Deb Farris: WSU To Look into Bringing Football Back in Next 3-4 Years

[Dave Stalwart]

Didn't know where else to post this.

So Deb Farris who works with Kake.com tweeted the following after hearing WSU President Bardo speak about the future of the university:

"WSU Pres. says will look into bringing back fball in the next 3-4 years"

Do you believe this? I don't. False hope. For the record though "look into bringing" could mean anything.

Maybe we should be a little prophetic and go ahead and make a WSU football thread :) If you make it, it will come?

[DPruett2333]

What's weird is that president Beggs wouldn't even hear the football argument from anyone, but then a new president walks in and is already talking about it.

This leads me to believe that President Beggs, for whatever reason, had his own personal reasons as to why he didn't want to even TALK about the possibilities of bringing back Shocker football. Hearing this news actually diminishes my very high praise for Dr. Beggs, because it's obvious he had some interior motives.

I am pleased and excited to at least having this discussion opened up.

[SB Shock]

I'm not sure why the politicians just don't put 1 cent sales tax and maybe raise property taxes. With all the support for football in the community - plenty of money would be raised in a couple years. Why wait 4 years to start the discussion.

[ShockerFever]

I have mixed feelings about this subject. Let's face it. FBS football, specifically BCS football, is where the bling is at. If we could achieve that status, then it would be well worth it for the upward motion of Wichita State University.

However, what we have now isn't bad either. But let's not pretend we are dominating everything in our current situation. And let's also not pretend that having high-level football wouldn't be a huge boost to the university profile, because it would.

It would be a very long process to get to where we'd wanna go if we did commit to football. And lots of heartache and sacrifices would be made during the process, even at the expense of some of the higher-level successful programs we already have.

It's dicey and I wouldn't want to be the one calling the shots, so I understand the sensitivity of it by Dr. Beggs. But I do appreciate that the new administration is at least open to listening to ideas and possibilities of the future, and more importantly, possibly saving us from this God-forsaken hellhole of a conference.

[ShockTalk]

I think that meant that in the next 3 - 4 year time period, he will examine the possibility of bringing back football....not that they are reviewing right now the ability to have football in 3-4 years.

It's not going to happen anyway, so why bother? We need close to $100 million to make it happen. Anyone got that kind of muscle?

I can always count on you for logic.

What is the name of the lawyer, who has promoted the return of Shocker football for so long? Maybe he can give us some optimistic numbers, which are required for D-1 football. Take his number and double it and plan on D-II ball....at best.

Yes, I am a pessimist.

First, I'm not the huge football fan, college or NFL, that most other sports nuts (which includes me) are. So, eventhough I went to WSU games back in the day and would go again if they had football, that's not the driving force that bothers me about WSU not having football. What does bother me is who does WSU have more in common with, the schools that don't have football or the ones that do?

I'm sure the following has errors, but try and follow along with the general idea. Also, I didn't bother looking up what D-I schools have never had football and I'm going to assume their number is very small.

First, we know there are well known schools in D-I that don't have football anymore. However, many of those schools have very few who even remember football on campus (program ended): Bradley 1970, Creighton 1942, Denver 1960, DePaul 1938, Detroit 1964, GWU 1966, Gonzaga 1941, Marquette 1960, Pepperdine 1961, Providence 1941, St Bonnie 1951, St Joe's 1939, St. Louis 1949, and Xavier 1973. We the exception of 2, all those schools stopped playing 20 years before WSU did.

Since WSU quit in 1986, 19 more D-I schools have dropped football. 10 are private schools from the northeast (mostly NY), 7 are from California (4 state, 3 private), 1 other private (Evansville), and 1 state school (East TN St). Well, I see very little in common with any of those schools.

So who's starting D-I football, in one form or another (some non-scholarship), since 2009: ODU 2009, S. Alabama, Georgia St., Lamar 2010, UT San Antonio 2011, Mercer, Charlotte, Stetson, Kennesaw St., Houston Baptist 2012-14. I'm not saying we are like these schools, but I would like to think we are as good or better than most. Article regarding them: http://ncaafootball.com/News/tabid/7...all-teams.aspx

As for the Valley and its possible future, we've discussed CU's potential options of being more likely to join a non-football conference than WSU, Illinois St's possibility to jump to a better/stronger football conference that is regionalized for them, and then there's the rest of the Valley....and that includes us. Not a pretty picture is it? We just don't have the options of a Butler or VCU. Without football, WSU seems like a remote far away island.

While it's somewhat hard for me to understand why others can afford to start football and WSU can't and much poorer schools like UNI can field strong football teams (at their level) along with quality men's/women's basketball and volleyball, I know we do not want to risk our men's basketball future with the costs of starting football. But the other side of that question is, will we be putting our men's basketball program in harms way by not starting football? Can our future afford to not have more conference options in it that football could provide? Has the football landscape changed enough in 26 years, particularly in the strong football territory we are apart of, that it can be successful here? I thought there was something floated out there that the student body would financially help support football. And how much value is there in the potential to increase the number of students and student hours? Can WSU become more of a traditional style university?

Obviously, I'm not the one with the answers, just a lot of questions. Questions that seem too important than just to say "it's not going to happen anyway so why bother". We laughed at the possibility of KU and K St possibly getting left high and dry if the Big XII broke up. Well, I'm all ears in hearing ways, without football, to secure our future if CU and/or Ill St left the Valley.

