DURHAM - Imagine being an athletic competitor -- someone who has been taught all your life to play to win. Now imagine being an athletic competitor and knowing you have virtually no chance.

For members of N.C. Central's men's basketball team, imagining is unnecessary. In their first season at the highest level of college basketball, losing has been their almost certain fate. Only one team out of 341 in Division I has fewer wins than Central, whose record went to 3-23 with a win against Chowan on Saturday.

Losing is hard on the players, dispiriting for the fans, but oddly profitable for Central. As a newly minted D-I school, Central is a team big-time basketball schools are eager to play -- and pay -- for another notch in their win column. In NCAA circles, these are "guarantee games," in which a team agrees to visit for a price and makes no demand for a return match at its home arena.

Records show that NCCU has received $434,500 so far, the combined take from 21 road games -- including 17 guarantee games. Every guarantee game was a loss. Central has fewer home games this season than any team except Presbyterian College. Of Central's first 16 games, 15 were on the road.

Many historically black colleges and other smaller schools known as "mid-majors" agree to go on the road for the money, but Central's path of pain has been exceptional and, some think, excessive.

Dwight Datcher, athletic director at historically black Howard University, said his school used to play more guarantee games but cut back because of the toll on players' morale.

"We still have to bring in some money games," Datcher said. "But we've gotten a little more sophisticated with it." Howard's coaches, he adds, do other things such as fundraising in the community: "We don't do it just on the backs of our kids."

Datcher said historically black schools and mid-majors in Division I make about $50,000 per guarantee game and average about $200,000 a season. Told that Central has made more than twice that much, he said, "Wow."

Such earnings come at a price in pride. Eagles coach Henry Dickerson said it hurts to watch his players get beaten badly in unfamiliar arenas.

Sitting in airports, people often ask the Eagle players who they are.

"Then they ask, 'What's your record?' It's hard for a young man to explain 1-18," Dickerson said. "They can't stick their chests out. They have to explain the transition. Watching them have to do that is painful."

Central's bruising introduction to Division I has been compounded by its lack of a league affiliation. The plan was to move into the Division I Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. The MEAC has bigger and more prestigious schools but is still a league of historically black colleges. It includes universities such as Howard, Florida A&M and Hampton.

But NCCU has yet to be accepted into the MEAC, and Dennis Thomas, the league commissioner, has been noncommittal about the move.

This season, Central is one of just 10 teams without a league. So the Eagles played big-time opponents that would guarantee a payment for showing up.

Plenty of other smaller Division I schools do it, but most also have a league to play in once January arrives. Those teams can get crushed by national powerhouses early in the season while making money, then return to league play.

Nostalgia for old league

As Central stands alone and oft-defeated, some people are starting to ask whether it was good for NCCU to chase the spotlight by leaving the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In the CIAA, Central enjoyed modest success playing the likes of Raleigh's Shaw University and St. Augustine's College and won the Division II national title 19 years ago.

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