1992: Task force isn’t optimistic about WSU football
Wichita State’s task force on athletics can’t seem to get football out of its system.
University officials dropped the program in 1986, blaming financial problems and an apathetic public.
The financial problems haven’t gone away: WSU’s athletic department debt is $2 million. And getting a fix on whether Wichitans want a football program isn’t easy.
As the debate goes on, Cessna Stadium withers away. The once-proud 31,000-seat stadium has been ignored the past six years. The bleachers have been removed, training rooms and locker rooms are in disrepair, and the structure cries for paint.
With so many other pressing needs, it’s difficult to tell where football and Cessna Stadium fall into the picture.
Discussions this week with athletic department personnel, boosters and task force members indicated there is no consensus.
Yet football will be the most important, and certainly the most emotional, subject when the President’s Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics issues its final report later this month.
The task force was appointed by WSU president Warren Armstrong in February. Its mission: chart the future of Shocker athletics.
An April 22 preliminary report by the task force stated that “there is no chance of football returning to WSU in the foreseeable future unless the program would be totally underwritten.”
Doesn’t sound promising.
Yet the football issue hasn’t died. In the next few days, WSU will hire an architectural firm to inspect Cessna Stadium and other athletic facilities. The architects will report back on how much it’s likely to cost to bring Cessna back to life.
If it’s too much, Cessna Stadium could be torn down before school starts in late August. If the price is right, WSU might decide to proceed slowly with a plan to resurrect football within the next two or three years.
“It would be a catastrophe if they don’t bring back football,” said Don Blasi, a psychologist and member of WSU’s Hellraisers, a booster group that is pushing for football. “I’ve been clinically depressed since they dropped it.
“They’ve lost enrollment since they dropped football, and the spirit of the students is the lowest I’ve ever seen. It’s an insult to the city and the university not to have football.”
WSU is likely to spend lots of money on athletics, whether or not football is revived.
In a report to the task force, consultant Monte Johnson, a former athletic director at the University of Kansas, said athletic facilities at WSU are among the worst in the country. In particular, he said, Levitt Arena’s locker rooms, training facilities and offices need immediate attention.
In its preliminary report, the task force estimated that nearly $1 million would be needed to correct those deficiencies.
The committee said it could cost another $1.5 million to provide better student housing for athletes. Currently, all incoming freshmen athletes are required to stay a year in Fairmount Towers. The task force has determined that Fairmount Towers is unsuitable.
In all, the task force is recommending that at least $7.2 million be spent to improve existing facilities or construct new ones. None of the recommendations includes football.
Starting a football program isn’t cheap.
Alabama-Birmingham never had football until three years ago, when the school started on a club basis. It moved to NCAA Division III last season, and Gene Bartow, UAB’s athletic director and men’s basketball coach, hopes that the school eventually will become Division I-A, the classification that includes the largest football schools in the country.
“If my president turns me loose, we’d like to go Division I-AA by the 1993 season, do that for a couple of years, and then go I-A, “ Bartow said.
There are requirements to become a I-A football program, though. The toughest has to do with attendance: A school has to average 20,000 fans for four seasons before it can become a I-A program.
Last season, UAB averaged about 5,000 playing Division III schools such as Tennessee Wesleyan, Miles College, Lane College and Millsaps. UAB is a I-A school in all other sports and has a strong history in men’s basketball.
“We keep our (football) budget to $150,000 or a little less,” Bartow said. “Our coach is a physical education professor on the campus, so we don’t have to worry about that salary. We hire part-time assistants and pay about $8,000 or $10,000.”
Division III football requires no scholarships.
Bartow would like for UAB to qualify for Division I-A football within five years. The annual budget would then increase to somewhere around $3 million.
“The thing is, football is so big in this part of the country that you’re not really a total university without it,” he said. “It’s a risk anywhere, but here football is such a big thing. We have four radio sports talk shows in town, and all they talk about is football.”
Most of those interested in reviving football at WSU would like a Division I-AA program, similar to those at Indiana State, Southwest Missouri State and Southern Illinois. Those schools spend anywhere from $1 million to $1.5 million annually on football.
How important is football in Wichita? It’s difficult to tell. The Shocker football program was never much more than a marginal success.
The task force emphasizes that basketball is WSU’s bread-and-butter sport, even though season-ticket sales and attendance last season were at 30- year lows. It appears the bulk of improvement recommendations will be for Levitt Arena.
Whether or not football will come back to life seems to be a troubling question. Johnson, in his report to the task force, recommended a firm decision by August but didn’t say what that decision should be.
Borrowing from the report put together by a 1988 committee to study football at WSU, Johnson wrote that the football issue is “a very complicated, emotional and delicate one.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 12:33 PM with the headline "1992: Task force isn’t optimistic about WSU football."