Iāve tried to be sort of neutral about football, because I tend to see a lot of hurdles towards it being implemented at Charlotte, but at the same time I would love to see them tackle those hurdles or at least lay it all out on the table and say this, this and this is what we need, now help us do it (very concrete, transparent plans).
Anyhow, with that aside, here is one thing I think hasnāt really been brought up in the football ādebatesā but you can use this as ammo as you see fit.
Football is a good recruiter for some of the other sports, most notably track & field. A lot of big Division I schools will help fund their track programs through the football program, and by that I mean, someone comes to school to play football and gets their money there, but in the offseason part of their workout regimen is to run on the track team to improve their speed.
It could also have positive effects on the baseball team, since a lot of really good two-sport athletes tend to play both of those sports (and if you have D-IAA football especially to start, spring football isnāt the huge event that it tends to be at I-A).
I donāt think that effect can be understated, especially for track & field. Out of all the skill position players on a football team, you could get 5-10 really good athletes that run track at the same time, sprinters and jumpers, and probably 5-10 throwers as well (big bodies who need to work on their strength). This would allow our track teams to move some money around to other event areas (potentially) and just strengthen those programs even more.
(That being said, I donāt know why more athletes donāt try to go dual with track, like youāre telling me that there is no one on the soccer team that is fast enough to run track? or a volleyballer that couldnāt high jump? save some money for both programs if they come in that way, you plan it and dole out the scholarship money that way too).
I know this is not a groundbreaking thread, but I was bored and just thought about that while browsing on the internet.