Investing In Football

The headline below has nothing to do with Georgetown football, but the story does.

Deadspin.com posted a story this week titled “ESPN’s Wimbledon Bid Is The Future Of Televised Sports,” a review of the circumstances in which NBC, after having broadcast the world’s preeminent tennis tournament since the dawn of the open era, lost its rights to ESPN, a network which has over the past two decades picked up Major League Baseball, the NBA, most of NCAA college sports, and the entire sports remnants of the ABC television network. But what makes this story interesting is not that ESPN took it away inasmuch as NBC gave it up."

"NBC's not stupid, and GE didn't become the third-largest public company because it passes on chances to make the most money,” wrote author Barry Petchesky. “The decision comes down to opportunity cost. On one hand, there's the viewership lost by airing a match we already know the outcome of. On the other hand, there's the viewership lost by preempting The Today Show for live tennis. Guess which brings in more ad sales?”

"NBC, or any network that commits to a long-term TV deal, has to be concerned not only with recouping its money from commercial sales, but also the lost money from whatever's being preempted. For NBC, that's a fortnight of The Today Show, with around 5 million viewers daily; for ESPN, it's the 7am SportsCenter.”

Hold that thought as we begin with a review of the costs associated with intercollegiate football at Georgetown University.

First, this question: what is the opportunity cost for Georgetown to be a competitive football program? Or, more appropriately, how much investment will it take? For this column, a lot less opinion and a few more numbers will be in play. Few fans pay attention to a team's budget--perhaps it's assumed that schools send an equivalent amount on equivalent sports.

A closer look at U.S. Department of Education budgets for football suggests a changing landscape. Five seasons ago, the 2005-06 academic year, Georgetown ranked as follows among those Eastern schools playing Division I-AA football:

1	James Madison University	$4,208,133
2	Fordham University	$3,898,156
3	University of Delaware	$3,890,595
4	Villanova University	$3,791,955
5	University of Richmond	$3,658,117
6	Colgate University	$3,628,807
7	Hofstra University	$3,602,055
8	University of Massachusetts	$3,318,205
9	Lehigh University	$3,261,340
10	Northeastern University	$3,166,474
11	Lafayette College	$3,109,946
12	University of Rhode Island	$3,040,230
13	University of New Hampshire	$3,022,471
14	College of William and Mary	$3,006,528
15	College of the Holy Cross	$2,716,725
16	University of Maine	$2,621,578
17	Bucknell University	$2,488,592
18	Yale University	$2,155,095
19	Harvard University	$2,090,271
20	Columbia University	$1,971,707
21	Towson University	$1,962,285
22	Princeton University	$1,801,579
23	Georgetown University	$1,666,297
24	Dartmouth College	$1,624,336
25	University of Pennsylvania	$1,497,051
26	Cornell University	$1,441,074
27	Brown University	$1,256,085
28	Stony Brook University	$1,225,656
29	Wagner College	$1,198,243
30	Sacred Heart University	$994,970
31	Central Connecticut State Univ	$972,558
32	Monmouth University	$880,823
33	SUNY at Albany	$877,574
34	Bryant University	$876,671
35	Saint Francis University	$867,629
36	Robert Morris University	$843,158
37	Duquesne University	$465,936
38	Marist College	$456,575
39	Iona College	$355,172

Twenty-third? Not great, but look at the comparable budgets: Princeton, Dartmouth, Penn. Say what you will, but those are names Georgetown could be comfortable with.  In 2009-10, look how that ranking had changed:

1	University of Delaware	$5,744,858
2	Villanova University	$5,228,231
3	Fordham University	$4,809,131
4	University of Richmond	$4,783,891
5	College of William and Mary	$4,535,570
6	Colgate University	$4,514,524
7	Old Dominion University	$4,415,209
8	University of Massachusetts	$4,332,838
9	Lafayette College	$4,198,351
10	James Madison University	$4,197,097
11	Towson University	$4,050,261
12	College of the Holy Cross	$3,920,294
13	University of New Hampshire	$3,824,532
14	University of Rhode Island	$3,730,269
15	Lehigh University	$3,671,791
16	University of Maine	$3,593,951
17	Stony Brook University	$3,452,189
18	Bucknell University	$3,008,262
19	Princeton University	$2,929,356
20	Columbia University	$2,745,817
21	Yale University	$2,507,069
22	Monmouth University	$2,265,998
23	Harvard University	$2,142,235
24	University of Pennsylvania	$2,079,036
25	Cornell University	$2,015,525
26	Dartmouth College	$1,920,170
27	SUNY at Albany	$1,903,667
28	Wagner College	$1,866,061
29	Bryant University	$1,847,498
30	Central Connecticut State Univ	$1,779,801
31	Robert Morris University	$1,639,539
32	Brown University	$1,538,414
33	Duquesne University	$1,529,237
34	Georgetown University	$1,430,512
35	Saint Francis University	$1,415,266
36	Sacred Heart University	$1,384,786
37	Marist College	$760,699

Goodbye, Princeton, Dartmouth, Penn. Say hello to Duquesne, St. Francis, and Sacred Heart.

