Bobcat Football = Bobcat Buck$

Even the NYU administration itself acknowledges the power of a football team to drive alumni giving. From their website profiling alumni donors:

Edward Gersh

When Edward Gersh (Steinhardt '43, '50) was a student in the 1940s, it was a scholarship that made NYU a possibility for him. More than sixty years later, Gersh is showing his gratitude by supporting a permanent scholarship to benefit current and future NYU students.

Gersh first established the Edward Gersh Permanent Scholarship Fund at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in 2005. To dramatically increase the number of students who will benefit, he recently named NYU as the ultimate beneficiary of a charitable remainder trust, which will provide him with income during his lifetime.

A native of the Bronx, Gersh was awarded two full football scholarships when he applied to college-one to NYU and one to George Washington University. "I chose George Washington," Gersh admitted. By the end of his first semester, he realized he had made a mistake and asked NYU if his scholarship offer was still on the table.

"NYU offered to give me a scholarship if I went out to prove myself to the team," he said. "My whole future depended on how I performed in scrimmage, and I was a demon. They put me on the second team right away."

Unfortunately, fate intervened, and a serious knee injury sidelined Gersh after his first collegiate football match. "I couldn't play football anymore, but NYU continued my scholarship," he said...

Today, his wife, Holli, and he own four homes, three in New York and one in Florida. Now 88, Gersh said he is indebted to NYU for the generosity that made his achievements possible.

"If NYU had never continued my scholarship, I never would have achieved the lifestyle I'm living now," Gersh said...

Mr. Gersh never would have gone to NYU if it hadn't been for his football scholarship. Now he's one of NYU's biggest donors.

I'd be interested in knowing how he feels about NYU not having a football team. Could he be one of the rallying voices we need to make this happen?

NYU Football: Division 1, 2 , or 3??

One of the goals of this site is to figure out what exactly an NYU Football team would be like. I may have gotten ahead of myself on the uniforms... but I haven't forgotten that there are other things that need to come first.

The biggest thing may be deciding the type of program NYU will be. Are we shooting to one day play against the big boys of Florida and Oklahoma in Division 1? Do we rumble with the Michigan-slaying division 1A powerhouse Appalachian St.?

Or do we step down to Division II, and tangle with the likes of Minnesota Duluth and Grand Valley State?

Or are our aspirations a bit lower: Division III.

Other city schools with established programs are a mixed bunch. Fordham and Columbia are Division I-AA, while Pace University plays in Division II. My immediate thought is: if those bastards at Fordham and Columbia can tackle Division 1A, so can we.

But undoubtedly the decision will probably come down to two factors: Money and Money. Basically, how much money will a program at the different levels cost, and how much will they earn?

A New York Times article from 2006 makes a Division III team sound awfully good:

Football is popular among small colleges because the start-up costs for a nonscholarship program are less than $1 million, and that money can usually be raised from alumni. The annual football budget is subsidized by increased tuition revenue...

Officials at small colleges say that adding football raises campus morale and alumni contributions and gives an institution exposure in local or statewide media

A football program at NYU for less than $1 million?? Assuming the Times did its fact checking, that bodes well for an NYU team. While a college like Charlotte may be laying out $45 million, they're aspiring to be a Division 1 program. If we set our sights a bit lower for the immediate future, it seems a team is more than possible-- it's probable.

You can familiarize yourself with the potential competition here: d3football.com. Mount Union better watch out.

Of course, if we want to return to the glory days of NYU as a college football powerhouse, the climb is a bit steeper. The feasibility study commissioned by the University of North Carolina-Charlotte estimated a D1-AA football program at their school would cost $5.9 million each year to operate. Adding it would also require, under Title IX requirements, an additional $3 million for added women's sports. That's not including the 45 million they deemed necessary for a stadium.

That sounds like a lot, but with a student body of more than 50,000 students, the yearly expenses could be nearly covered by raising tuition a mere $100. NYUers are already paying around $50,000... what's a hundred more?

