Great facilities at UNF - will there ever be a Football program?

[blizz01]

I know it goes against the grain in Delaney's goals - but at some point.....?........

JACKSONVILLE -- The University of North Florida's upgrade of Hodges Stadium could bring an economic impact of $20 million to $30 million a year, officials said.

The completion of the nearly 10-year, $5 million project is expected to attract more sporting events to the area, including track and field, football, rugby, lacrosse and soccer, ranging from high school to professional levels, said Richard Gropper, athletic director at UNF.

"We've got a tremendous number of options we can be looking into as far as types of activities and events we can invite to campus," he said.

Perhaps the most important new stadium feature is a $3 million track, which is one of only three of its kind in the world. The others are at Arizona State University and the Olympic track in Beijing.

"The track is the most visible element in the facility now, and certainly one that will have a tremendous impact, not only on the school, but on the community as well," Gropper said. "The track is the facility that will put us on the national and international sports map."

The $3 million track was built by the Italian flooring company Mondo Worldwide, which has built every Olympic track and field surface since the 1976 Montreal games. Instead of adhering to the typical 42-inch, eight-lane standards required by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, university officials decided to use international specifications that exceed the NCAA's.

Because of the addition, UNF will host the Atlantic Sun Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships for the next two years beginning 2009, which will make UNF the first school within the Atlantic Sun Conference to host an event on its campus facilities.

"This is great to get them [UNF] involved in the hosting process," said Eric Moyer, director of communications for the Atlantic Sun Conference. "This will be the first great chance to show off UNF on a larger scope instead of just during home games. The fact they built a track to host world-class events can only help our league."

This year's Atlantic Sun Championships in May had 246 participants from eight teams. With a member school hosting the event, the Atlantic Sun looks to save some money. In years past, it had to seek out host facilities and maintain the responsibility of hospitality for the event.

Gropper said he could see UNF eventually submitting bids to host NCAA regional track competitions, as well as soccer championships and high school football championships.

The Hodges Stadium project was entirely funded by community donations and special gifts, including ones from Dr. Buster Browning, a Jacksonville physician and past president of UNF's athletics booster club, and Tom Perry, owner of Key Auto Co.

The project has spanned about a decade, Gropper said.

"It just kept getting pushed to the back burner," he said. "Finally we're able to have success in the fundraising arena, and we want to get the stadium looking as good as we can get it looking. It's a beautiful facility."

The stadium will be open to students and competition at the start of the fall semester, and the UNF track team will be eligible to compete for postseason competition next spring.

http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2008/08/25/story2.html?b=1219636800^1688009

[Jason]

Wow!  Now they just need a more complete stadium to finish it off.  Doesn't really look like there is much space for expanded grandstands without relocating the adjacent track and soccer fields.

[Ocklawaha]

FOOTBALL? Sure hope that is the goal... no pun intended! But if that's a soccer size field, then football would work within it. Thus the second field (to the left) might not be as important and could be partly used for grandstands on that side. Otherwise, you simple divide the crowd left and right sides of the same stands for home and visitors. It will take some time from a startup until any team is ready for a conference, but for those that have watched UCF has pulled it off nicely and I really like UNF better!

OCKLAWAHA

[Joe]

Wasn't there some sort of "gentlemen's agreement" that UNF would not start a football program? I don't remember if it was between UNF and the state system, or some donors? But I definitely remember UNF making some sort of promise that a football program would not happen.

[Jason]

Why would the promise that?  Seems to me like it would be a big draw for the school.

[ProjectMaximus]

Wasn't there some sort of "gentlemen's agreement" that UNF would not start a football program? I don't remember if it was between UNF and the state system, or some donors? But I definitely remember UNF making some sort of promise that a football program would not happen.

Is that related to JU starting its program about 10 years ago?

Apparently two years ago they had no immediate plans for football, but it's not ruled out long-term.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/092606/col_5252046.shtml

[copperfiend]

I know the University of South Florida had some sort of agreement back in the 70's that they would not field a football team. I am not aware of any kind of agreement at UNF. The school should be able to support a team. There is alot going on at the campus right now. It is an exciting time for UNF.

[chris]

FOOTBALL?!?! Are you freaking kidding me?

Everytime this comes up I whimper and sigh at the mere thought of this area of town dealing with the 40k or so possible specatators leaving the area and further congesting the streets.

Oh wait, that would require there be 40k who wanted to watch the Ospreys lose all their home games. If there were even 20k who wanted to waste a muggy Saturday sitting on concrete I'd be amazed.