So what changed? For Georgetown, very little. Its four year net change in football spending was a slight decrease from $1.6 to $1.4 million. Trouble was (and is), it was the only school in the region to actually decrease spending. When viewed on percentage change, Georgetown's place in the Eastern landscape is even more disturbing:

1	Duquesne University	228%
2	Stony Brook University	182%
3	Monmouth University	157%
4	SUNY at Albany	117%
5	Bryant University	111%
6	Towson University	106%
7	Robert Morris University	94%
8	Central Connecticut State Univ	83%
9	Marist College	67%
10	Saint Francis University	63%
11	Princeton University	63%
12	Wagner College	56%
13	College of William and Mary	51%
14	University of Delaware	48%
15	College of the Holy Cross	44%
16	Cornell University	40%
17	Columbia University	39%
18	Sacred Heart University	39%
19	University of Pennsylvania	39%
20	Villanova University	38%
21	University of Maine	37%
22	Lafayette College	35%
23	University of Richmond	31%
24	University of New Hampshire	27%
25	Colgate University	24%
26	Fordham University	23%
27	University of Rhode Island	23%
28	Brown University	22%
29	Bucknell University	21%
30	Dartmouth College	18%
31	Yale University	16%
32	Lehigh University	13%
33	Harvard University	2%
34	James Madison University	0%
35	Georgetown University	-14%
	(new programs since 2006 not included)

It’s no secret that Georgetown spends a lot less on football, than, say, men’s basketball. There is historical as well as economic precedent for this. The dropping of major college football remains a tear in the Georgetown athletic fabric sixty years later, because it cemented an institutional distrust in sports becoming bigger than the school could manage. Football wasn’t dropped for scandal, nor for any shame brought upon the school, but for the sin that it was an expensive proposition for the University. That football returned at all was based upon the premise—a compact, perhaps-- that football at Georgetown, expensive football, would not return as it did before.

“Any form of highly subsidized football is an economic impossibility here at Georgetown,” wrote The HOYA in 1964. “There is big-time football and non-scholarship football. There is no in between.”

For most of Georgetown’s 28 other sports, then as now, its programs are underfunded. It’s not a slight, but it’s reflective of a school which decided long ago not to invest in the land and the tools that major college programs do to be in that select company. Few expected Georgetown ever to be in the select company of major college athletics again, but it happened.

What happened was, of course, men’s basketball, which also existed on a shoestring when John Thompson arrived in 1972. The perfect storm of Thompson, the arrival of the Big East Conference, and the explosion of TV sports elevated Georgetown from a local team to a national one within three years, even if McDonough Gym was better suited to a Division II program than one that was moving through the NCAA Tournament.

It was during the early 1980’s (and revisited in 2004) that Georgetown took a hard look at the opportunity costs of men’s basketball and decided that the costs of investing in basketball had a return that Georgetown could live with, and be successful with. Georgetown’s basketball spending went from “spending to compete” to “spending to excel”.

Georgetown football does not spend to excel. It has not demonstrated the capacity or the financial commitment to compete for the I-AA national championship.

It is arguable that Georgetown football does not spend to be regularly competitive. With a budget that trails fellow Patriot league schools by such a degree that the Hoyas could double its spending and still rank last in the conference by budget, one unfamiliar with GU could assume that Georgetown’s financial backing does not put it in a position to compete for the Patriot League title; not spending to compete, merely spending to play.

"How will ...football better the school?” asked The HOYA 47 years ago. “Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s advantageous.”

The secret to Georgetown’s future success isn’t to look to Delaware or Villanova for budgetary guidance. First, look up the hill.

As operating budgets go, Georgetown University is half that of Duke, a quarter that of Stanford. Yale produces enough endowment proceeds to fund the entire Georgetown operating budget, yet Georgetown’s annual endowment proceeds would fund two weeks of expenses at Yale. Yet, against considerable odds, Georgetown nonetheless competes with Duke, Yale, and other peers—not because it outspends these schools, but because, in part, it leverages its message and its spending that play to Georgetown’s strengths.

