As I feared cost was the only consideration at the trustees’ discussion of football today. I don’t want to trivialize the importance of how much football will cost students and the university, but there’s much more to this equation that was never talked about. If we’re going to give this thing its due diligence at some point we have to discuss the intangibles of football. The things that count but can’t be counted; quality of student life, connections to alumni, connections to the community, national recognition, etc.
I’m also worried that the chancellor’s research overshadowed the research of the Football Feasibility Committee. There’s already been a committee to look at the whole picture of football and make a recommendation. But that report seems to be nearly forgotten about.
We still have a lot of work to do, and it’s very hard to read whether a majority of the trustees are for or against football so these next few meetings are going to make or break things.
Decisions can’t be made based purely on emotion, but I don’t think they can be made based purely on whether it makes perfect fiscal sense, and I’m an economics major. I just hope that at some point the intangibles of football are given their fair weight.