UNF was never designed to even boast an Athletic Department, let alone the transition to Division I that they are currently making. The layout, the mission, and the neighborhood were never and will never be conducive to the type of activitiy surrounding the sport. Even now, UNF can't keep people on campus for lunch, let alone get them back to campus for a baseball or basketball game! UNF is an urban, commuter, non-traditional University with deep roots in academia, the arts, progressivism and environmentalism. It wasn't until Delaney began his tenure here that emphasis shifted onto athletics and Greek life.

I would have thought a think-tank site like this would favor the academic possibilities afforded by an Ivory Tower focused institution in the midst of raving football fanatics of UF, FSU and UGA. From personal experience that this campus has grown exponentially more conservative, segregated, and intolerant in the last dozen or so years, and with that movement to the right, the chatter about football has become consistently more pervasive.

Apparently, not only does school spirit not exist without Football, you can't have a decent track without it either.

[copperfiend]

I resurrected this thread  because I read recently where two of UNF's Atlantic Sun rivals, Stetson and Mercer, will each be fielding football programs starting in 2013.

http://www.stetson.edu/administration/pr/football/index.php

http://www.mercer.edu/football/

Both will play in the Pioneer League with JU.

Seems to make too much sense to me that UNF could do something similar but it's obviously not in the plans.

[Bativac]

My comment has nothing to do with football - but UNF is almost unrecognizable now, compared to what it looked like when my wife graduated 4 or 5 years ago. When I talked to the head of the Visual Arts department she said the growth there is almost totally attributable to Delaney's leadership. I wish someone like that would spearhead downtown development.

[Tacachale]

Football isn't in the pipeline at UNF right now and won't be for quite a while.

The real appeal of non-scholarship football is for small schools, especially private schools that take most of their revenue from tuition. It allows them to attract 80 or 100 tuition-paying athletes who wouldn't otherwise have gone to the school. At a school with 3,500 students paying $20K a semester, that's a good chunk of change. At a school with 16,000 students paying $8k a semester, it's less of an impact on the overall budget.

If and when UNF goes for football, we'd likely skip FCS football for mid-major FBS football. However, that's a huge step to take. Doing it right would require a commitment of about $10 million a year. Plus, colleges must spend an equal amount on women's sports as they do on men's, so it would really be a $20 million a year commitment. We currently don't really have the size to make such an athletics fee feasible, and we don't have plans to expand yet. Plus there are other issues involving the stadium, competition, etc.

Right now, as far as sports goes, the focus on building up the programs we currently have (and can afford). Increasing interest from the community is next in line; football will come one day, but it will be a while.

[copperfiend]

You're probably right. I was up in Charlotte a few weeks ago and got to see some of the work going into the new football stadium at UNC-Charlotte. They also start fielding a team in 2013.

[blizz01]

Harvard of the South?  What are the largest colleges without a football program?  I read somewhere that it was Cal State Fullerton?

[fieldafm]

almost totally attributable to Delaney's leadership.

Like I said in a thread about Hogans Creek... there are reasons people become legends in Jacksonville, and they don't attain that status by staying small.  Delaney is certainly a legend in my book.

Doing it right would require a commitment of about $10 million a year. Plus, colleges must spend an equal amount on women's sports as they do on men's, so it would really be a $20 million a year commitment.

JU is eventually going to transition to a scholarship FCS program and compete for a national championship with the likes of the Montannas, App States, and Georgia Southerns of the world.  Not including stadium enhancements (which are scheduled to cost $10mm, a figure they didn't even remotely come close to attaining when they started a capital drive campaign a few years ago), it's going to cost the school another $2-4mm a year in increased operating costs.  That ain't cheap. 

Take a look at what FBS football costs a school like Florida Atlantic (which has a very small facility) and then take a look at what it cost Georgia State and now UNC-Charlotte who both started or is starting(respectively) programs... it's not cheap to start a D-1 FBS program by any stretch of the imagination. 


UNF should try winning a few conference championships in basketball first   

[Tacachale]

You're probably right. I was up in Charlotte a few weeks ago and got to see some of the work going into the new football stadium at UNC-Charlotte. They also start fielding a team in 2013.

UNC Charlotte is one of UNF's "peer aspirant institutions", and not just in football. They're an example of a school that's grown to the size where paying for football becomes feasible. They've done things right with that, as in many other things; they waited until they were big enough to afford a solid program, and they're fielding a team in FCS with the intention of moving up to FBS when they're ready.

FBS football doesn't even begin to come feasible until you have enough students to pay into the athletics fee. UNF's studies estimate we'll be able to do that at about 20-25K (the size UNC Charlotte is now). However, UNF won't expand again until we're sure we can do it without sacrificing teaching quality, class size, and our academic profile (many schools that decide to expand must lower their admissions standards so they can accept more students). Football won't come until after that happens.