And what are these strengths? From Georgetown.edu: "Established in 1789, Georgetown is the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university. Drawing upon this legacy, we provide students with a world-class learning experience focused on educating the whole person through exposure to different faiths, cultures and beliefs. With our Jesuit values and location in Washington, D.C., Georgetown offers students a distinct opportunity to learn, experience and understand more about the world."

Put another way:

1. The preeminent Roman Catholic university in the nation.
2. Exposure to a world-class education.
3. Location, location, location.

Over the next four installments, let’s talk about the targeted investment that could allow Georgetown to compete at the top of its football peer set, focusing to its strengths and opening the doors of a Georgetown education to a new generation of student-athlete that may have never considered it in the first place.

(That, and finishing the field.)

Hail And Farewell

Ah, the commencement weekend.

Simultaneously the most remarkable and most forgettable time in one’s young life, college commencement is a big deal, even if the speaker isn’t. Some graduates will be hard pressed to remember the speaker at all in six months time, much less a quarter century passed.

My commencement speaker was a South African poet. I have no memory of what was said, but we weren’t there for the talk, anyway. Graduation Day, 1984 marked two lasting images. First, it was the happiest I would ever see my father. Only a day removed from a particularly sharp chewing out over my sleeping through their breakfast at the Key Bridge Marriott (last call at Senior Ball was the unmentioned culprit), he nonetheless was sincerely happy to see me make it through college. I was only the second member of my extended family ever to graduate college, neither of my parents made it through a year after high school.

Simultaneously, it was among the saddest—three hours later, as friends and family had left and I was packing up the Village A dorm, the stark reality followed—this really was all over. The campus was deserted, and four years were done. Finished. They may tell you the class will all get together at Reunion, but once the ceremonies conclude, this will really be the last time you may ever see some of these people again. Some will lose touch with you, some won’t care, and for some, the end is sooner than we all know. A month after I graduated, one of our colleagues at the radio station died in a car crash. He was 21.

There is now a cottage industry in commencement speakers—actors, statesmen, journalists, humorists. Georgetown’s somewhat short-sighted policy on commencement contributes to this, in a way. For the 25th straight year, commencement will not be one speaker, but up to ten, where quantity does not always equal quality. The Class of 1981—all 1200 of them--heard from Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Impressive. Would it have been the same for the SLL to get the Assistant Undersecretary of the Interior that year instead and for the business school to get the CEO at Giant Food?

The official reason there is not one commencement speaker is that no facility is capable of holding 1200 graduates and three or four guests each. Funny, that approximates the expected capacity of the Multi-Sp….no, that couldn’t be. Yet, back in the 20th Century when this plan was hatched, the use of the MSF for commencement was a viable and worthwhile goal.

This weekend, the weeds grow a little taller at the Millions Short of Fundraising Field, but for those up top on the hill, congratulations and a few words of my own, directed at the newest members of the alumni family.

"If there are three things you take away from four years at Georgetown, what would they be, debt service notwithstanding? Three.

1. Pay attention. So much of life is about those who are aware to the world around them and those who let it slide on by. A movie from your parents’ generation summed it thusly: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So whether it’s grad school, raising a family, joining a community, or simply knowing when to cross the yellow light and when there’s a red light camera waiting around the bend, a Georgetown education should offer you the benefit being involved and active. Don’t fall for the adage that ninety percent of life is just showing up. If you do, you will die an unfulfilled man.
2. Ask questions. Nothing in life isn’t made better by critical thinking. At the turn of the 20th century, the director of the U.S. Patent Office questioned his department’s legitimacy, saying “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” It’s easy to jump to the same conclusion today, and while we are not all inventors, we have the opportunity to be innovators in our chosen fields. I don’t care what you do it or how you do it, but make it better, and know that you can’t get to the answers without posing the questions.
3. Lend a hand. In a time of such great bounty in our history, there are always those in need—in your neighborhood, in your church, in your nation, in your world. Remember those cards with the different-colored spots harkened back at Orientation? The spots indicating the number of people that do not have the opportunities you have had? Those haven’t gone away in four years and they won’t unless people of good will can offer to help. Closer to home, alma mater needs your help. Don’t turn your back on this place because you can’t afford to write a check. There are institutional needs that do not require a few zeroes behind your name, and young alumni can play a vital role in this. For starters, how about talking up the need to get these athletic facilities taken seriously by more people? It’s one thing to read about the woebegone MSF and the McDonough locker rooms, it’s another think to have lived it, as you have. Tell us what needs to be done. Lead by example. This is no longer an era where you must generationally wait your turn to take positions of authority. Step up and be counted. Now.