[WSUwatcher]

Didn't know where else to post this.

Really?

There's a place under WSU Athletics for Men's Sports, the last post in which is visible right up front as having to do with whether we'd support the return of football, and you didn't know where to post it? How hard did you think, and what about WSU Men's Basketball reminds you of a sport that has now been defunct for over 25 years?

kai, can you move this where it belongs?

[WuDrWu]

Look, I'm as willing as ANYONE to look into the possibility of starting football (I don't want them bringing back anything like we used to have).

Other schools mostly haven't had to build a new stadium. Ours has to be eliminated. If we're going to do it, by gosh do it right. New stadium, fully funded, IMPROVE other programs, have an iron clad plan to get out of the Valley. Otherwise, live with what we have, which isn't all bad.

[ShockerFever]

Really?

There's a place under WSU Athletics for Men's Sports, the last post in which is visible right up front as having to do with whether we'd support the return of football, and you didn't know where to post it? How hard did you think, and what about WSU Men's Basketball reminds you of a sport that has now been defunct for over 25 years?

kai, can you move this where it belongs?

Cry me a freaking river.

It's relevant information to ALL of WSU athletics and since the basketball forum gets visited the most, this was the place to put it, instead of it getting buried next to the track and field threads.

[Kung Wu]

What's weird is that president Beggs wouldn't even hear the football argument from anyone, but then a new president walks in and is already talking about it.

This leads me to believe that President Beggs, for whatever reason, had his own personal reasons as to why he didn't want to even TALK about the possibilities of bringing back Shocker football. Hearing this news actually diminishes my very high praise for Dr. Beggs, because it's obvious he had some interior motives.

I am pleased and excited to at least having this discussion opened up.

I think you are reading more into it than is there.

You have to have a super solid athletic department to pull this off, and obviously Dr. Beggs spent plenty of his time here shoring that up. Maybe you weren't around in the 90's but the only decent thing to talk about then was the baseball team and an aging Round House. I suppose we had success with some of the minor and non-revenue generating sports during that period, but that's not good enough.

I think Dr. Beggs fought enough battles while he was here and that putting us in a good enough position that a new president can even talk about exploring the opportunity of football says it all. Also, keep in mind the likely outcome of any future exploration is "no go".

[SpanglerFan316]

Cry me a freaking river.

It's relevant information to ALL of WSU athletics and since the basketball forum gets visited the most, this was the place to put it, instead of it getting buried next to the track and field threads.

Basketball is real while football is a Mirage. There is no reason to include illusionary topics in a forum about an actual team that went to the big dance last year.

[im4wsu]

I'm guessing $100 doesn't even get me my own named toilet paper holder.

Myabe one of those white disk thingies in the urinal

[rrshock]

Bardo will have to visit his residence hall plan before a bunch pof sports can be added. But i feel he knows that football will benefit the university and thw community. More students =more money. Football games = more visitors to town on the weekend.

[SubGod22]

Bardo will have to visit his residence hall plan before a bunch pof sports can be added. But i feel he knows that football will benefit the university and thw community. More students =more money. Football games = more visitors to town on the weekend.

Bardo, from what I've heard and read, has a very ambitious plan to increase enrollment quickly and is why he wants to have at least one new building for student housing completed before the '14 academic year. If he can grow the student population by a couple of thousand in a couple of years I could see where that would lead to an increased shot at football. Which would most likely help increase enrollment even more. I forget if I've seen his target numbers or just speculation from others, but I believe the number of 18k was set for within 5 years with an ultimate goal between 20-22k. I know he also wants to see on campus living be between 20-30 percent as it's now only about 8. All of these things would make football even more of a possibility. We'll see where he is in his goals/progress in a few years and if things are moving in that direction then the odds move more in favor of it coming back. If things fall flat, then perhaps it's not the right time. But it will be intersting to see what he decides to do over the next 12-18 months and where that will point the University.

I also think, from the sound of things, we can say goodbye to the golf course at some point as he wants to group as much housing together as possible. And unless the University is going to buy up surrounding land, there's only one place for all of that to go.

[_kai_]

I've sat in on a couple meetings where Dr. Bardo expresses his plans for the advancement of our University.

He said today that the report of him saying 3-4 years for football is absolutely false. He said the reporter came up to him, and told him she wanted to run a story the next day about WSU bringing back football. That people were talking about football at the strategic planning event. His response was that with 400 people in a room, I'm sure there are a lot of topics being discussed.

Also, I have never heard him talk about taking away the golf course.

I'm not going to expand on anything else, because those meetings were private, but I'm just here to dispel some of these rumors, and what people keep talking about.

[SubGod22]

I've sat in on a couple meetings where Dr. Bardo expresses his plans for the advancement of our University.

He said today that the report of him saying 3-4 years for football is absolutely false. He said the reporter came up to him, and told him she wanted to run a story the next day about WSU bringing back football. That people were talking about football at the strategic planning event. His response was that with 400 people in a room, I'm sure there are a lot of topics being discussed.

He's said before that it would be looked into after he dealt with higher priorities. Even if he didn't say it at that event, 3-5 years seems to make sense even with what he's said in the past.

Also, I have never heard him talk about taking away the golf course.

Nobody said that he did. But he has been quoted as saying he wanted a number of student housing units grouped together to bring a better student atmosphere to campus. Where else would that be? Like I said, the golf course, or they're going to have to buy up surrounding land and build there. Golf course makes more sense.