Small colleges adopt football

Schools see teams raising enrollment

It's September, time for the spectacle of big-time college football. Increasingly in North Carolina, it's the season of small-time college football, too. Gridiron fever is growing in North Carolina, where colleges large and small are rushing into the costly sport. They are tapping alumni donations, building stadiums, hiring coaches and raising student fees. They are not in it for bowl games or money. They see football as a quintessential college experience and a recruiting tool to lure today's college students, who want amenities and entertainment.

UNC-Pembroke just kicked off its new program. Campbell University will add football next fall, and UNC-Charlotte is spending $150,000 to study the idea. Shaw University and St. Augustine's College revived the sport in 2002 after decades of absence. And Elon, Winston-Salem State and N.C. Central universities moved up to Division I in the past few years, in search of name recognition and a spot on ESPN's ticker.

Others say they have no plans to take the field, despite pressure from alumni and students. "We have 19 sports that are under-funded," said UNC-Wilmington Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo. "We'd like to get them up before we think about football. Although I keep telling people, 'The moment I get that $50 million check. ...' "

Football, with its large rosters, scholarship budgets and big-ticket facilities, can be risky. It is the most expensive sport to operate, yet more than 100 colleges and universities have added the sport in the past 20 years, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Dan Fulks, a research consultant for the NCAA who analyzes college sports spending, said fewer than 20 Division I universities make money on athletics. In Division IA, 56 percent of football teams make money, with an average profit of $11.5 million, and the rest lose an average of $2.5 million.

But in Division II, Fulks said, no school makes a profit on sports. The average deficit is $3.5 million overall and $745,000 in football. About two-thirds of the athletics budgets at these schools comes from the universities themselves. Only 3 percent comes from ticket sales and 6 percent from boosters; the rest is from student fees.

"You don't do it for financial reasons," said Fulks, an accounting professor at Transylvania University, which dropped its football program in the 1940s. "There are reasons to play football, or nobody would do it. The problem is, the benefits are intrinsic, and it's really difficult to measure."

Without football, Suitcase U

At UNC-Pembroke, football is one way to attract students and keep them happy, said Chancellor Allen Meadors, who argued passionately to add the sport over initial opposition by the UNC Board of Governors. Without football, he said, UNCP was often a suitcase school on weekends.

"We're in a rural town of 2,700," he said. "There is absolutely nothing for students to do off campus. If we don't provide activities, it's just not there."

Last weekend, in a revival of a long-dead program, the UNC-Pembroke Braves stormed onto the home field for the first time in 56 years. The students did the wave and reveled in pre-game tailgating outside the sold-out stadium.

"It was just a huge sense of community," gushed Student Government Vice President Barry Burch Jr. of Raleigh after the team's win over Greensboro College. "Everyone was smiling."

Unlike UNCP, UNC-Charlotte doesn't lack for weekend activities. The school of 22,000 is in the middle of a city with countless cultural and entertainment options, including several professional sports teams. But that presents another problem: Would enough people stay on campus to support 49er football?