UTSA one step closer to college football

[SAguy]

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!!!!