And for our athletic alumni out there, don’t put aside the mantle of competition as you put aside the jerseys and pads. Character is revealed in athletics, and for those who put their sweat equity into the program at a time of low expectations by friend and foe alike, do not lose that intensity to be a productive alumnus and a productive member of your community. Get involved with the University. Get involved with your class. And in three years time, when the program recognizes its 50 years of modern football, do not be afraid to lead the charge once again, to make the academic and athletic experience of Georgetown University all the better because you were a once part of it.

Or, as simple as this, from your fellow alumnus Joe Lonardo (B’69): “When you leave Georgetown, Georgetown doesn’t have to leave you.” Take the best of the place and use it every day going forward. You’ll find out you’ve learned more about life than you’ll ever know."

Now, on to the field.

Nothing To See Here

It's been awhile since there was much to talk about on the blog, but there hasn't been much on the front burner of football to awake from hibernation (or basketball season, whichever applies). I had planned to talk this week about Villanova's big decision whether or not to join the Big East, but the Big East (read= Pitt) is making things a little more difficuly on the Main Line, essentially telling the Wildcats that an 18,000 seat soccer stadium isn't good enough for them. Some of the ACC media wags in Boston suggest this is the first step towards kicking all the non-IA schools out of the Big East. (Don't think so.)

As Georgetown goes, when it's the off-season, it's really the off-season. Recruits won't be announced until May (whatever rules apply which do not allow GU football to announce recruits doesn't apply at the five other PL schools which have already posted theirs). As far as we know all the coaches are back for 2011, and if there are transfers or attrition from the 2010 season, it may take a while to know more about it.

The 2012 schedule was announced earlier this year, adding the first meeting with Princeton since 1923, and a return series with Brown. The Hoyas travel to Old Nassau on Sept. 28, 2012. (Red Line to Union Station, Amtrak to Princeton Junction, one stop on the famous "Dinky" line, and you're right there.) For 2011, only four home games but a road game at Howard keeps one close.

If it's been quiet off the field, it's been quiet on the field as well.

Unlike the interest that predominates I-A spring football and finds its way to I-AA teams as well, Georgetown wraps up its spring practice with nary an article written on it. A brief blurb at GUHoyas.com noted that sQB Scott Darby threw a touchdown pass and three interceptions last week, but without further clarification of how the scrimmage was set up, it's impossible to determine what that means. If you're looking for a spring roster, stop looking: GU did not release one.

Kevin Kelly's degree in college wasn't marketing, but you have to think he would like to promote this program better than what has shown to the public these last five years. Outside of an interview with Bernard in the New York Times in 2007, there may not be five articles in the off-campus press about Georgetown Football. That Kelly and his staff is back for a sixth year after dropping six of its final seven games may be enough for now; like some other smaller sports, staying off the campus radar may have its advantages when the win-loss record isn't there.

We are also not hearing from Georgetown on either of the two pressing issues circling the program: funding and facilities.

The avoidance approach by the Patriot League presidents to the "fight or flight" posed by Fordham will continue through 2012, whereupon the Rams will have signed 60 on full scholarship athletes and the rest of the league will not. One of three outcomes await:

1. The league will deny Fordham's plan for scholarships, and the Rams will leave the league after 2012.
2. The league will accept Fordham's plan for schoalrships, a mad dash to match Fordham's 60 grants ensue, whereupon Georgetown is left far, far behind or eventually asked to leave; or
3. The league will stall again, and Fordham will leave anyway.

Georgetown is not in the driver's seat on this matter but it wouldn't hurt to check out its safety belt. Does Georgetown need to start soliciting funds for schoalrship support, however one defines it? Should it be up front and let everyone know it won't play scholarship football even if the rest of the PL does? With new leadership at the Gridiron Club (Bruce Simmons '69), there are a lot of opportunities to energize the base.  And that's important--with materially less to offer than every other PL school, when does Georgetown University start the process of stepping up its financial support, whether to be a truly competitive PL program in a scholarship scenario, or finding a soft landing elsewhere if the league becomes untenable?

The time to act is not in 2013. It starts in 2011.

Of similar and growing concern--heard much of late about the Multi-Sport Facility, "the most important project in the history of Georgetown Athletics"? Me neither.

On the front page of the HoyaSaxa.com football site, a clock ticks away the days since construction was stopped on the Field With No Name--as of this writing, 2,035 days and counting. Those temporary stands hastily constructed before the home opener in 2005 weren't put up to withstand the tests of time, and a FieldTurf surface meant to withstand 10 seasons of football games is approaching some real maintenance concerns with 12-16 hours of usage a day among various teams.

