When the middle of the UT Arlington athletic season is underway, I try to avoid posting about irrelevant news stories. Instead, I try to save them for summer. It's not a hard-set rule I establish for this blog but one I generally try to follow. Occasionally there are exceptions and this will be one of those.
A recent news report has released that Chicago State is actively exploring the idea of starting an FCS football team. If this is true, every .... reason or excuse, depending upon your own viewpoint, that UTA officials have given for not looking into starting a team are absolutely flimsy. Let me explain why.
First, for those who aren't familiar with Chicago State, and I'd imagine there are quite a few, they are probably the University in Division I with the most challenges. Their enrollment is 3,000 overall and headed in the wrong direction. Their athletic budget is near the smallest in DI. Their revenue sources are severely limited. No conference wants the school, and they are independent without a conference home, save for a few affiliations like men's soccer. Few schools want to play them at their place. As such, attendance is dismal. Some of their facilities are nice, but others are lacking, or non-existent. Their student body is composed of commuter students. They've been Division I since the mid-1980's and have zero tournament appearances in any team sport. Only the track team had any success in the late 1980's.
If this University can begin the process to start a football program, anyone can.
First, they cite an attempt to grow the student body as a reason. I'd question that. Save the new football playing students, is there really going to be a measurable number of students looking to attend the campus if they have a team?
But the rest of the benefits listed, and some that are not listed, I believe and I can support as well. It can spur a fundraising drive. It can lead to greater engagement with the student body. It can lead to increased alumni connections with their alma mater. It does build school pride all over. And yes, however miniscule, it does lead to greater coverage of the school through the football program.
They also don't reside in Texas, where the sport of football has such a high popularity. The Midwest and California has a high concentration of schools who don't sponsor the sport. Yet, Chicago State still thinks it will be beneficial.
Another aspect not covered in the Chicago State announcement is that should they restart a program, they will find a conference home immediately. Part of me thinks their inability to land a full-time home, based either on geography or poor sport performance, and sometimes both, is why they started looking into the idea of having a football program to begin with.
That situation doesn't affect UTA now, but with the always uncertainty of NCAA Division I schools shifting conference homes lingering, that could be a possible outcome for the Mavericks sports teams, despite the richer history of athletic success. I don't want to be direct and say that not having a football team could negatively impact the rest of UTA's sports, but it certainly has to be in the equation of any future planning endeavors regarding Maverick athletics.
I don't know where UTA is in the football equation now after the student vote, but everything I have heard for the last near two and a half decades sure seems to be more disingenuous when you see so many Universities at all levels starting or in many cases restarting teams all across the collegiate landscape. The list of schools near UTA include, but aren't limited to: Southeastern Louisiana (2003), Incarnate Word (2009), Lamar (2009), UT San Antonio (2010), Houston Christian (2013), Lyon (Arkansas)(2105), Oklahoma Baptist (2015), UT Permian Bason (2016), Texas Wesleyan (2017) and UT Rio Grande Valley (2025).
If Chicago State does pull it off, then the only reason UTA can't is a lack of institutional will.
If that is what the hold up is, then I have zero issue. But I wish they'd come out and just say that, instead of one hollow reason given after another. UTA is more like the car broken down on the side of the highway, nice, shiny and new. The three-decade old cars are running and passing the University as they sit on the shoulder.
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