And we wouldn't necessarily have to spend the money to build a stadium on Governor's Island (although that's a great idea). It just so happens a new stadium is being built right now, less than a half-hour away from NYU.

Sure, two pro teams already are slotted to play there... but couldn't a fledgling program share the facilities one day a week?

What do you guys think? What division can you see the Bobcats playing in?

Can NYU Football Learn Something From Vermont?

Posted on the NYU Football team Facebook group message board:

From the New York Times: A Year of Toil and Sweat, Then They Played a Game

My favorite part of the article:

The resurrection of Vermont football is a modern-day club sports tale because it used the Internet — a Web site, Facebook, e-mail — and because it revolved around the irrepressible force of one committed individual.

Governor's Island: Home of NYU Athletics

Ah Governor's Island, home to, well, currently nothing but the past. A few historic forts, villages, and monuments haunt the island, as well as the occasional tourists. But besides that, there's really nothing there. Oh wait, I've heard of freaky alley cats roaming the old houses at night, when nobody else is there.

Governor's Island was sold in the 90s to New York for something like $1. What's been done there since? Nothing. How much land in the city is left to be developed? None. How much space does NYU have in the village to expand? None. . How much does NYU want to expand over the next 25 years? 6,000,000 sq ft. How big is Governor's Island? 7,492,320 sq ft

It pretty much makes sense to move some kind of campus to Governor's Island. Not residential buildings or academic buildings, keep the university in the city. But what about service buildings, athletic facilities? True, the island would need some infrastructure, better transportation (all there is now is a ferry), electricity, water, etc. But I'm sure if the University moved some operations, it would boost the area's economic value.

So check it out, and dream about it.

Death Valley
South Bend
Ann Arbor
LA Coliseum
.......

and Gov' Island

NYU Football = NYU Community ??

In a recent article published by NYU's student newspaper, The Washington Square News, by the paper's former editor-in-chief talks about what an NYU football team would do for NYU's community.

Basically, high school students seem to hear all the time from current NYU students, who miss an athletic atmosphere and thus some school spirit, of the lack of some cohesive social atmosphere at NYU. These high school students who are admitted and attend NYU then keep believing that the lack of community exists, and this notion continues as they pass it on to high school students.

Now, many different kinds of students come to NYU. There are those who can be completely individual and take advantage of going to museums, shows, and even the professional sports around the city by themselves and therefore don't need any community. And then there are those who absolutely need some community, probably most easily accomplished through a division I athletic program or something of the sort. But most students fall somewhere in between. So why not at least try to bring back the division I sports NYU had over 50 years ago?

Well, as the article explains, John Sexton believes NYU has a specialty that no other university has, but didn't really say what that specialty is. In addition, he said, by adding a football team or division I sports, NYU would merely, "... be giving up a unique franchise for a franchise that a whole bunch of other places have.”

But these places that have football teams and/or division I sports technically include the major universities - the Ivy League schools, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, UNC, UChicago, Northwestern, UMich....and are all either ranked above or at the same level as NYU academically.

So what's going on here exactly? NYU should at least try and add another division I sport besides fencing to see what happens. I'm sure it would enliven an already lively city.

One More College Season In The Books

Last night, Tim Tebow led the Florida Gators to a BCS Championship over the Oklahoma Sooners. A fantastic finish to the College Football season... a season that didn't include an NYU Football team.

It's pretty unlikely NYU will have any of its own Tim Tebows soon. And so while there may be a "Gator Nation" partying it up this weekend, "Bobcat Nation" remains just a pipe dream.

But at least one college this year is planning on joining the football fun in the near future: University of Charlotte.

The school's board of trustees voted in November to start a football program by 2013. The school must raise about $45 million to pay for coaches, scholarships and a 12,000-seat, on-campus stadium.

How does this help us NYU fans? Well, it provides a blueprint as to how a large university can create a football team from scratch.

With enough student, alumni and administration support, this can happen people.