The fundraising model that started with this project is broke. The efforts to focus on a name donor before any movement forward isn't there, either. Further complicating the situation is the idea of timing--Georgetown cannot seem to do more than one construction project at a time, which put the MSF behind the Southwest Quad...then the business school...then the science building...and soon, the inertia for building the Athletic Training Facility (ATF), delayed now for 4+ years, will soon overtake the MSF as the top project for Athletics. Meanwhile, the gravel will wash away, the field will wear out, and recruits will find other places to go.

If the decision comes down to building the ATF or the MSF, well, no question. But with technology in the area of modular stadiums, a concept at its infancy when the MSF make-do began, maybe there's a middle ground between doing nothing and waiting for Godot.

A modular stadium is a means to construct a facility which is not intended to be a permanent facility, but has all the acoutrements of a permanent facility but without the foundations and the building materials that would add to the cost. Modular building is the new buzzword in soccer circles, particularly for countries bidding on world events. Rather than spend billions on dozens of World Cup facilities, build what you need and keep only that which you want to keep after the event.

In theory, the temporary grandstands at MSF were a crude form of a modular stadium. "Georgetown had the idea in motion to build a multi purpose stadium on campus and initially thought that their need would be for a two season rental of our Ultimate seating," wrote the 2006 press release at Seatingsolutions.com. "When the larger project stalled, the University then purchased the Ultimate bench seating system... and the three press boxes with the intent to move the entire modular system to various sports fields on campus once the new stadium is built."

But the technology is so much more developed than 2005. So it was with some interest that I read about the efforts un Vancouver, BC to solve a real problem with facilities.

In 2010-11, Vancouver will be converting its downtown domed stadium, BC Place, from a inflatable roof to a retractable one, which moved the Lions (CFL) and the Whitecaps (MLS) out of the building for a season. With no good options anywhere nearby to handle such crowds, an RFP was posted for what they were looking for:

"Pavco, the crown corporation responsible for BC Place, is seeking proposals for the construction of temporary grandstands to facilitate the formation of a stadium suitable for the playing of Canadian football or soccer. Specific requirements are:
- Capacity of 30,000 to 32,000 with at least 75% of the seats covered
- Individual and seating preferred (to at least 85% of capacity)
- Other facilities required include:
- 24 private boxes
- Media facilities (press box)
- Broadcast boxes"

The winning bid was a European company called Nussli AG, and I'll share three amazing numbers from their bid:

• Capacity: 27,500 seats
• Cost: $14.5 million
• Construction time: 111 days

OK, it's not BC Place, but it's not a half-bleacher across from Harbin Hall, either. Take a look at the photos below (courtesy the Nussli site) and ask yourself: do we wait another 10 years for the MSF, or get something in the ground sooner? If $14.5 million bought all this, what would a 7,500 or 10,000 seat facility cost?



And what's a 111 day construction schedule? To meet a September 1 deadline, it would have to start by what, May 13? Amazing.

"The temporary stadium matches the quality of a permanently built stadium in many respects," reads the Nussli web site. "In time for the BC Lions to host their first home game of the 2010 CFL season, Nussli has concluded construction of the Empire Fields temporary football and soccer stadium in only three month[s] time. Capacity is 27,500 seats, including two roofed main grandstands and twelve VIP suites. 20,500 seats have been equipped with seat shells, 7,000 with bench seating for the balance. The Nussli contract also included responsibility for supplying complete power supply systems, flood and area lighting, stadium and emergency lighting, the sound system, and the construction of a VIP zone with turnkey suites, media and press rooms, as well as the installation of external cladding...The timeframe for construction of this stadium is unprecedented in the history of modular construction in North America."

Ok, It's a discussion starter, nothing more. But if the MSF falls behind yet another project (or two), someone is going to ask the question, "What's the point?" We can't let it come to that.

So if there's not much to see in Hilltop Football this time of year, know that there is still plenty to do. This is the challenge that faces Bruce Simmons and the Gridiron Club, and I look forward to their efforts.

The Alarm Clock

It's been one week since the Patriot League presidents met in their showdown over scholarship football, a defining issue over a conference once called "The Last Amateurs". Except that some of them don’t want to be amateurs anymore.

The collective hand of the league was called by Fordham University, which announced nearly two years ago that they would offer football scholarships whether the league liked it or not, and the PL leadership made the mistake of choosing compromise over principle. The league has been clear about football scholarships from the start--it's the reason the league is there in the first place. And amidst a challenge to the fundamental  principle of the league, the PL simply wavered, and followed the precedent a decade earlier when Holy Cross threatened to leave the PL unless it offered basketball scholarships. (The day Columbia walks into the Ivy League and announces it is going full scholarship in basketball, rest assured the Ivies will not make an accommodation.)

