Tom Gamble — Football at NKU: Gimme a break
(This column was published in The Kentucky Post on Jan. 30, 1997)
Welcome to Homecoming 2003, Northern Kentucky University football style. This year's theme is "Getting By With Less."
Today's opponent is Kentucky State, which has become the archrival of the Norse. Playing the same school 16 times in four seasons will have that effect.
Football here apparently hasn't caught on yet with the school's alumni or students. Hard to believe, isn't it? It worked at Ohio State. It worked at Michigan. Why not NKU?
It should be another record day at the gate, too. Let's see. A crowd of 276 x $4 per ticket should bring the overall athletic department deficit to $1.71 million.
Sorry, I almost forgot about the game. It's two minutes to kickoff. I know that because Joe Multijob, the tight ends coach who also serves as assistant sports information director, is ready to introduce the lineups.
He might be tough to hear, though. The hand-held MiniVox, the official audio system at NKU sporting events for two decades, is weakening. The batteries are low. So is funding.
We do, though, understand the game could be delayed. Head coach Gerry Faust has yet to arrive. He's been detained making a presentation for a potential corporate sponsor. Gotta pay the bills.
But every other member of the NKU athletic department is here.
There is athletic director Jane Meier. After parking cars, she'll help sell programs, grill hot dogs and supervise the cheerleaders.
There is men's basketball coach Ken Shields. He just finished lining the field. Now it's on to the chain gang. Then, the stadium will have to be cleaned.
There is women's basketball coach Nancy Winstel, who will serve as an usher and work the scoreboard.
And, if you're wondering why NKU would take one of its timeouts so early in the game, it's simple economics. Frank Overworked, the offensive coordinator who also runs the concession stand, had to change the Coke tank.
Yes, this is small-college athletics at its finest. And yes, this is the future of NKU athletics. The school's Board of Regents voted 7-to-2 on Wednesday in favor of starting a football program.
Football is scheduled to begin in the fall of 1999. Women's soccer will begin this fall, and women's golf, women's swimming and women's track all are expected to be added in the next five years.
So, too, is everything else that surrounds small-time athletics.
Everybody seems to know this except those who ultimately made sure the vision of football became a reality.
There was interim president Jack Moreland, determined to lead the charge. Note the word interim. Moreland is not a candidate for the school's presidency. The university is in a presidential search now.
It's unlikely that a majority of the 11-member Board of Regents who voted for football will be there when it kicks off, either. Six of their terms expire this year, and those people would either have to be reelected or reappointed by the governor.
But there will be football, Division II non-scholarship football. Sound exciting? How about games with such powers as Quincy, Saint Joseph's and Kentucky Wesleyan. Excited yet?
This, however, is only part of the idiocy of NKU adding football — a sport that will do nothing but continue to drain the school's already-depleted athletics budget. And spread an already overworked staff even thinner.
You see, this information should have been included in the reports circulated to the Board of Regents. Not a bunch of convoluted pages filled with unanswered questions.
Maybe the voting members should have been given a tour of the athletics department. There, they would have seen sports information phones that don't work properly and a computer system one step ahead of Bedrock.
Or the storage facility used to house the tennis equipment. It's a barn, one you've probably seen in a neighbor's backyard. You can't help but notice the humongous hole in its side, either.
Better yet, maybe members of the athletic department should have had a vote. After all, they are the ones ultimately responsible for making football work.
That is what bothers me most, the repercussions adding football will have on members of the athletic department — people who have made NKU athletics what it is today with little or no help from the university administration.
People like Jane Meier, who has assembled a broad-based program that is nationally competitive. People like Ken Shields, who has built the Norse basketball program into a national power. And people like Nancy Winstel, who has long been one of the best in her profession.
These people deserve better.
They deserve better than an interim president and his appointed group of cronies ramrodding football.
They deserve better than a committee established to merely study the feasibility of adding football unveiling a helmet complete with the school logo. Studying the possibility of football, eh?
And, if this group can devise ways to raise enough money to start a football program, why can't they put a similar effort into properly funding the sports that already exist. Sports that are nationally competitive despite financial limitations.
Maybe then Ken Shields' operating budget — monies used for equipment, travel, recruiting and anything else besides scholarships — would be more than it was in the early 1980s, which is its current status.
Or better yet, maybe then school administrators could exercise a little vision. Maybe they could formulate a plan that would include an on-campus basketball arena that would benefit all of Northern Kentucky. Maybe then, school administrators could begin to formulate a 10-year plan to move the school's athletic department to NCAA Division I status — a move NKU should have made a decade ago. A move Wright State University did make.
Today, Wright State plays in the 10,632-seat E.J. Nutter Center, is a member of the Midwestern Collegiate Conference and can talk about its matchup with Indiana in the 1993 NCAA Tournament.
Wright State is where NKU should be. If not now, then in the future. To get there, though, NKU needs a commitment from its university administration.
Not small-time football.
(Tom Gamble is the sports editor of The Kentucky Post)
Comments
Post a Comment