Players express anger over University decision

By Mike McDonald
Collegian Editor
December 5, 2007

On Monday, Nov. 19, the La Salle administration created some major waves with its announcement that the football program will be discontinued. The university cited the collapse of the MAAC Football League as the primary reason for this decision.

“It is important to note that this decision was not the result of the performance of our team, nor is it a reflection on the team and the young men who have competed for La Salle,” Athletic Director Thomas Brennan said in a university press release.

But while the university appears to be ready to move on without a football team, the players are left trying to pick up the pieces. In a five-minute explanation from the administration, the players learned that their La Salle football careers had ended.

“A revised plan to accomplish the necessary goal of clarifying the roles and responsibilities of advisors to registered student organizations is in development and will be announced soon,” Cicala said in the e-mail.  

“We were all told to come up to the mezzanine [level of the Hayman Center] that Monday at 4 p.m.” sophomore linebacker Jerry Barlow said. “We went in and Brennan started the meeting by saying, ‘It is with great regret that we inform you that we are going to discontinue the football team at La Salle University.’ He went on to give a few details, and then he and John Lyons walked outabout five minutes after they had started speaking.”

This short talk was all the explanation that the team received about the decision. Many players are very upset.

“They told us to do everything that the university tells us to do, like study halls and community service,” senior tight end Geoff Nagle said. “They told us that we were trying to build on these things for the future, and then we got the rug pulled right out from underneath us.”

“It’s just hard, because you train all year round. When the season stops, you go through winter lifts, winter conditioning, you go to study hall, you keep your GPA up and it’s all to play a sport that nobody even respects, but you respect it, and you want to keep playing the sport because you love the game,” Barlow added.

“You run, you lift, you go through two-a-days, you sweat, you bleed, you go through all that trouble ... and then the school decides that you’re not worth anything to them.”

With Duquesne’s departure from the MAAC, the league was left with only three teams: La Salle, Marist and Iona, and so the league was forced to fold. Because of this, if the university decided to continue the program, it would have to decide on a new direction for it.

Several other options were considered by the administration. Many have cited the most viable option was to join the Pioneer League. This league consists of eight teams (Butler, Davidson, Dayton, Drake, Jacksonville, Morehead State, San Diego and Valparaiso) that are not nearly as local as the teams in the MAAC had been. As a result, there would have been a substantial increase needed in the travel budget, according to the press release.

Another option was to turn football into a scholarship program, but the release also noted that such a move would also be too expensive.

The third possibility would have been to continue the program as an independent team, as Iona will be doing next season. However, Brennan said this option was not attractive because of the lack of comparable teams and the lack of a championship structure.

The fact that the university explored other options doesn’t provide much comfort to the players. Nagle said he felt like he was “stabbed in the back,” while Barlow said he believes “the school is making an effort to put us to rest as fast as possible.” Senior wide receiver Kevin Crockett elaborated further on the same two points.

“I haven’t even been able to get into the [football] office,” he said. “At first, everybody was just like, ‘Yeah, we’ll be there to help you out,’ and then two days after everything happened, it was a ghost town. ... We didn’t even have a banquet. As a senior, that’s one of the things I looked forward to the most.”

The players also acknowledged that the coaches are in a very similar situation, as now their jobs are gone.

“I can feel for Coach [Tim] Miller and Coach Jackson, because they got the rug pulled out from under them just as much as we did,” Crockett said. “And I know the effort Coach Miller put in, trying to pump football up throughout the university. It’s hard for everybody.”

In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miller said he was “extremely disappointed.”

“The kids are unbelievable. They have done everything they can possibly do,” Miller said. “I really believed we were developing something special, but that's life. It’s part of life, but it's tough.”

There is some ongoing debate among the team as to when the decision to drop football was actually made.

According to the Athletic Department, talks about the future of the football team had been going on throughout the season, but the final decision was not made until the week before the last game.

The university then decided to announce the change quickly, so that the players would have time to look into transferring to other schools and make new arrangements. Many underclassmen already decided to transfer out of La Salle.

“We came here with the intent to turn the program around and be on a winning team before you graduate, and obviously that’s not going to happen any more,” Barlow said. “I came here because I knew I could play early, and I wanted to be on a team where it was something special to turn it around. I wanted to turn a losing program into a winning program... And now I’ve lost that opportunity.”

The decision to drop the program also affects the La Salle student body. Opinions are mixed.

Senior math major Joe Rollo said “It seems like a bad decision after they spent all that money on the new field.”

However, senior finance major and SGA President John Webster offered the opposing view.

“I think it was the only option the school had, and the investment to move the football team to another conference was one that wasn't worth it for the amount of extra money they would have to spend on travel,” the Webster said.

mcdonaldm2@lasalle.edu