Which is, of course, what the Patriot League did. In exchange for making the Rams ineligible for the league title (for whatever that is worth), Fordham was allowed to add scholarships, with the understanding that this would be settled one way or another by the end of the 2010 calendar year, allowing Fordham a chance to stay in the league, or make plans to go elsewhere when it reaches 60 scholarships in 2012. However one viewed the compromise, the understanding was that a decision would be reached, and it would either be to Fordham's benefit or its detriment.

The presidents arrived last week to make a decision, and they decided, well, not to decide at all.  There’s a old saying that “not to decide is to decide.” But in this case, it is not a decision as much as a stalemate, for as Samuel Johnson observed centuries earlier, "Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages."  In football terms, the scholarship issue was on the 20-yard line. The league could go in for the score, or punt. Instead, it took a knee and ran out the clock. What does this mean (or in this case, not mean) for Georgetown?

Aside from the obvious financial issues, there are program-wide issues to be settled for Georgetown over this issue, and it’s not clear if Georgetown will settle them itself or have it settled for them.

Every twenty years or so, Georgetown has one of those “fork in the road” decisions which, by its decision, has charted the course of the program:

• 1930-31: In the midst of the Great Depression, Georgetown quietly dropped scholarship support for football. While alumni were driving Tommy Mills out of his job with his 11-13-1 record, the decision set back the Hoyas for half a decade. Jack Hagerty got scholarship support returned in 1934, but it wasn’t until 1938 that the impact was truly seen: an undefeated season.
• 1950-51: In the midst of the Korean War, Hunter Guthrie S.J. saw athletic scholarships as a luxury not matched by the Hoyas’ indifferent attendance patterns. With no alumni that stepped up to support the program or build the stadium that was sitting on the drawing board since the 1920’s, Guthrie unilaterally cut the program and no one was there to say otherwise.
• 1969-70: The club program had taken hold at Georgetown, but the national club movement was faltering. Georgetown could have stood pat as schools like Marquette and St. Louis did with their club programs, but otherwise made the decision to step up to the NCAA College Division. It allowed the program not only to grow, but ultimately survive as the club level vanished.
• 1990-91: With an NCAA decision that forced Division III schools to move to Division I, the likelihood of Georgetown football after the 1992 season was no given. Various alternatives were on the table—a return to club football, for one, or dropping it altogether. With consensus and support, Georgetown took the leap forward, and we’re all the better for it.

And now it’s 2010. The scholarship issue, either way, will define the direction of the Georgetown program for another decade or more. Publicly, Georgetown doesn’t talk about it but scholarships (merit and/or need) have to be actively pursued if Georgetown is going to be able to stay on the field with its peers, much less anyone else.  Yes, there are some “endowed” scholarships, but those are fractional gifts and nothing more.  If ten years of getting its collective hat handed to it hasn’t got the message through to Georgetown that you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight, a scholarship Patriot League surely will pound it to them, and will the program be strong enough to stand on its own two feet thereafter?

Georgetown doesn’t have to make a decision today, but it needs a direction. There are any of five different ways this could all shake out in the PL, and the presidential non-decision increasingly points to a league splitting along financial lines. A $5 million Fordham program is, eventually, going to distance itself from the $1.4 million Georgetowns of the world just as Georgetown distanced itself from the MAAC schools, and
before that, the Catholic and Washington and Lee programs of its past. Maybe schools like Georgetown, Holy Cross, and Bucknell can stick together. Maybe not.

The Patriot League faces this brave new world: for all intents and purposes, it has lost Fordham. If even one of the all-sports  members (Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh) leaves the conference, the PL drops football as a sponsored sport and Georgetown is cast adrift. Think it can’t happen? At least two of these schools (Colgate, Lehigh) will give full scholarships a hard look next season and may be tempted to pull the same trump card Fordham pulled—‘we’re going scholarship, what are you going to do about it?” And what will the PL do, if anything? At that point, what can they do, short of disbanding the conference?

Lafayette is on the record in the Allentown and Easton press—it won’t support a 63 scholarship league, the source of considerable consternation in the only media market that really follows the PL anymore. Maybe the PL can’t stomach 63, but it needs a compromise.

Resolved: “In the sport of football, the League shall allow member schools to offer not more than 15 equivalent grants-in-aid that do  not involve financial need.”

