Why no football team for SLU

[MU88]

>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?

Do I think make students would pay to attend SLU and play football? You bet. Here read about experiences other schools have had. If you need a password, use www.bugmenot.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/10/educatio...1402bdc&ei=5070

[billiken_roy]

proof that the best wont is to take one look at our baseball team over the last 30 years. sorry i aint buying. you might get some rich kid wanna be's that couldnt make mckendree's team but you wont get players to compete vs bcs teams.

[MU88]

>proof that the best wont is to take one look at our baseball

>team over the last 30 years. sorry i aint buying. you

>might get some rich kid wanna be's that couldnt make

>mckendree's team but you wont get players to compete vs bcs

>teams.

That's not the point. There are 117 D-1 football schools, give or take 2 or 3. Only 65 or so are BCS schools. However, there have to be what 38,000 colleges and universities in the US. SLU or MU or X do not have to play BCS football. I would be happy if my alma mater joined the Pioneer Leaugue with SLU and X. Saturday afternoons playing midwast schools like Drake, Valpo and Dayton would be great. So what if you only draw 3000 fans. Isn't that 3000 more alums spending a Saturday afternoon on campus than do now? As far as the makeup of the team, I would guess that that it would mirror the student body. Kids at most schools get a lots of loans.

[Box and Won]

I am in total agreement with you. If similar schools have been able to make it work, we could too.

One of my high school teammates played at Drake - I think he received a small academic scholarship, but he was just glad to be able to continue his football career and is proud to be able to say that he played college football. I have friends who played at crappy schools like Lindenwood and William Jewell just because they could play football.

I, on the other hand, received a scintillating offer to join the football team at prestigious Culver-Stockton College, which, after a lot of soul-searching, I ultimately declined. I think the offer was actually a form letter.

[Pistol]

Must've had my facts wrong- I was just basing it on a story I was told by a Jesuit at SLU.

[Lurking Dog]

>The first team to use the forward pass!

That would be another former Missouri Valley Conference member, Washburn University. Specifically, Bill Davis-to-Art Solter...against Wichita State, Christmas Day 1905.

BTW, here's a site with a little history of defunct programs.

http://www.geocities.com/football_graveyard/

[bonwich]

nm

[Lurking Dog]

However, it may have been considered an exhibition.

President Roosevelt talked the teams into demonstrating proposed rule changes for the next season, including the forward pass. The opposing coaches served as refs for the game.

[slufanskip]

>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.

Julie Foudy ... not Judy Foust

Why the Will John tenure

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

[slufanskip]

would adding football not affect title 9 and require SLU to add many more womens sports ... increasing the $'s actually needed?

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

[bonwich]

It was not yet an "official" college rule -- and thus it was no more of a record than if we happen to score 200 points against Harris-Stowe.

[DFW HOYA]

>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).

False. In 1966, a half dozen Jesuit schools had already brought it BACK. In 1971, Georgetown traveled to SLU and won 30-7 against the Billikens' club team.

Where there's a will, there's a way. Over 60 schools have added football since 2000, most in Div. III and NAIA, but Title IX affects them too. Even if SLU could just arrange a game each year with Marquette, Xavier, and Loyola, it would be a great addition to campus life.

[xudash]

As I understand it, Xavier's newly elected student leadership ran on a platform last year that included bringing football back to campus at the club level. Joe Moreman, one of the elected students, will actually be on Cincy radio today, discussing the effort.

They recently gained approval from Xavier's administration to move forward. A Villanova grad, who played football for Nova and who presently is enrolled in one of X's graduate school programs, is the new head coach of Xavier's club program. If I recall correctly, approximately 100 men are pursuing joining the new team and they are not without talent and size. The coach has had an ongoing update session on Musketeer Madness about progress, etc. and has noted that he can put together an offensive line with good skills that averages about 260 to 270 lbs.

At any rate, this deal is moving forward. I have read that they have put together a schedule of three games for this first year: Marquette, College of Mt. Saint Josephs (Cincinnati) and another small Ohio liberal arts school.

So the Milwaukee and Cincy Jebbies get to bump hats this fall! I cannot think of a more appropriate opponent than a fellow Jesuit school to kick-off football's return to Victory Parkway since it left in 1973.

