1986: Shocks experience more football agony

The Wichita State football team was 3-8 this season and the program will lose a bundle of money. So what else is new?

As sure as November annually brings biting north winds to Kansas, it also signals the end of another woeful Shocker football season.

A season that began with hope after the 69-6 blowout of San Francisco State ended with despair in another rout, as Arizona State ripped the Shockers 52-6. The season, as usual, has WSU officials and coaches shaking their heads.

“It’s been disappointing, naturally,” said Coach Ron Chismar.”We had hopes of doing better than we ended up doing. The disappointment doesn’t come because we lost here to Arizona State, the disappointment comes from not beating some teams we should have beaten earlier in the year. . . . I’m disappointed that we were not closer to showing that (improvement) this year than we are.”

“I’m not going to try to deceive anyone,” said Athletic Director Lew Perkins. “I’m disappointed we have not won more games.”

“It’s really perplexing,” WSU President Warren Armstrong said of the Shockers, who appeared poised for a winning season but instead stumbled to a losing record for the 13th time in the past 14 years.

The future of WSU football is equally as perplexing.

On one hand, the program appears to be in no immediate danger.

“It will be back next year,” Perkins said. “…We’re going to have football until somebody tells me differently.”

Armstrong, too, said the administration’s commitment to improve the program has not altered. An ardent football fan, Armstrong sees athletics as WSU’s “window to the world,” it’s most visible activity.

Chismar, too, appears to be safe, even with a career record of 8-25. He still has two years remaining on a contract that pays a salary of $57,000 annually. He already has begun recruiting for next season.

Perkins said Chismar, and his staff, will return next season. He termed rumors that Chismar would be replaced as “absolutely ludicrous. . . . It’s never been discussed.”

But while the program’s immediacy is not threatened, it seems improper to assume the program will be a permanent fixture at WSU, regardless of whether the Shockers’ performance on the field - and, perhaps, more importantly at the gate - does or does not improve.

“We’re not ignoring the fact that we’re losing money,” Perkins said. “We completely re-evaluate our program every year.

“Anytime you lose money, you look harder.”

Added Armstrong: “It’s something we think about constantly and very directly.”

Among faculty and Shocker boosters, another losing season has not caused much of a stir.

“I would say there has not been a whole lot of comment one way or the other,” said Martin Perline, WSU’s faculty representative to the NCAA.

“I haven’t had one complaint nor have I had any praise,” said Todd Aikens, president of the Shocker Athletic Scholarship Organization (SASO), WSU’s booster club. “Nothing’s been said.”

That indifferent attitude among boosters is not surprising.

In a survey of SASO members this summer, having consistent winning seasons in football was tabbed by boosters as one of the least important goals of the athletic department.

Among some student leaders, though, there is a different view.

“The general attitude is they should dump it,” said Steve DesMarteau, a student ombudsman whose position is funded by the Student Government Association. “…This is not a traditional campus and we’re not going to support traditional sports like they do at Kansas and Kansas State.

“It’s a losing program and it’s expensive.”

Very expensive. Perkins estimates WSU will spend $1.4 million on football this season and lose about $700,000. The program lost about $500,000 last season.

Attendance for WSU’s five-game home schedule averaged 9,690, down nearly 15 percent from last year. It was the second-lowest average since 1968. Two games attracted less than 5,000 fans.

“I think we thought we would have better gate receipts,” Perkins said. “We have not put out a product the public will come out and support.”

He said the school sold 12,000 season tickets, but many of those were to corporations at a reduced rate.

Perkins, though, is quick to note that football isn’t the only sport at WSU that loses money. Of the school’s 16 sports, only men’s basketball turns a profit.

And, Perkins said, football, for most colleges, is a losing propositon financially.

“There are 105 Division I-A (major-college football) schools,” Perkins said. “I’d be surprised if 25 of those schools do well financially. I’d say another 10 to 15 are probably doing well enough. That means there are 65 football schools struggling financially, and we’re one of the 65.”

Perkins’ colleagues agree with that assessment.

“If you said about a third of the 105 schools were making money, that would be about right,” said Brad Rothermel, athletic director at Nevada-Las Vegas. Rothermel estimated the UNLV football program will lose about $1.4 million this season.

“It costs a lot of money to play college football,” said John W. Benn, the athletic director at Tulsa. “It’s an uphill struggle in every sport. That’s modern-day athletics.”

Why then do schools continue to operate football programs that run up huge deficits?

“It’s part of a tradition,” said Bob Fleeman, a SASO member whose son Brad plays for the Shockers. “We’ve had it since 1897. It’s part of history.”

“The visibility of the university, I think, is important,” said John Gaston, chairman of the 14-member athletic advisory board. “The fact you are out there and people hear your name.

“If we were only playing football to make money, that’s a different thing.”

“We have to be aware of the intrinsic value football brings to the university,” Perkins said. “…We are a comprehensive urban university, broad-based in all areas.”

That broad base includes athletics, Perkins said, and football must be part of the athletic program.

A football program, Perkins said, provides exposure for the university and gives it status as a major institution. It also keeps alumni, and alumni dollars, attached to the school.

“I think football plays a vital role in the university,” Perkins said. “If it wasn’t so important, there would be a lot more schools dropping it.”

Perhaps more schools would, Rothermel said, if they had the courage.

“Institutions have traditionally competed in intercollegiate football,” Rothermel said. “It’s been a focal point for the alumni of the institution. Because of those two points . . . it’s normally not popular to re-examine an institution’s commitment, or to contemplate the reduction of the program or of its elimination entirely.”

Reducing the program by dropping to a lower level of competition is not a viable alternative at WSU. Last July, Armstrong said: “We’re either going to play Division I-A football or we’re not going to play football.”

Armstrong believes, as do many other university officials, that scaling back the program would damage the university’s reputation.

“We’re committed to football at Wichita State and we’re committed to making it better,” Perkins said. “…Obviously, you would like it to finance itself.”

That may never happen. Even if WSU sold each of the 30,083 seats in Cessna Stadium for every game, the revenue produced would not be enough to keep the football program from losing money, Perkins said.

Tradition has helped to keep the program going. So have an improving team -despite its poor record - and positive happenings off the field.

“Over the four years, this is the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said punter Dave Armagost, a senior who just completed his eligibility. “The record is the same but the people we played are a little better and the way we played was a lot better. This program is real close.”

“It’s tons better,” said defensive lineman Doug Maxwell, another senior. “There’s really nothing embarrassing. When I first came here, Wichita State was a joke.

“Coach Chismar has done an excellent job of bringing in coaches and student-athletes. We’re playing better and we’re more competitive.”

Off the field, academic performance seems to be improving among team members. Also, the number of players leaving the program for various reasons, including academic troubles, has decreased.

“I do think we made some strides beyond wins and losses,” Perkins said. “Over the last three years, we have come a long, long way.”

But whether WSU has come far enough is uncertain.

“’People have to realize you don’t take 30 years without success,” Perkins said, “and turn it around in three years.”

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 12:44 PM with the headline "1986: Shocks experience more football agony."