Why only fifteen? Six of the seven PL schools already field teams of 40 or more equivalencies. A 15 scholarship addition elevates every PL school but Georgetown to the status of a “counter” to get I-A opponents to schedule them for “body bag” guarantee games, which is what most coaches and fans want anyway. Colgate can schedule Syracuse and pick up a check for $400,000 because it’s at or near counter status. That pays bills, and presidents like paying bills. Fans like the thought of Lehigh and Penn State, regardless of the score. From a financial perspective, this gives them the opportunity to show "improvement" to the alumni without committing $2-3 million to do it.

Fifteen scholarships makes the remaining PL schools immediately better, and, by force of sheer movement, gives them a reason to hang together, rather than, as Benjamin Franklin put it , “to hang separately” and have to commit the capital to add 60 full scholarships, meet Title IX, and face an uncertain competitive climate in conferences like the Big South or CAA. It also keeps them close enough competitively where the Ivy League will continue to play them.

Georgetown can’t be a counter under its current funding formula, but the impact of 15 scholarships  raised directly from the Gridiron Club could become a powerful ally in recruiting. Partnered with the 1789 Scholarship Imperative, $750,000 a year in annual fundraising brings forth 30 new half-scholarships, opening the doors to Georgetown that a lot of recruits aren’t getting near right now. No, Syracuse won’t be calling, but it allows GU to continue to pursue a need-based quotient as it does, or mix in some athletic-based grants as well.

Fifteen scholarships won’t win the Patriot League on its own, but it’s the same 15 that everyone else would have, and at least make Georgetown a more competitive entity in a league where they have mostly been anything but.

It’s clear that there was not the consensus within the league presidents to move to 60 scholarships. Was any other number discussed? No one is saying, but for this argument 15 is a number that may be more palatable; without it, no number will ever be.

The PL's decision merited not one article in the Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, The HOYA, or the Voice. Like a tree in some Pennsylvania forest, it fell down and no one heard it, but listen closely: this is an alarm clock ringing on the future of the Patriot League and of Georgetown’s options within it. Georgetown can use this as a clarion call to reengage a increasingly distant alumni population which has grown tired in the Kevin Kelly era, to build a culture of sustained giving, one which men’s basketball and rowing has successfully maintained for two decades, but which football has never mustered the cause to develop. Brining in $650,000 would only be the start of a wave of philanthropy from football alumni--some of the most successful alumni at this institution came through the football program and their support remains untapped. Give them a reason for giving, and you can see the results in winning, and you will see the foundation built for a home in Division I-AA for generations to come.

Or, Georgetown can hit the snooze button and wake up in two years, and found that the house has burned down.

A House Divided

The cold weather of December heralds the traditional end of news on Georgetown football for the year

MSF? No change. Coaches? No comment. Recruits? Not yet. Schedule? Wait until the spring.

Elsewhere in the Patriot League, it's a winter of rising discontent over the issue that seemingly has captivated the league (sans one school, that is): whether the league ought to allow (or, to some minds, mandate) up to 63 athletic scholarships as a means to better compete in NCAA Division I-AA football. Thanks to a dare by Fordham University, the league has a central question before it, the one that founded the group in the first place: can a conference built on the principle of not offering athletic aid for football now embrace it... and what does it do if everyone is not on board?

"Suffice it to say that the Ivy League has become non-competitive outside of the league to the point of being unable to even fill their stadiums," wrote former Colgate beat writer Tom Lazzaro in 1985. "Rather than bring back spring football or institute various other reforms to raise this sad level of competition, the Ivy League presidents looked around for schools which shared, as Brown University president Howard Swearer announced 'our philosophy of sports, and our view of the role of athletics in higher education .'" Such was the aegis of what was originally called the Colonial League, a view that grew from a football-only model to an all-sports league by the early 1990's.

Numbers were the the problem then, as well as today. The Ivy had a stable eight to work with--no one was leaving, no one needed an invitation. The Patriot League had a founding four (Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Colgate), adding a reluctant Holy Cross fan base when the Crusaders let the Big East bandwagon pass it by. For the most part, then as well as now, the five agreed on matters and funded its progams at a similar scale. Getting to seven, much less eight, has never quite worked out.

In is earliest days, the league presidents sought out the likes of William & Mary, Delaware, and VMI, according to reports. None were willing to trade football competitiveness (e.g., scholarships) for being able to hobnob around New Haven and Old Nassau. The PL sought out Davidson, in its sunset years as a football power in the Southern Conference, who found the transition so rough (1-20) they got up and moved down to Division III. When the president of the University of Richmond suggested his Spiders join the PL, they ran him out of town, literally. Towson joined as a bridge back to the CAA, and left soon after the league had added an eager but underfunded addition in Georgetown.

