Voice of reason at VCU

Because I spend so much time berating various media outlets and their misinformed employees when they proffer false information about Title IX, I figure it's my responsibility to offer some praise as well.
Looks like we are not the only ones a little worried about the possible addition of football at Virginia Commonwealth University. A local columnist in Virginia wrote this about the rumors of a new football team under a new administration.
Paul Woody, in his dissent, provides some more specific details that go beyond just the usual pitfalls we hear of when adding football is considered (i.e. the money and compliance issues). Woody tells us that the baseball team, a regular NCAA tournament participant, doesn't have a practice field and that men's soccer--which has also had success in the post-season--may lose its stadium. In other words, the athletic department has plenty to worry about without adding a football team.
Kudos also go to Woody for seeing what so many others failed to see regarding the JMU situation:
Faced with a similar dilemma [regarding allocation of resources] in 2006, James Madison University opted to protect its football program. The Dukes dropped seven men's and three women's sports.
JMU's football program is ranked No.1 in the country in its subdivision. JMU also has just six men's sports.

It just could be a trend

Virginia Commonwealth University is thinking about adding a football team. Those who have advocated for such an addition see a potential opening coming their way. The current VCU president, who said he would never approve the addition of football, is leaving next summer. A new president, who was a football fan, could get on board with the addition. All they would have to do is convince him/her that raising all that money for new facilities would be a piece of cake; that incurring all that debt shouldn't be a problem--especially in this economy; that figuring out how to become Title IX compliant with the addition of all those opportunities for male athletes and all those scholarship dollars shouldn't take much longer than, say, a weekend.
The current athletic director believes because of VCU's size (32,000) that somehow football would inevitable. It will be interesting to see if the search for a new president is somehow influenced by the desires of certain VCU constituents.
And while VCU is still in the consideration phase, other schools are forging ahead. Old Dominion begins DI play next year and Georgia State will field a team in 2010.