund the team.

Collect student fees until you bump up to the 1-AA level. Use the money to build facilities like practice fields and offices. If you never get to $40 million, the money can be used to enhance the other programs. Some will suggest that having alums donate to football will reduce donations to academic pursuits. Studies have shown this is not true.

Now, given that St. Louis has a pro team, there might not be a need or a market for SLU to start football. Maybe there is no interest among students or alums. That's fine. But, don't say it isn't doable and don't say money is the reason. It can be done without bankrupting the university.

[bonwich]

I went for a review visit over the weekend to a new restaurant in Labadie (about 10 miles W/SW of Wildwood) called 3 Brothers. In the men's room is a framed sports page from the St. Louis Times dated 1930. In stark contrast to the current approach of my fine employer, two of the front-page pieces were non-game stories about SLU -- one noting the unexplained departure of a sophomore star, and the other detailing the defection of an assistant coach to Notre Dame and Knute Rockne. The story said that the assistant had turned down an offer of an $8600 salary from SLU (which translates into something like $100K in today's dollars). It appears that at least one former administration was up to the challenge of paying top dollar for SLU's athletic employees!

[Box and Won]

So coaches salaries have gone unchanged since 1930? Bad joke, sorry.

[slu72]

Actually pretty funny. Were we any good back then?

[kwyjibo]

The 1930 team was 3-3-2 but only played 2 games against "major" teams (beat Mizzou 20-0 and tied Wash U 7-7 which was a major football team then) so the retrospective rankers don't count SLU as a "major"/D-1 team that year. Mizzou was ranked 79 and Wash U 77 in the retro computer rankings for 1930. http://www.mratings.com/archive/cf30-m.htm

SLU was an independent until 1937 when they joined the Missouri Valley. That lasted until they disbandified in 1949.

Apparently, according to this website, SLU had a pretty good club team in the early 70's.

http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin/record...eam=Saint_Louis

{"St. Louis Alumni" lost to Idaho in Hawaii 1930 but that is alumni of big high school in Hawaii)

[MU88]

>Nearly all Jesuit schools cut football in 1966 because it

>was costing way more than it was bringing in. Now, because

>of Title IX restrictions, it is nearly impossible for any of

>the schools to bring it back even if they thought they could

>make money on it (which is very, very unlikely).

>Ironically, the U of San Fransisco Dons won the national

>title in 1965, and their program was cut before the

>following season because of the Jesuits eliminating football

>across the board.

Not exactly. The 1951 Dons were undefeated and not invited to a bowl game because the team had two black players. The school refused to assure the Orange Bowl that it would leave the players at home, so the bowl invited another team. The school dropped football after that incident, but revived it in 1965 as a D-2 team. The team was dropped again in 1972.

BTW, I am not sure that any Catholic schools dropped football in 1966. For the record:

The following Division I Catholic schools previously dropped football:

Gonzaga (1941)

Manhattan (1942)

Portland (1950)

St. Louis (1950)

Niagara (1951)

Loyola Marymount (1952)

Marquette (1961)

Creighton (1965)

Detroit (1965)

San Francisco (1972)

Xavier (1974)

Seton Hall (1982)

Santa Clara (1993)

St. John's (2002)

Canisius (2002)

Fairfield (2002)

Siena (2003)

St. Mary's (2003)

[billiken_roy]

so do you think credible athletes will be willing to pay our tuition room and board to come here and "be on the team" or do you think to be competitive we have to actually fork over scholarships? what color is the sky in your world?

[GOSLU68]

I went to club football games in 1967, 1968 and we had great soccer and respectable college

ice hockey and club football drew 100-150 students and few parents. Most of the "talent"

were kids who were good in high school but not big enough or not committed enough to put

sports before academics.

We (they) tried it and it went unnoticed. Other things like Vietnam were on peoples' minds and in the seventies pop music concerts were the only thing that interested most students.

If it was going to happen on a D1 basis it would have happened between the Arizona Cards and St. L Rams interval. Public politicians are not going to fund a venue for a private school even an argument can be made that this is a college town.

Vtime is really beating a dead horse on this one.

[alameda bob]

for the City of St. Louis: World's Fair, Olympic Games, Lewis & Clark Centennial, and the mighty Billiken football team was 11-0!!! I got there 40 years too late!