Hypothetically speaking...

[SaintDK10]

And I mean strictly hypothetically, if a GSU Signal author were to write something similar for our school, what would be the repercussions and would the story be even approved by the editors?

http://www.thetriangle.org/news/2004/07/23/Sports/With-Caa.Now.Playing.Football.Dragons.Should.Follow-695340.shtml

[Fansince80]

Would the editors be influenced by the administration? I don't normally have time to find and read the Signal. Did anyone in the past ever write a similar article? I do know that there was a fair amount of coverage of club football's first season, but probably only to the extent of reporting the games.

Something GridPan has finally revealed here bothers me. It sounds like Marc Lawson was told (my guess and reading between the lines) that his bosses were uncomfortable with the level of support the club football team was getting from Ed and his friends. Maybe this violated the team's charter (if there is one) or Patton and Manning feared the team's success (and it was successful in 2002) would put more pressure on them than they wanted.

[Woody Paige]

It's probably more along the lines of the fact that there are certain rules that pertain to all club sports at Georgia State as far as being run by outside people. A club sport is supposed to be run by its members and an advisor; not by its biggest donors.

[GridPan]

First of all, the university's policy is that club sports are open to not only students, but faculty, staff AND ALUMINI. It's my understanding the rowing or crew sports have even permitted non alumns to particiapate in the past, but that was stopped when club football started. In short, when club football started, the adminstratiion put more restriction into place on all sports clubs, which I agree with by the way.

When we started, I could have even played being an alumn. Since then, the administration changed the policy, still allowing alumni as members but they can't be playing members on a sports team. I didn't want to play anyway!

Moreover, non students cannot take a leadership role in the club. And this we never wanted to do anyway. The Touchdown Club was formed to raise money, which it did; to purchase the equipment, which it did. Not one time has anyone from the Touchdown Club tried to tell the club officers what to do. And rather than hearing from folks like Woody who has never even been to a game, I'd suggest someone interview the club officers, who know the foregoing is fact.

Finally, the administration removed the requirement that there be a club advisor from the staff of the university. Afterall, these are adults notwithstanding they are students. So I've never been a spokesman, advisor and don't want to be.

I do think the fact that the equipment has been depleted leads one to believe that someone is mismanging the property. And those of us who raised the money to buy that stuff will not do it again. So, if the university won't replace it, then I'd say the football program is seriously handicapped.

That was a waste of a lot of people's efforts, including Mike, GSUOwl, Walt and two other members of the athletics board, beside myself, who are not happy with that mismanagement and put up the money when other just put up the "speak."

So, perhaps Woody and the others who have all the answers can get to work and raise the nest $50,000 to keep the football program going. We're proven. Others aren't.

[Fansince80]

Grid, sounds like Carl Patton can play hardball when he wants to.

[SaintDK10]

Fansince, do you think GSU is ready for football at this point, or can we be ready for football (as in what can we do to be ready for football)?

[JMU2004]

speaking from an outsider's view, GSU appears to be AT LEAST 10 years away from a university sponsored program. It seems to me that the GSU admin lacks the initiative right now. Obviously, $$$ has a lot to do with it.



That being said, GSU will have 1-AA football at some point. Ya'll sit in an area where CFB is king, and you(and GMU) are simply too large/good of a school not to support a football team. Give it time, but let the admin feel the pressure. Good luck

[Fansince80]

Fansince, do you think GSU is ready for football at this point, or can we be ready for football (as in what can we do to be ready for football)?

Saint, if CAA was out of the picture and the administration was ready to provide a couple million for a 1-AA program, I'd say now's the time. A feasibility study and lots of preparation would be needed, obviously. I can't prove this to you, it's just my hunch of watching and listening over the years and seeing what's happening elsewhere. However, I want to make it clear that I am delighted to be joining CAA and feel that financial commitment will preclude football financially for at least five years.

[GridPan]

Fan:

I'd only caution about relying on the validity of a feasibility study. They don't reveal real results.

