UTSA one step closer to college football
 

Football scores big with UTSA students

Web Posted: 09/14/2007 12:33 AM CDT

Jerry Briggs
Express-News

Call it the allure of football.

Or call it a sign that UTSA students have decided to change their image as commuters uninterested in anything involving school spirit.

Regardless, students sent a clear message to the community Thursday, a message that has echoed into the halls of power.

The UTSA Student Government Association announced its peers had authorized by a 2-1 voting ratio a 100 percent increase in athletics fees to fund a higher-caliber program.

Effectively, the vote has boosted a plan to have the Roadrunners start a football program at the Alamodome by 2010 or 2011. However, the vote doesn't mean UTSA definitely will field a football team.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents, which has the final say on increasing student fees, likely won't even see the school's proposal until early next year.

"I cannot say, 'thank you, thank you,' enough to the students," UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey told about 500 people gathered for the announcement at the University Center on campus.


What surprised even the referendum supporters was the voter turnout: a school-record 4,602 students participated in the online election Tuesday and Wednesday. It represented a 16 percent turnout of a student body that's now listed at 28,688.

"That's a really, really strong vote," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said. "I think they get about 12 to 13 percent in City Council elections."

The plan also calls for UTSA to move into a Division I-A conference within the next decade. It also opens the door to upgrade the other 16 sports to a higher level of competition.

"I am particularly encouraged by the size of the turnout," said UT System regent Cyndi Taylor Krier, a former Bexar County judge. "Sixteen percent is higher than most government elections. To see the students so involved made me feel good. ... They were the ones the board was looking to for direction."

The referendum passed with 3,031 students voting for and 1,571 against, with 65.9 percent supporting an enhanced athletics program.

Immediately, UTSA officials will begin intensified private and public sector fundraising to keep the ball rolling.

Hickey confirmed UTSA would ask for $50 million from the county to help fund an on-campus athletics complex.

UTSA is expected to deliver the message at her presentation to a county athletics facilities committee hearing Sept. 25.

The UTSA athletics complex is planned as a facility to be shared by the university and the community.

It will include a core building for athletics offices, plus stadiums for baseball, softball, track, soccer and tennis. It also would serve as a training site for football.

While Wolff said the county likely would include UTSA's complex on its funding list of amateur sports complexes in next year's election, he said a $50 million slice of the package probably isn't in the cards.

"It's probably going to be difficult to get that much," Wolff said. "We'll have to leave that up to the task force. But I think they will step up and do something significant."

Most significant were the actions of UTSA students, giving administrators the go-ahead to raise fees for athletics from the current $120 per semester to as much as $240 per semester.

The fee increases can be no more than $24 per semester in each of the next several years.

But the long-term impact could be substantial. UTSA officials estimate a gradual increase could pump as much as $14 million into the athletic department over a five-year period after the increases begin.

"It is very pivotal for students to get behind it," Florida Atlantic University athletic director Craig Angelos said. "Revenue is always difficult to come by in a start-up program."

Florida Atlantic started football in 2001 and moved up to the highest level, Division I-A, in 2006.

"You can raise money from donations and one-time gifts," Angelos said. "But you need the annual revenue. You need the steady stream."

Krier praised Hickey for her role in organizing the students to get behind the proposal.

"If the teams on the field are as successful as the ones she has pulled together to explore this idea," Krier said, "then in the next step, you will be writing about national championships. You can tell she used to be a coach. She can pull people together and motivate them."
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Go Roadrunners!!!!

In relation to the 2020 thread... hopefully by then we'll have a local University sports fued between UTSA and the future A&M-SA. It'll probably take longer than 2020 as A&M-SA would need time to grow but you never know. That would be a true north side vs. south side feud!

UTSA really deserves a program....I know when I went there people talked about a future football team. This will be excellent for the city, and with TAMUSA coming to town, SA is going to be on the fast track to becoming a very young and educated city, more so than it already is.

So have they scrapped the idea of an on-campus stadium for the Alamodome? Or is the Alamodome just supposed to be temporary?

Temp. until it is razed and replaced with a new state of the art stadium for our NFL team! ;)

When/Where is A&M being built? When I lived there, I heard rummors about it being on the south side of town or off 1604 near Randolf AFB. I have been out of the loop for a while.

I'm so happy that this passed! UTSA deserves a football team, as the student body/alumni would be behind it 100%. I can't wait to see what Hickey presents on Sept 25th. Go Roadrunners!

