Joe Dumas has called for reexamination of UTC's commitment to
football. Although I seriously doubt that his well-reasoned argument
will have the result he wants at any time in the near future, it
doesn't hurt to make it.  Someday it may be possible to eliminate a
program that clearly does not work for this university.  It seems
especially inappropriate at a time when tuition rates are rising
significantly to mandate a fee of $100/year to support a program that
does not have the support of a majority of students and faculty.

Football has been a losing proposition for years at UTC.  I suspect
that over at least the past two decades football has often been a
drain on UTC's budget.  Since the athletics budgets have not been
made public for almost that entire era, I base that statement mostly
on grapevine stories.

But I do have some concrete data, which were provided to me by
someone in the athletics department when I was on the Faculty
Council.  The data revealed that for the fiscal year that ended on
June 30, 1996 football had a deficit of $1,006,208.  That was nearly
four times the deficit for the basketball program.  The total cost of
the program was $1,497,181; ticket sales and game guarantees brought
in $351,112.  I do not know how football's deficit was paid off in
that year.  No doubt private donors came to the program's rescue, but
I suspect that operating budget funds also were used.

Where the debate about football ultimately leads, in my judgment, is
the question of what we want UTC to be.  I don't think that we have
ever reached a clear decision on that subject.  UTC lacks the
resources to be all things to all people. The best answer I have
heard to the question in the last decade or so is to become the best
public undergraduate university in Tennessee.  I do not believe that
continuation of the football program will help to achieve that goal;
it is more likely to undermine it.

Mike Russell

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James M. (Mike) Russell
Department of History
Dept. Mail Code #2052
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403

Phone: 425-4579
Home: 517-0645