At schools like Georgia State and George Mason, most any of us can say, as we discuss it today, our alumni aren't interested in a broad and major way with intercollegiate sports at their own university. You only need to look at fan attendance at any of our current sports. And these alumni may be the same individuals---our target market--- that attend Bulldog, Jacket and Falcon games. BUT, we do have a tremendous market that can be developed; I'm told some 100,000 alumni in the meto area alone. So if you did a telephone marketing poll, I'd expect the results to be negative; but by the same token, if one can't build a BASE of football support with the numbers we have to work with (in an area labled by a JMU fan as "CFK) , then I'd think we have the wrong person leading the effort.

Someone like Coach Reeves leading that effort would not only generate the excitement and enthusiasm to establish and build on that base, he could raise major dollars when current folks can't. Coach Reeves could walk into the offices of the presidents of any major corporation in Georgia, and elsewhere, and that includes Coca Cola, UPS, Rubbermaid, Southern Company, Georgia Power, the Big Banks, Delta (even with its money problems) and the many, many other financial sources here. He certainly is stll well-respected by Arthur Blank, notwithstanding the coaching change. Yes, we get some money from some of foregoing, but our athletics folks will tell you what we now get is peanuts compared to Tech, Georgia, etc. Coach Reeves could, and would send signals to the business community that we are finally SERIOUS about intercollegiate athletics.

Coach Reeves would claim front sports page attention on a continuing basis that would steak claim to the interest of such sponsors, as afoersaid, AND the alumni aforesaid. That interest would ripen into major fruit.

Noe of that would show up in a feasibility study.

Finally, I've spoken several times with the president of the firm that conducts feasibility studies---Bill Carr, of Carr and Associates. In fact, he did the study at George Mason. I've sorta figured out the dance of football consultants, WITH their partners, college presidents; Everybody covers their rear-ends. The president of the university wants a study so if it (the study) WERE to be favorable for football, and a program is initiated, and that program fails, the president can point to the study and consultant with culpability.

The consultant, in almost all cases, paints a dismal or, at least, suspect picture, as it did with GMU, to cover itsself but with a few "ifs" . If this or if that happens, then it just might suceed. So, then if it fails, the consultant can say the "if" didn't happen. I've read some of these reports, and I'd encourage other to read them, too, if you can get hold of one.

And also, most of those studies don't dwell on marketing statistics of the existing market, they dwell on satisfying Title IX requirements, which any good athletics staff can do on its own.

Feasibility studies sound great, but for football programs, and the start-up thereof, they are not worth the price paid.

I've studied start-ups for over five years. The first-hand experiences of the other start-up programs are the best teachers. And some have had some set backs, but they've also had some successes. You learn from both. I'd rather spend the bucks spent on a feasibility program towards the hiring of a great coach, who can raise not only his salary but more major bucks.

[GMU92]

Good assessment of the feasibility study process Grid.
You're right on in terms of determining the BASE of support you would have for a 1-AA program. The Mason study in 1998 employed a phone survey to contact a "representative" sample of alumni/former students. Some people I knew who were contacted had attended Mason for a very short period to get some graduate credits. These were folks who attended UVa and other schools for undergrad., and they obviously are probably not going to constitute the base of support for 1-AA at Mason. I was never contacted to share my views during the entire process, even though I have donated to the Patriot Club, purchase basketball season tickets every year, donate to the football club every year, etc. Quite honestly, I don't think the study should have used a random phone survey...they should have mailed a survey to the entire community and then determined the level of support that exists.

[SaintDK10]

Man, we beat this football issue to the ground, over and over again. Fansince, you and I pretty much agree, except I think we need to give it a couple of more years before we are ripe for football at any level. I don't know, this academic fundraising campaign and the master plan are just taking a lot of time and resources that starting something as big as football would be a distraction in my opinion. Then again, CAA might be even a bigger move, so that is a weak argument on my part.

I do think, and I know many don't agree with me, that what the master plan is trying to accomplish has also a lot to do with the football and sports in general at GSU, when it comes to the future at least. GSU is trying to define its campus and attract more traditional students who actually live on campus, and that is big factor when it comes to fan support. GMU is so much like us, but they are also a few years ahead of us in terms of student housing, the number of traditional students, and the fact that they were in the CAA for so many years, so naturally their attendance is much better than ours.