On the south side of town just south of Loop 410, I believe. The Randolph AFB area was never considered. They had 3 or 4 choices and all of them were south of town, south of Loop 410.

One can only hope :notacrook:

I really think that SA is making a mistake by putting TAMUSA so far to the south. The city is missing out on a huge opportunity to bring thousands of young folks to the downtown area. If SA had decided to put the campus just south of downtown it would have really helped with the downtown revitalization efforts...

...Of course, the final decision may have been TAMU's instead of SA's.

Actually, it was a back door effort. It will turn the current Palo Alto College into TAMUSA. The late Senator Madla really wanted it, even though the need isnt really there. And it might STILL not happen. They keep lowering the state law requirement for a branch. First it was 8,000 students. Then it was 5,000 students. Next was 3,500. Now it's 1,500 enrolled students, and they still cant make that. If they dont by this fall, the $60 mil the state gave 'em to start up evaporates. TAMUSA is a waste. It would be worthwhile if it was a compliment to UTSA - offering programs UTSA didn't and wouldnt; like AG stuff, aeronautics stuff, etc. But no, TAMUSA is currently offering shit like teacher certification, enginnnering and stuff; programs UTSA already offers and excells at.

BTW, UTSA already has a campus downtown, with 4,000 students. It's not a panacea for downtown development tho. Basically, its a bunch of kids who have to drive down there for class and hate it. Leticia Van de Putte called it UTSA del Barrio when it opened. Nice huh? It was supposed to provide higher education access to all these west side kids. I'd be interested to see how many neighborhood kids actually went there that wouldnt have before. For the $100 million they dropped on the campus, they could have provided a lifetime of free buss passes to the main campus for every poor kid in Bexar County. But whatever. I had a VP one time tell me the only reason its there is to shut up the complainers about not having a downtown presence. I say they should have sold the campus to the A&M system for their new campus. For us, UTSA's slogan of 'Come Here, Go Far' pretty much means 'Come Here, Drive Far'.

Go UTSA!
 

Congratulations to the students and supporters of the just passed referendum to improve athletic facilities and bring football to UTSA. This is a big deal indeed. In ten years UTSA will be knocking heads with the big boys in NCAA D1A and will be bringing much glory to a university which has long lacked the benefits of big time college football. In addition to football the university will be able to build new sports facilities and improve upon those that already exist. All things considered nothing but good will come from the passing of this referendum. Which leads me to an interesting question. Given all of the good that will come out of student athletic fee increase, how could anyone in their right mind vote against the referendum?

This is where the University is going.

http://tamusystem.tamu.edu/offices/c...ng2007/map.jpg

Palo Alto isn't being turned into Texas A&M-SA, Texas A&M University–Kingsville System Center at San Antonio, which is currently being housed at Palo Alto College, will transition into Texas A&M-San Antonio. TXlifeguard, one reason and the main reason that the TAMUKSC was never able to reach the required number of students was a lack of room for additional students and another reason is the lack of state funding. Those issues have recently been resolved and that center will reach that goal. By the way, Texas A&M-San Antonio already has a wiki, lol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_A...%93San_Antonio

I love the downtown campus, my freshmen year I got stuck taking a class down there and every year after I made sure I took some classes for down there aswell. And I live a good distance from both campuses (1604/Bulverde), so the driving doesn't bother me.

As for the Football team, its about time. UTSA has really changed alot since the last time I was there a few years ago. So many new buildings have gone up at the 1604 campus.

Go UTSA!!! I really hope these proposals for a football team pass. As a huge fan of college football this would be a great boost to the university and the city. And besides, I'd have another team to root for on Saturdays!
:yes:

Is UTSA Football A Good Idea???
 

Two Texas universities weigh pros, cons of starting football programs

By Eric Dexheimer

AUSTIN - AMERICAN STATESMAN STAFF


Monday, October 01, 2007

Ninety-nine percent of colleges and universities lose money on their athletics programs, and football teams cost the most. Yet the allure of a marquee team is so strong in Texas that some schools that don't currently compete in the sport are tempted to start.

Two large universities considering adding intercollegiate football to their campuses recently have run the numbers. Their reports, both delivered in the past year, offer a detailed window into the game's high finance — and low return.

