The List Grows

While looking for something unrelated, I found a women's flag football tidbit last week that I wanted to share. I mentioned in my initial entry when talking about the next sport coming to the UT Arlington portfolio that there were not many schools in Texas and certainly not as many NCAA institutions near UTA that sponsored the sport at the time.

However, there were some folks that were optimistic that number would grow. At the time, the only known NCAA schools Division I were Alabama State, Long Island University, Mercyhurst and Mount Saint Mary's. The known Texas school was Concordia University.

There have been so many additions to the sport since then that keeping up and staying current is turning into a labor of love. It's also one that has been missed by me too often with so many new programs getting their announcement.

Maverick Stadium will see the Pigskin Again

 Big news out of Arlington Thursday as the UT Arlington Mavericks will be bringing football to the official sports offering of the Athletic Department. 

I thought about using that line on the Western Athletic Conference message boards, but wanted the full qualifier in the title there to avoid misleading the average reader. I did it to one of my sons who got really excited. He wanted to go to Maverick Stadium in the fall.

But here, either you already know the news or, for some weird reason, you choose the Maverick Rambler as your news and know my irreverent style already.

Women's Flag football will debut on campus for the Spring 2027 season.

Another Case for Football

 I generally save the kinds of posts about nothing specific about a current sport or newsworthy event for the summer. However, given the fact that it is the fall, where we have three sports going on, and it is related to football, which is timely for this time of year, I am going to make an exception.

I was out with the family watching yet another football game on a television screen this past weekend. Something that obviously happens all the time across this country during the fall season. The game itself was Utah State versus Colorado State. Again, nothing that would grab the headlines. But this game was different as I looked at the screen for a minute and made the passing internal comment of another of UTA's former peers on TV.

The wheels kept turning until I made another connection that without football, UTA is on an island in the middle of a freeway watching all of our former peers pass us by. I'm afraid without the sport, our athletic program will never elevate to the top of the NCAA.

Consider the following history lesson:

What to Add?

 In this second post of what is really a two-parter, I analyze a statement soon-to-be-former UT Arlington Athletic Director Jim Baker said to the Shorthorn on a story they ran about his retirement. 

UTA Athletics has been pursuing an athletics master plan that will address current and long-term needs, improvements and facility expansion for most Division I teams. It will also help revitalize the west side of campus. 
Baker said UTA is 95% done with the plan and wants to ensure that it gets passed down to the new administration as a road map. But any decisions regarding the plan will be up to the new Athletics director and UTA president. 
“I won’t have a say in it, nor should I,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure they have all the information.”

The first entry mentioned what is obvious, the facility renovations. However, reading between the lines, along with what I've heard in the background, I suspect the department is once again eyeing an expansion of sports, even if preliminarily.