1998: Hughes says interest in WSU football is not there

The silence is deafening.

In May, a 17-person committee handed Wichita State president Gene Hughes a report recommending the return of football to campus.

The report gathered dust on Hughes’ desk until last week. He didn’t set aside time to read, dissect or analyze it for five months.

But in that time, Hughes gained all the information he needed.

Not one phone call about football. Not one letter, fax or e-mail. Not one question at a university function or dinner.

“I had one of the members of the committee who wanted to have an official copy of the report,” Hughes said. “Other than that, I can’t remember a conversation with anybody that I didn’t initiate.”

You’d think if a university, its supporters and the community was frantic about football’s return, at least one person would have lobbied the man with the decision in his hands.

In any other year, the silence would make Hughes’ decision simple. But in a year where he has announced his resignation and his successor has been chosen, Hughes has chosen to wait until he consults with incoming president Don Beggs before choosing a course of action.

“I want to talk to him to tell him what has transpired to date, give him the results of the survey, then see if there’s a way that the two of us can try to determine definitively whether there is any support out there for football,” Hughes said.

So far, Hughes has come up empty. He said he and Rick Smith, vice president of the WSU Endowment Association, have approached six corporations or potential large contributors about their interest in football.

Zip.

“By and large, the corporate executives that I have talked to have said they think we should really continue to build our basketball and our baseball programs,” Hughes said. “And they recognize we have to do (support) all of our other programs as well because of Title IX.

“But they say to really emphasize what we’re doing and doing well, and try not to consider going beyond that.”

That means football’s on the far, far back burner. Hughes, however, will not pull the plug without first consulting with Beggs. Beggs recently concluded a two-year stint as chancellor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, a fellow Missouri Valley Conference member that plays Division I-AA football.

Here’s what Hughes and Beggs will discuss:

▪ One report commissioned by Hughes’ Athletics Program Enhancement Committee projected a five-year cost of $11 million to begin football and three women’s sports needed to balance gender-equity requirements.

▪ Another report projected that football season-ticket sales would fall well below minimum standards needed to fund four new sports.

▪ There’s an apparent lack of interest from corporations or large contributors.

▪ No additional state funding is coming, and Hughes has mandated that football cannot return by way of increased student fees. Without those sources, private donors would be the only option, and Hughes said that doesn’t seem likely.

▪ The competition for donor dollars between football and other possible projects, such as Levitt Arena renovation or the construction of an indoor practice facility and new administrative and coaches offices.

“The only way that you could have football, I think, is if you make another hit with students, and they can’t afford it,” Hughes said.

Hughes, who will be paid as a consultant to Beggs in 1999, said he still could make a decision before the end of his tenure but that it will come only after talking to Beggs.

Hughes really didn’t need to study his advisory committee’s report. He said none of the costs or recommendations surprised him.

“I guess the only thing that surprised me was what appeared to be a total lack of support for any long-term commitments,” Hughes said.,”I think the feeling was that major corporations would, but they were hesitant to.”

The sounds of silence.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 12:42 PM with the headline "1998: Hughes says interest in WSU football is not there."