The only "advantage" we have over GMU in my opinion, is the large number of GSU alumni that live in the metro Atlanta area. If we could energize that large base, I think we could have an immediate success with our football program, but that is a big IF Grid. I agree that the methods of the feasibility study you are referring to are questionable in terms of accuracy, but undertaking such a big effort like hiring Dan Reeves is a little over the top even for a major program, let alone us who never had football. I would love to see it, but it's far fetched to say the least.

Anyway, the next 5 years will tell us a lot about the future of football at GSU. Again, I think it will happen, but no matter what, the CAA will influence our decision, one way or the other.

[GridPan]

GMU 92

Perhaps we need to share. I'll explain later, but first:

Just about every major university I know of has a master plan. Georgia State is not unique in that regard. And just about every major university I know has multiple goals connected with that plan. Georgia, for instance, conducts major fund raising for the academic side, expands the campus, builds new buildings, AND expands athletics ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

It's always been a mystery to me why the folks around athletics at Georgia State limit themselve to believing goals are achieved one at a time, like achieving attendance levels in volleyball before you add another sport. Unusally they have nothing to do with one another. And when we say, "let's not consider football until a certain number of dorm rooms are built or Main Street is finished", we likewise limit ourselves. Other universities accomplished a multiple number of goals at the same time, and we can too. We just need to think in bigger terms with broader views.

And we just need to put it into THE plan, which it is NOT now, appertaining to athletics. Yes, I know we're going to the CAA, but that was never a part of a long range plan. It just happened. Our athletics department is not an intergral part of the university's master plan. It's (the athletics department) just there and responds to occassional stimuli. It is not used in such a plan as a marketing devise for the university, merely referred to. And there is no master plan within the Athletics Department, such as definite goals for new and/or expanded athletics facilities, additional sports teams, etc.

Those things CAN be achieved, but we have to build intercollegiate sports into the MASTER PLAN.

I agree, we will have NCAA football at Georgia State some day. And it's not too early to be working towards that now. I've started. The best thing I could come up with at the time (working together with several others, I might add) was club football, and IMHO that's helped. Continuing that effort works towards that time in the future when we will be football ripe.

Now, GMU 92, maybe it's also ripe to form a group of football interested folks at each of the non-football schools in the CAA. Such a group would probably be formed outside of the respective athletics department as you're not going to find any of the ADs with courage enough to take part. Oh, they'll be there if it's successful. They're "Parade People."

Assuming such groups are formed, we could share studies and information on the factual start-up of football programs. I've visited the sites of the other universities and I hear the same stale questions, the same comments, like, "Where wiil we play our games? Do you realize how much it costs? And so on and so on. And some of us have answered these same old questions hundreds of times.

And the people who usually respond to those questions have done no research, have no experience and make the same old uninformed comments.

Perhaps a group on each non-football campus groups can better educate the university family of each school by sharing, caring and influcing those there. I bet we'd even get some help from the Commissioner of the CAA. He's let it be known the presidents of the CAA want the conference to be a full sports conference.

Anyway, think about it and if you see such an association mutually beneficial, let me know.

And if any of our own folks would like to meet and talk about the same subject matter, I'm only a 'phone call away.

[GridPan]

Below is a posted response to the above from a Blue Hen fan. It's so refreshing to hear from real college sports fans who are positive and understand college sports. That's why they're the no 1 team in the nation. They have a "CAN DO" attitude.

Now, watch one of our "we can'ts" surface.

POST FROM A UNIVERSITY DELAWARE FAN

You guys might want to contact the folks at Southeastern Louisiana, UT-Arlington, Coastal Carolina, etc.- all schools who have either just started I-AA programs or are in the process doing so. Maybe looks at their studies. Contact reputable sports consultants like Bill Carr or Chuck Neinas for recommendations on where to begin.

I kind of pains me to hear some of the sports fans at large, state- sponsored CAA schools talk so hopelessly about football start-ups. If the schools I mentioned can do it, for Pete's sakes, GMU, GSU, ODU can certainly find ways to field D-I football teams.

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