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi administrators say they hope Division I-AA football will boost school spirit and attract more male students to the university, which has ambitious growth plans. At the University of Texas-San Antonio, administrators say they see football as an essential building block toward becoming a top school. Each would lose millions of dollars every year.

Two years ago, the University of Texas-Arlington decided to pass on starting a football team after a study showed it would cost more than $20 million the first five years. Both UTSA's and TAMUCC's reports warn of football's outsized expense — as much as $8 million annually in UTSA's case and about $3 million at Corpus Christi.

"It's the most labor- and financially intensive sport to add," said TAMUCC Athletics Director Brian Teter. The cost would be borne largely by students, in the form of higher fees.

Where would the money go? At Corpus Christi, adding football would nearly double the current coaching and support salaries, from $700,000 to $1.2 million, and add $1 million in administrative costs. Scholarships for football players would tack on another $1 million.

There's more: New equipment ($128,500) and a training room ($40,000). Installing new turf in Buccaneer Stadium would cost $750,000; new locker rooms and lockers are another $750,000. Converting a classroom to a restroom, building a coaches' office and player meeting rooms, an equipment room, practice fields and video operations is an additional $1 million.

Other startup costs are less obvious. Adding football means Corpus Christi also would have to add women's soccer to comply with Title IX's gender equity rules. That's another $300,000.

While Corpus Christi's goal is to compete in the I-AA Southland Conference, the UT-San Antonio Roadrunners aspire to eventually play in larger and higher-exposure Division I-A. NCAA requirements make that even more expensive.

Division I means more scholarships. UTSA estimates paying for football players' education would start at $375,000, in 2009-10, and climb to $2 million by 2014-15, when the school attained Division I-A status. Adding summer school and fifth-year aid for some student-athletes costs another $100,000 or so.

Traveling to away games would cost $300,000 a year —and rise an estimated 50 percent four years later. Recruiting costs add $120,000 a year. UTSA's study also doesn't account for several large-ticket items, such as an academic support program, adding or enhancing broadcast operations and additions to the sports medicine and training facilities — all crucial components of a big-time program.

Though it wouldn't be used exclusively for football, the new athletics center the university hopes to build would add to the start-up cost. The school hopes to raise the $62 million privately.

Neither start-up program would come close to paying for itself. "Most I-A athletic departments are able to generate less than one-fourth of their total operating revenue from gate receipts, donations, conference distributions and miscellaneous sources such as television, radio, corporate sponsorships and special events," UTSA's report acknowledges.

UTSA's consultants estimate that by 2014, when the school wants to hit I-A, football would siphon $14.5 million a year from university coffers, the vast bulk of that — $13 million — paid by students in the form of fees.

That's more than double the current fee assessment, and would cost each student about $500 a year, according to internal studies. Nevertheless, earlier this month UTSA students voted overwhelmingly in favor of taxing future student bodies to pay for football.

At Corpus Christi, students would be asked to pay an additional $600,000 in fees annually for football. While some of the cost would be made up by as-yet undetermined corporate sponsors and merchandise sales, the university, which now subsidizes athletics to the tune of $1.1 million, would be expected to pay the rest. Though the exact sum is unknown, "the average Southland Conference university that sponsors football provides $2.83 million in 'general university support,'" the report notes.

Both schools say they are still studying whether football is worth it.

"There are a lot of people in Texas who believe that to have a first-class campus, you've got to have football," said David Gabler, assistant vice president for communications at UTSA. "There is prestige connected to schools that compete on the athletic field."

Still, Teter cautions, "If you're going to launch a program, it better be the right way or it'll be an albatross around your neck for years to come."

edexheimer@statesman.com;

so will incarnate word and utsa football teams be on the same level

No, UTSA will be going to the highest level of football, 1-A. The same level that has UT, TT and A&M. Of course they won't start out there. The plan is to spend 3-4 years at 1-AA, and then move up to 1-A and try to get into a conference such as CUSA, WAC, or Sun Belt Conferences.

This has been done before. The blueprint is to follow several Florida Schools who have started programs the past 15 years, the most notable being USF (University of South Florida). They started their program 12 years ago and are currently #6 in the country in the latest 1-A AP poll, having beaten both nationally ranked Auburn and West Virginia this year.

how big is UTSA and what is there mascot?

UTSA has about 28,000 students (http://utsa.edu/about/).
Not sure how that number breaks out between full and part-time students

The mascot is a roadrunner