Still Undefeated
Is Georgia College & State University ever going to get a football team? This question has been raised for years, and the answer remains.no.
There are a number of reasons why a football team is not feasible. The most important one is federal law. The law states that there has to be gender equity among sports.
President Rosemary DePaolo explained the gender equity law and the problems the university would run into with it.
“To start a football team, we would have to bring in approximately 85 male students. To bring in 85 male players, according to the law of gender equity, we would also have to bring in 85 female players for sports,” said DePaolo. “How many sports would we have to start in the women’s side to get up to 85 more players?”
Currently there are five sports for males and four for females. To make this even, the university is trying to start a female soccer team. Stan Aldridge, the athletic director for GC&SU, knows that this sport will help to even out the ratio.
“Right now we are trying find funds to start a women’s soccer team, which will get us the number of sports opportunities per man and woman to be almost identical,” said Aldridge.
A very evident reason GC&SU cannot start a football team now is because of the money. Aldridge points out that it is not only the cost of start-up fees but also the cost to keep it running. He compares what our team would be like to Valdosta State University, because it would be on the same level.
“I talked to the athletic director at Valdosta State University. He said they spend two million dollars a year on football. Five hundred or so a person to buy equipment, then you have to get a minimum of six coaches, and so on. It is very expensive. If you look at two million dollars a year and they bring in $140,000 a year at Valdosta in revenue, there is a gap of $1.6 million,” said Aldridge. “Included in the start-up costs are locker rooms and, of course, a stadium. We don’t have any of that.”
Another factor is the possibility of students and the community not showing up on game days.
“Say there a couple thousand students saying ‘let’s have football,’ and I think that might be high, probably not all of them are going to come to the game. Probably not a lot of others who aren’t speaking out are going to come to the game. And there is nothing worse than an empty football stadium,” said DePaolo.
Aldridge fears that people would rather support a larger team.
“People aren’t going to come. On Thursday, Saturday and Sunday you have every team in the nation on the TV or you can drive to Atlanta or Athens and go to a big time Division I game,” said Aldridge.
Brad Muller, the Sports Information Director, agrees with the reasons that a football team is not feasible at GC&SU, but he has suggestions for the community.
“My suggestion is to support what we currently have – nine varsity sports, most of which have had a tremendous amount of success on the conference, region and national level,” said Muller. I know basketball and baseball are traditionally the larger ‘spectator’ sports at the university, but I have yet to see the Centennial Center packed to capacity where we have to pull the upper bleachers out, to fill the hill at the baseball field. Let’s get excited about what we already have!”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Nov 2 2001. Filed under News.
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