At The Rotunda meeting last Thursday night, I was speaking with the adviser, Professor Jeff Halliday, and he told me I should listen to his radio show because I would be interested in what was said. So, like I usually do, I took Halliday's advice. I went and listened to Halliday's radio show, "A Waste of Your Time," and he had Director of Athletics Troy Austin as a guest on his show. Halliday and Austin spoke about the exciting news of Longwood University getting into the Big South conference. Austin spoke about the process and what this really meant for the university. As I was listening, I was hoping that Halliday would ask Austin about what this means for a football team coming to Longwood. Sure enough, the question came. "Troy, are we closer to having a football team than we have been?"
"I believe this has moved us further from adding football," was the response from Austin, which I was initially somewhat surprised to hear. Not that I feel we had moved closer to getting a football team, but I certainly didn't think it moved Longwood further away from getting one. Austin also said that he had not yet spoken with President Patrick Finnegan about whether or not getting football was a priority, but that is how he feels about football coming to Longwood. When I sat there and started to think about why Austin would say that, it started to make more sense to me.
Austin said we don't have the "resources" right now to get something as big as a football team started here at Longwood. By "resources," he meant money, and I say that because I participated in club football this past fall. To play, dues were $300 that covered the equipment, and not to downplay what we got, but our equipment wasn't the best. Costs for football are tremendously high. Halliday also brought up a great point on the air that we also need a place to play and building a stadium is not cheap. Austin said it best: "They aren't just passing those out."
The only way I see Longwood accelerating the process of getting a football team is having consistent success in club football. If alumni of this university saw that success, maybe they would be willing to donate the money needed but that is beyond a long shot. Another way the process could be accelerated is if we start growing money trees so we could have the "resources."
In order to be successful, the club football team needs players since they only had about 23-24 players on the team this past fall. Not only do they need players, but they also need players with some kind of experience; I would say 14 of them had never played organized tackle football. Football isn't a sport you can just learn over night and it's even harder when you don't have enough people at practice to have a quality practice. It is also hard to get better with limited practices and players. The club football team also has little to no equipment to practice with so it's hard to run any sort of drills.
The majority of our alumni from Longwood are females, not just because it started as an all female school, but also because Longwood is known as a school to become a teacher. Females dominate this profession, and this may sound stereotypical, but I don't feel as if those female teachers want to give money to Longwood to start a football team. Hopefully, I will become a part of the fortune 500 and donate a ton of money to get a football team started here at Longwood.
Since football isn't the next big move for Longwood athletics, then what is? I'm a strong believer that the convocation center that is a part of Longwood's 2020 Plan will be the next big step. The 2020 Plan has the convocation center located where the Wynne Parking Lot is currently located. One of the reasons I'm a strong believer is because of what Austin said to me when I spoke with him after the conference. He said money is what is needed to get something like a convocation center going, but "let's just say I can focus on that." After watching what Austin and Finnegan can do when they put their focus on something, how can you doubt them?
Another reason I believe that the convocation center is the next big move is because Austin talked about how "fully resourced" the athletics we already have are and there is no better way to fully resource both men and women basketball than to give them a facility that most division one universities in a conference have.
I do realize that if this is the next big step, it isn't going to take place within a year or two, but I see it happening in the next three to five years. Maybe since I'm calling for it publicly first, they will name it after me instead of whoever the big donor is.
