Would SE Ohio Support A Football Team At Shawnee State

[----]

Looks like OD is doing pretty well going into its 6th season.


http://panthers.ohiodominican.edu/sports/sports.aspx?Sport=Football

OD is private... Show me a state school with 4,000 students that is thriving financially with a football team.

[West_Sider]

Do you not know that Scioto County is probably the hardest hit county by the economy the way it is in Ohio. There is no way that they are going start one. It wouldn't make them no money. It would only send them in the hole!

That is a misconception. When the economy is bad, university enrollment is up due to a higher percentage of unemployment and the desire to create new job skills for the every changing job market.

I'm on campus every day. There is sure a lot of construction going on around SSU. Sure doesnt seem like they are broke. And I dont believe that Scioto County is the hardest hit. There was nothing here to start with for us to lose. Other counties who had plenty of jobs are just getting a taste of what its like to live down here. Its harder for someone who has money to become poor than someone who never had anything to begin with.

[----]

You think the school is doing well? Do you know how many projects are on hold because of budget issues? Or how many positions they couldn't create because of the economy? The new UC project is one that was voted on and came from a student vote. Each student is paying an extra $150 towards the UC for the payment of it. I don't know why your on campus everyday, but if your taking classes you would notice that

[West_Sider]

Looks like OD is doing pretty well going into its 6th season.


http://panthers.ohiodominican.edu/sports/sports.aspx?Sport=Football

OD is private... Show me a state school with 4,000 students that is thriving financially with a football team.

I agree with your point that only about 5 NCAA DI teams make a profit. I will also agree that other than those 5 teams every other school does not. But my only question is why do these schools continue to have football? There is something more than just the bottom line involved. These schools are receiving some form of financial payoff for having these teams that may not be found in the athletic budget. If not, they would not keep the teams?

At this point your only hurdle is initial funding. That is where fund raising and pressing palms comes into play. I dont care if it takes 10 years, the start up cost is feasible at some point. But, one day someone needs to wake up, yawn, and decide they are going to start working on a project.

[----]

I hope one day it happens as well.. I think it'd be neat.

[West_Sider]

You think the school is doing well? Do you know how many projects are on hold because of budget issues? Or how many positions they couldn't create because of the economy? The new UC project is one that was voted on and came from a student vote. Each student is paying an extra $150 towards the UC for the payment of it. I don't know why your on campus everyday, but if your taking classes you would notice that

Is university enrollment up? How many consecutive years has it been up? The key word is "create" new positions. How many positions have been cut?

If you read my initial statement it said something like "but, for, the recession"...... darn, perception becomes reality. Having said that, as long as we keep using the recession as a hurdle, we will never get out of it.

[West_Sider]

I hope one day it happens as well.. I think it'd be neat.

Then we are in agreement. Now, the real question. If this hypothetical Shawnee State University Bear program should happen one day. Do you believe the community will support it? Do you believe this would help facilitate a better bond between community and university in our little scioto county society. (Which is what I think must happen for this part of southern ohio to flourish)

[Tartanblue]

you have to look at it this way, if they get football it will bring money not only to SSU but also to Scioto County as teams will have fans follow them and they will stay at our hotels and eat at our food places which will help raise Scioto Co. money.

[jumpstart]

I think the community would fully support a football program. Football is the most popular sport in this area and many of the surrounding areas so it makes since. And while the start up costs are huge, eventually they will profit from it. Football would not exist at any school if it didn't make a profit so don't kid yourself.

[Cameron34Crazie34]

I think the community would fully support a football program. Football is the most popular sport in this area and many of the surrounding areas so it makes since. And while the start up costs are huge, eventually they will profit from it. Football would not exist at any school if it didn't make a profit so don't kid yourself.

I learnt in Sports Management at Shawnee that there is only about 5 D-1 schools that make a profit from football. So I don't seeing it making the school a profit.

[sider]

I think the idea would be either a big hit or a big flop...either the community would get behind it and you would have a lot of local kids playing there, which would bring local parents and people that went to school with those players as fans, or people would decide they would rather sit on their couch and watch Ohio State play every saturday than go to the game

[Crab's Brother]

I think the community would fully support a football program. Football is the most popular sport in this area and many of the surrounding areas so it makes since. And while the start up costs are huge, eventually they will profit from it. Football would not exist at any school if it didn't make a profit so don't kid yourself.

I learnt in Sports Management at Shawnee that there is only about 5 D-1 schools that make a profit from football. So I don't seeing it making the school a profit.

"learnt"????? Are you serious?

Back to the issue at hand...... The question of would the community support football comes down to 2 issues. The first being when would the school play. If Shawnee played home football games on Thursday nights (late enough that the Junior High games were completed) then, yes, I would go on the condition that my second issue is met. The second issue is if the coaching staff tried, at first, to win with local kids. I went to several Shawnee State baseball games over the past several years because I knew many of the kids on the field playing for the Bears. The only Basketball games that I have been to since graduating from SSU, were to watch local kids playing for other school coming in to play Shawnee. I think that you can draw people from this area with more kids playing that are from this area. I would rather see some of the better players from the SOC, SEOAL, OVC, and SVC that are from this area, then watch a couple of locals playing with kids from the bigger schools to the north and west. If the program loses with local kids, then dump the plan and try to build a winner with kids from outside southeast Ohio.