As most of you know, the issue isn't about heavy funding due to Title IX matching, because it is being brought back at the club level. Who knows where it goes from here, but it is being brought back at the lowest risk level possible. The debate you may get into is the debate we got into - and some remain in: does this effort detract from fund raising efforts for the University (Xavier is about to announce a kick off of a big capital campaign on this, its 175th anniversary) OR is this additive; do alumni that normally don't give or give much begin to give or give more, and/or do existing contributors continue to give plus give a little extra, because that "autumn football environment" is back in town.

Personally, I believe that New York Times article is a wake up call. I see Marquette, SLU and Xavier, in particular, as three schools that would benefit greatly from having big time basketball programs augmented by successful "Division III Like" football programs (i.e. about 5k to 10k in the stands of a cozy stadium, tailgating, etc.). Excellent academic schools with great athletic programs that now include that purer form of college football, so to type.

We'll see where this takes us. IF, let's say in five years, Xavier has established the ability to move it to D1-AA (Non-Scholly) who knows what may happen. From there, a Xavier marching band, performing script X (similar to Ohio State's Script Ohio) is possible. It is likely that the band will have had warm up cocktails prior to taking the field, but all they'll have to do is pivot correctly to knock out one letter!

BTW, your thread about sustained top 25 programs in basketball is interesting. I noticed a couple of references to Xavier as being in the "crawl phase" and being a mid-major. No recognition of the E8 run (just one S16 reference), national player of the year (West), our contributions to the NBA (think Posey for purposes of this year's one example), our top 40ish attendance figures in one of the finest on-campus venues around (I can't imagine I'll get any argument about that here), and our post season track record FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS. Creighton? I love them and great school. Great recent success. But they do not hold a candle to X in the last two decades. Frankly, same for Gonzaga, though Gonzaga has achieved more noteriety, especially for winning some big time games. With all due respect, if we are in the crawl phase, then SLU's program was just conceived.

At any rate, have your student leadership contact Xavier's leadership (Joe Moreman) and for that matter Marquette's people. Take some notes and see if it something you guys can move on.

And be nice to us this year. Winning two from us last year was bad form. Learn to share in the Jesuit tradition.

[Box and Won]

Thanks for the update - keep us posted on the progress of the XU football team.

[Billiken Law]

wow - Marquette couldn't even field a club team at least 2 of the years I was there, and when they did they were BAD.

I-AA non-scholarship is glorified HS football. I am a huge sports fan, travel all over to different colleges and pro games just to take in the atmosphere. I have zero interest in a I-AA game. Little more than a money drain.

[xudash]

>wow - Marquette couldn't even field a club team at least 2

>of the years I was there, and when they did they were BAD.

>

>I-AA non-scholarship is glorified HS football. I am a huge

>sports fan, travel all over to different colleges and pro

>games just to take in the atmosphere. I have zero interest

>in a I-AA game. Little more than a money drain.

BLaw, I hear you. There are a lot of people that agree with you. But, there are a lot of DIII schools -- small, liberal arts schools mainly -- that offer a nice fall weekend experience around football. They aren't on television and there may be no more than 3,000 to 5,000 to maybe 10,000 people milling around, but the atmosphere is still there, tailgaiting and all. Imagine an athletic department with big time bball, solid olympic sports and a DIII-feel football program to round out the collegiate experience (this assumes an eventual move to DI-AA in some form). I wouldn't mind that at all. It beats having nothing, and none of us are going to pull off what BC pulled off: the last Catholic school to establish a strong foundation for ongoing DI-A football.

My hope is that, with Marquette already there (you will hear below that they have the longest running club football team in the nation) and Xavier now coming on-line, SLU may work to bring it back. Travel would be expensive, but it could start a great tradition if people give it a chance.

Please feel free to listen to the following radio interview from a Cincinnati station, featuring Joe Moreman, who I mentioned in my last post:

http://www.getsportsinfo.com/lance/xfootball.mp3

[Billiken Law]

"But, there are a lot of DIII schools -- small, liberal arts schools mainly -- that offer a nice fall weekend experience around football."

True, but 95% of those schools are located in small towns with nothing else to do. MU, XU and SLU are located in major cities, with pro teams around and a bevy of activities for students, alumni and fans to keep their time occupied. I had the opportunity to be a student-athlete at some of those DIII school you mention, there's nothing else to do in those towns. Of course Mount Union is going to draw people to their games, but what else is there to do in Alliance? And, at 23,000, Alliance is pretty large for a DIII college town.