The scholarship issue was instigated by Fordham, another school that has never quite bought into the PL's model of Ivy proximity at the expense of a reduced athletic emphasis. The Rams' insistence in the mid-1990's to add basketball schoalrships led them ultimately to leave the PL in sports other than football, and led Holy Cross to threaten the same if the PL did not change its ways. At the risk of losing the league, the PL presidents reluctantly agreed to basketball schoalrships a decade ago, and all have eventually followed. Football is the only PL sport where scholarships are expessly prohibited.

And in 2009, Fordham called the question again. Accept 63 schoalrships or they walk, destination unknown. Surely, most PL presidents would concur, the conventional wisdom held, and if Georgetown didn't, well, who needs 'em. Other Eastern schools would see the wisdom and join the league. Happy days are here again, at least north of Washington.

If this was still the 1990's, with $1.10 a gallon gas and a budget surplus at most schools, maybe this would be a plausible argument. Instead, the fianncial and Title IX logjam between the pros and cons of this situation gets its hearing Monday and Tuesday at the league meetings, with a resolution many will find unpalatable in any form--because there really won't be a true resolution.

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A decade after joining the Patriot League, most Georgetown fans don't give it much thought, and are as unaware of the rest of the PL as the PL fans are, frankly, unaware of Georgetown. Some Big East comparisons for the PL football configuration may help:

• Lehigh and Lafayette are the Pitt and West Virginia of the Patriot League. To them, separated by mere miles and not time zones, the Backyard Brawl means everything, and the schools value the need for fierce competition, if regardless of the other rivalries in the league. Recent comments by Lafayette President Daniel Weiss that he wasn't supportive of football scholarships had more comments asking what would happen to the rivalry game than what it would do to the league.
• Think of Colgate as Syracuse: a really strong program with a long-time coach, whose fan base doesn't accept falling behind. They've played for a national championship, they know they can compete outside the Ivy League sphere, and if scholarships makes them better, well, sign them up.
• Bucknell is the Providence of the Patriot League--a founding member, its size and location have made it a tougher sell to compete in the league, but they always find a away to do so. No one can underrate Bucknell in a game, because they always fight hard. Its recent run of second division finishes, however, have led some among the league to ask if the Bison can still find a way to stay with the leaders, or will they remain a permanent step behind.
• Holy Cross shares a number of comparisons with St. John's--a storied program, a demonstrated commitment to the sport, but a constant battle with its past to avoid those who wish "the good old days" were back. Granted, Holy Cross has been more successful on the gridiron than the Redmen have been on the court of late, but neither can be dismissed as the kind of program that could be nationally relevant again with the right ingredients. "If Villanova can do it, why can't we?", both schools might ask, albeit for different reasons. But let's ask it--if Holy Cross had 63 schoalrships, would they be playing Appalachian State on a Saturday afternoon in December?
• By comparison, Fordham is a little like Rutgers--a sleeping giant in the big media market who has enjoyed some recent success but certainly not enough of it for their expectations. And much like Rutgers doesn't mind the whsipers that the Big Ten could be a future suitor, Fordham fans have bigger dreams than the Patriot League, realistic or not. Fordham could get its 63 grants and still leave, and the league knows it.
• As for the last member, Georgetown, think a school on the edge of the Big East conference, a recent addition to the league, a recognizable name in a big media market with next to no success since joining the league (okay, none), and a general lack of interest in its program by many recruits. Sounds a lot like DePaul, doesn't it? Unfortunately.

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Problem is, the Big East is not the Patriot League. The Big East is the best basketball conference of its kind in the nation--teams are fully funded, nationally competitive, and there's a waiting list of interested schools who would join. The PL has none of these, and with its declining out of conference performance (the PL has won one I-AA playoff game since 2003, and a sub-.500 record versus the Northeast Conference this season), scholarships are seen by some as the means to turn around the league before it slides into the ditch of irrelevance.

Turnarounds cost money, though. And commitment. Does the Patriot League have this commitment, or is it becoming more of a scheduling arrangement across schools who want to spend $5 million a year to be the next Appalachian State, and those who don't? Will the seven schools fall in line and spend the money, or will the league devolve into three that do, three would like to, and one that doesn't seem motivated to follow? Does the Patriot League want to be more closely associated with the style of competition at Dartmouth, or Delaware? Cornell, or Old Dominion? Georgetown, or Georgia State?

The Patriot League can reject Fordham's motion Monday and lose a school in the process. They can accept the motion, and risk whatver purpose the 1985 agreement provided it. That's the price of progress sometimes. But if they are not united moving forward, this league is adrift and, ultimately, divided.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. Nor a league.