I'll admit up front that I am not nearly as informed on the possible fall-out of dropping football and possible conference re-allignments as Jonathan Looney seems to be, but I do have a question that seems to be missing in this debate.  Instead of dropping football, would it be possible that we could go from Division I-AA to say, Division III, thus, not offering scholarships, but still fielding a team?  Doesn't Davidson do this?  Is this how they stay in the Southern Conference, or were they grandfathered in?  It seems like making football a Div. III level program would save a significant sum of money while addressing some of the concerns of those who do not want to be without a team.  

I don't know enough about the numbers to say we definitely should go that route, but I toss it out as option for consideration . . . .

Joanie

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Looney <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 21:26:17 -0400
Subject: Re: [UTCSTAFF] UTC Students Thumbs Down on Athletic Fee

At 08:13 PM 4/25/2004 -0400, Joe Dumas wrote:
>So far, the majority of responses (both on-list and private) to my
>original message have expressed agreement that it is time to eliminate
>football at UTC.  I'll respond to a couple of posts that were not in
>agreement.
>
>Jonathan Looney wrote:
>> Well, I'll play devil's advocate and disagree. If we dropped football, we
>> would (just like ETSU) be booted out of the Southern Conference, which
>> would have a negative impact on ALL OTHER sports and the student athletes
>> that participate in those other sports.
>
>Not necessarily on either count.  We might or might not get evicted from
>the SoCon, and that might or might not have a negative effect on other
>sports.

The reason ETSU was not allowed to stay was if they let one school drop
football and stay for other sports, they'd not be able to tell other
schools "NO".

  Conferences realign, and teams change conferences, all the
>time.  In general that is a good thing, as the direction of different
>programs changes over time and conferences evolve to reflect the
>emphases of their members at any given time.

I'll disagree, because another decent conference is not going to take us
without football.

>
>> The only other conference that
>> would take ETSU is the Atlantic Sun conference, which is where UTC would
>> have to try to join as well.
>
>Again, I'm not sure where you are getting your information.  Why would
>no other conference consider us?  The quality of our basketball teams,
>not to mention softball and other sports, would make us a much better
>"catch" than ETSU.  Any of several conferences might want us.

See my note above that the decent conferences for basketball all play
football.

 For that
>matter, why should we have to join a conference?  There are some
>successful independent teams out there.  When I was an undergrad at
>Southern Mississippi we were I-A independents and went to bowl games in
>football just about every year.

Being an indepdent in basketball is a death sentence. Why do you think
Notre Dame joined the Big East for basketball? Independent means you're at
the mercy of the NCAA selection committee every year. It's already hard for
our men's and women's basketball teams to schedule out-of-conference
basketball games, particularly at home. Have fun trying to schedule 27
games a year since you wouldn't have the automatic conference games.

 We were pretty decent at basketball and
>baseball, too, and never seemed to have much difficulty filling out a
>schedule in any sport.  (For that matter, Conference USA -- where USM is
>now -- wouldn't be too bad of a fit.)

Conference USA schools have Division I-A football. They WOULD NOT have any
interest in UTC. Thinking otherwise is a fantasy, unfortunately.

>
>> Ask coaches Wes Moore and John Shulman how much fun it would be to
>> recruit student-athletes to a team in a conference that can't earn a bid to
>> the NCAA tournament. Wouldn't it have been great for the Lady Mocs to have
>> gone 29-3, and have to hope for an at-large bid from the NCAA tournament
>> committee?  There is already grumbling among some ETSU basketball players
>> that they will leave if the A-Sun loses their automatic NCAA bid.
>
>If UTC leaves the Southern Conference it is more likely that the SoCon
>will lose *its* automatic bids, especially for women's basketball.
>Without UTC, the SoCon would clearly not *deserve* an automatic bid to
>the Women's Big Dance ... our ladies are the only nationally competitive
>team in the conference.  Hence my guess that the conference would not
>necessarily evict us if we scrapped football.

The Southern Conference would still have 11 schools without UTC and would
be in no danger of losing its automatic bid. Since Georgia Southern and UTC
are the only "non-Carolina" schools in the conference, I don't think they'd
miss us. Most other schools in the conference play baseball. As I stated,
I'd rather leave the Southern Conference for the Ohio Valley Conference,
but without football it's not going to happen.

>
>And if Wes Moore and John Shulman aren't all that fired up about
>recruiting for UTC outside the SoCon, well ... there are other coaches
>out there who would be happy for the chance to work here, with or
>without football.
>

Yes, and we'd have a great program in the Atlantic Sun, and our attendance
would reflect the excitement of playing teams like Campbell, Lipscomb,
Belmont, Mercer, etc.   ;-)

>> What does this have to do with the mission of our university? Not much I
>> guess ...
>
>Precisely my point and the point of most faculty who see money spent on
>an unpopular (check out the empty stands) and losing football team as
>money that could go toward our academic mission.

I'm an optimist, and I feel that we finally have an A.D. and coach that
will make our football team a winner. We did have the top recruiting class
in 1-AA this year, so I think within 2 years we'll be winning and
contending for the playoffs.

>
>I'm sure the lively debate will continue.  Thanks to all who have
>responded, pro or con.
>
>Joe
>
Always a pleasure Joe.


Jonathan Looney
Director - Student Financial Aid
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Dr. Joanie Sompayrac
Associate Professor of Accounting
UT-Chattanooga