[FarAwayFalcon]

First of all the turf for the soccer team has been nixed in the budget crunch. Second of all tuition will go up next semester to cover the costs going up and less state money. Also the only thing they need to build right now is a freaking parking garage and some more dorms. The university is growing quickly and as much as I would love to see them start football it's just not practical right now, but the situation might be different in 5 years. I would say that within the next 15 years they will have a football team. The enrollment last I heard was over 4,900 and students and on campus was over 900 when there was only like 300 only 2 years ago, the university needs to take care of students first, and starting a football team only eats up valuable real estate and money that they don't have. The only reason there is so much construction going on right now is because they have to do it if they want to keep up and continue to grow, not because they have more money than they know what to do with.

[----]

Enrollment TOPPED at 4,200 this semester, first time we have ever been over 4,000. Enrollment has increased in i think 5 of the last 6 years with the exception of the year SSU switched from Quarters to Semesters. Parking is fine, come down to where the soccer field is every day, plenty of places to park.

Now onto the topic. I would support them as far as I could, but I have a hard time not headed up to Ohio State games every Saturday to stay home and watch a bunch of SOC guys. How many locals are actually good enough to play at that next level? Are you doing it just to create an opportunity for them? I don't know how competitive they would be.

Does the SOC and the SEOAL have THAT many players that could make SSU competitive? I have a hard time thinking so. And even if they are good enough what is going to convince them to stay here?

Just my feelings.

[Winchell]

1. This would not make money.
2. Solely using locals would not be feasible.
3. The teams SSU would play would not bring any fan following with them.
4. At first, local observers would go, then after the novelty wore off, they would stop.
5. What division would they play? DII=slaughtered. DIII=private route and tuition being driven through the roof.
6. Must hire entire coaching staff, training staff, football office staff.


I could continue but it kind of gets ridiculous how impractical it would be. So, to answer the original post, look at number 4 and consider numbers 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6. Try to keep in mind, being realistic is not being negative.

[2trap_4ever]

I have it on good authority that if we were not in the hard economic times that we are at the moment that Shawnee State would be working toward this goal. However, the word is that they cannot justify spending money on a football team in the middle of a recession when the science department needed more labs. My question is, if SSU put together a football team that played games on Thursday nights and scheduled around OSU on Saturdays, would the local community support the team. My first impression is definitly, however there has always seemed to be a disconnect between the university and the local community for some reason. Would football help to narrow that gap?

So you wouldn't support Shawnee if they had football on Saturday's, I mean if you are a young man that goes to college and plays football, you want to play on Saturday, that is the goal, I just don't understand this part of it.

[West_Sider]

I have it on good authority that if we were not in the hard economic times that we are at the moment that Shawnee State would be working toward this goal. However, the word is that they cannot justify spending money on a football team in the middle of a recession when the science department needed more labs. My question is, if SSU put together a football team that played games on Thursday nights and scheduled around OSU on Saturdays, would the local community support the team. My first impression is definitly, however there has always seemed to be a disconnect between the university and the local community for some reason. Would football help to narrow that gap?

So you wouldn't support Shawnee if they had football on Saturday's, I mean if you are a young man that goes to college and plays football, you want to play on Saturday, that is the goal, I just don't understand this part of it.

Its all about giving the community the best opportunity to support the team. So, Thursday nights and Saturdays when OSU does not play. If OSU has a 12pm start time schedule your game at 4pm... if OSU plays at 3:30pm then play SSU's game at 12pm. People have a long history and investment in OSU football (including myself) and for most everything else is secondary in college sports. Its just important to work around that to give people the option to attend SSU football games should a team become a reality.

Players would rather have people in the stands than play on a specific day, in my belief. Does that clear this up?

[Tigercannon71]

I went to Walsh University and my first year in 1995 was the first year they started a football program. Walsh is in Canton which has some major businesses in the area which gave finicial support to the university to help with the football team. Also being a private Catholic college Walsh's tution is at that time was around $15,000 a year I think now its around 17 or 18 Shawnees is about a 1/3 of that. So money will be an issue with the school. Not only do you need equipment for around 100, you need a locker room, weight room, field, practice field, and then you got travel expenses, coaches salaries for at least 10 coaches.
Also yeah we got some talented football teams around the area, but I dont think that would be enough to field an entire team. What Im saying is you are going to need more than the best players from just local teams. At Walsh we were lucky to be able to pull from Cleveland, Canton, Akron, and the suburbs from those areas. At Shawnee you wont have that opportunity.
This going around OSU schedule. This is college football you play on saturday no matter who else is playing.
It would be cool to see Shawnee have a team, but I dont think it would be feasable for them to do it.

[PIGSKIN JUNKIE]

These rumours about Shawnee and football have been going on for awhile now. Personally I would love to see it happen..........but I dont think it will. Football can make money for a university, no doubt about it, but the money it would take to get a program off the ground and rolling would be hard to justify and frankly unecessary with the way small colleges are struggling financially these days. I hope Im wrong though, because it would be great to have college football near so many high school programs that produce solid, good football players.

As far as Rio goes.....its not going to happen people! From what I have seen and have heard from higher ups, the college is barely holding its head above water right now.

[fuzzhead]

I don't know how comparable it would be to Shawnee State as far as football goes, but I attended a Kentucky Christian game last year at South Point High School. This is a team made up of kids mostly from the area and a few from beyond. It was their first win if I'm not mistaken. But they absolutely packed that stadium's home side bleachers and it was on a saturday.
Now I don't know how much money (if any) their program generates, but it gives kids around here a chance to play at the next level and allows them to stick around while getting a secondary education.
All that being said, I wouldn't make a habit of attending KCU games even though I like the fact that they have a team. I'd rather stay home and watch college football. So with all that being said, I'd be in favor of SSU having football, but I probably wouldn't give it much in the way of ticket money. I think that's the way most people around here feel and that's why this will not happen anytime soon. It's a nice, warm-hearted idea, but no one cares enough to make it happen.

JMO.