Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993 TAG: 9306120037
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: DURHAM, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
During the recent College Football Association meeting in Dallas, they even brought in former Notre Dame vice president Edmund Joyce. Whatever else Joyce was during his many years in South Bend, he was a football man.
The 76-year-old priest said "militant females" were trying to kill football. Betcha that got a loud ovation.
There are, sad to say, some women who are so involved in creating equality and proportionality in college athletics that they don't give a hoot what happens to football.
The thought here is that group cannot be permitted to win, even though in this era of gender concerns it has become increasingly difficult to say no.
But the reaction of the CFA, which includes all of football's biggies except the Big Ten and Pacific 10 conferences, appears to be equally unbending.
Even though there is almost no chance these demands will be met, the CFA is insisting:
Scholarships will not be cut below 85 total and 25 a year. (If you can figure out how 85 and 25 over five years meshes, let me know.)
Training tables will be permitted in the off-season and coaches can continue the expensive practice of taking their team to an off-campus hotel on Fridays before home games.
A spring game will be permitted against a rival school.
Athletes will be given five years of eligibility in the five years allotted to graduate. "This is a no-brainer," said Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum, noting that most freshmen are redshirted. The one with no brain is Slocum. With that plan, nobody would be programmed to graduate in four years.
What the CFA is saying is clear: "Don't mess with us."
What the organization should be doing is striking a conciliatory pose, offering to negotiate, to find a middle road.
These things are certain: Everybody is having financial problems, and yet schools must find a way to put more scholarships, more money, into women's programs.
As the one sport that has no female equivalent, and the one that - by far - has the most participants and costs the most money, football is the sport where cuts can be made without substantially altering or ruining the product.
The coaches, not surprisingly, don't see it that way.
The five-year-plan reflects how narrowly football people think on occasions. No other sport would even consider the notion. Nobody else sticks around that long. No other sport has massive amounts of redshirting.
The theory that a spring game would be a major moneymaker doesn't fly. Only the Top 20 teams could line up opponents that would fill stadiums, and I'm not sure even that would occur anywhere outside the Deep South.
Spring football didn't work for the pros and it wouldn't be a hit for the colleges, either.
The coaches stubbornly insist that taking the team to a hideaway on Friday night is a good idea. Why that is so only for football and not any other sport has yet to be explained.
The fact is that cuts are coming, and the CFA should be preparing to negotiate rather than deciding to be the militant right.
The likelihood is that these changes will be made in January at the NCAA convention:
The position of recruiting coordinator will be eliminated, with those duties handled by a position coach.
No more than seven coaches will be permitted to recruit, leaving two at home at all times.
Whether there will be further scholarship cuts or not isn't certain. But a CFA that demonstrates a willingness to be a partner in financial solutions is certain to receive a warmer welcome from the voting delegates.
One thing about college football always has puzzled me: Nobody seems willing to accept the fact that no matter what cuts are made, they'll be the same for everybody. They'll still play the same number of games, and when all is said and done, the total record will be .500.
You can't tell me the crowds will stay home if Virginia and Virginia Tech play with each side having only 70 scholarship players, or squads limited to 95 with the home team sleeping in dorms on Friday night.
What the CFA doesn't need to do now is cry wolf.
by CNB