[quote=â49RFootballNow, post:34, topic:25504â]Except for the messed up prices for FSLs and Judyâs interesting statements I thought it was a decent article. Bigger than any single article about us in the Observer.[/quote] Front page of espn.com when I checked on it, some pretty nice exposure. Odd that Roseâs comments donât match up well with reality, but I wonder if the questions set her up to either take more credit than she should or end up sounding foolish (i.e. sheâs not going to say she had no idea football would be so important, because it would make her look clueless). Not that she should have answered that way anyway, but not that surprising either.
Administration and ADâs are almost always polarizing, particularly at those schools with large fanbases that put the AD under the microscope and have high expectations. The exceptions are when the AD is a popular former coach (e.g. Osborne at Nebraska, or Alvarez at Wisconsin), but even then they almost always generate at least some criticism.
This article was outstanding exposure for the program, as the only things about us posted on ESPN were no more the the Associate Press write-ups, other than the ACC blogger reporting that Lambert was leaving Wake Forest. While I donât think Judyâs âmisleadingâ quotes will stand out to anyone not involved with the program, the biggest flaw was lack of recognition was CFI, which is probably because nobody in the AD told him about it.
Here is the e-mail I sent to him, I hope there is no misinformation.
Mark,
First of all, I would love to thank you for the attention given this week to my alma mater's start up football program. When I started my freshman year football was something people whispered about and by the time I graduated we had renderings of our stadium being presented to UNC Charlotte's Board of Trustees. It was surely an exciting time to be a 49er, granted, the fall of 2013 will be an exponentially more exciting time to be a student. One quote from our Athletic Director stood out like a red herring, and you may have been mislead in a way that affected your story.
âEverything has been driven by football, and basketball hasnât had anything to do with it,â Rose said. âI had this fear that we would be left out. I had a fear that there would be a break-off of the schools that have football and those that donât have football. It scared the heck out of me.â
The truth is, we were already left out by the conference shuffling of 2003, when Miami and Boston College left the Big East to join the ACC and set off an chain of events leading to an unprecedented shift in conference alignment. At the time Charlotte was one of four Conference USA schools, along with DePaul, Marquette and Saint Louis, without a football team. The Big East took in the DePaul and Marquette as well as the football schools of Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida. Over the course of C-USA, Charlotte had the 2nd-highest win percentage, but alas no football team, while South Florida had almost no basketball profile and a football team.
We had had our chances to start football but no one within the university acted. It wasnât until an interdependent group of students and alumni formed the Charlotte Football Initiative (CFI), which was unfortunately not a part of, that there was an semblance of a push for football. This group did the research, and presented it to the school and the truth is Judy Rose and Chancellor Philip DuBois (Affectionately known as Chapel Hill Phil for his notorious reputation of submitting to the University of North Carolina System in spite of MY Universityâs best interest) would have never lifted a finger to start football without this groupâs persuasion.
On a side note, our seat licence prices actually range from $1000-$2500.
Iâm sure you have already heard from like minded citizens of Niner Nation already, we are a passionate group. Because of our involvement in the creation of the football program we take great pride in the fact that we will have a team on the field in 26 months. I hope that yourself and ESPN continue to show interest in our program as it builds up, theyâre are plenty of stories to be told from our journey.
[quote=âitsbraille49, post:42, topic:25504â]This article was outstanding exposure for the program, as the only things about us posted on ESPN were no more the the Associate Press write-ups, other than the ACC blogger reporting that Lambert was leaving Wake Forest. While I donât think Judyâs âmisleadingâ quotes will stand out to anyone not involved with the program, the biggest flaw was lack of recognition was CFI, which is probably because nobody in the AD told him about it.
Here is the e-mail I sent to him, I hope there is no misinformation.
Mark,
First of all, I would love to thank you for the attention given this week to my alma mater's start up football program. When I started my freshman year football was something people whispered about and by the time I graduated we had renderings of our stadium being presented to UNC Charlotte's Board of Trustees. It was surely an exciting time to be a 49er, granted, the fall of 2013 will be an exponentially more exciting time to be a student. One quote from our Athletic Director stood out like a red herring, and you may have been mislead in a way that affected your story.
âEverything has been driven by football, and basketball hasnât had anything to do with it,â Rose said. âI had this fear that we would be left out. I had a fear that there would be a break-off of the schools that have football and those that donât have football. It scared the heck out of me.â
The truth is, we were already left out by the conference shuffling of 2003, when Miami and Boston College left the Big East to join the ACC and set off an chain of events leading to an unprecedented shift in conference alignment. At the time Charlotte was one of four Conference USA schools, along with DePaul, Marquette and Saint Louis, without a football team. The Big East took in the DePaul and Marquette as well as the football schools of Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida. Over the course of C-USA, Charlotte had the 2nd-highest win percentage, but alas no football team, while South Florida had almost no basketball profile and a football team.
We had had our chances to start football but no one within the university acted. It wasnât until an interdependent group of students and alumni formed the Charlotte Football Initiative (CFI), which was unfortunately not a part of, that there was an semblance of a push for football. This group did the research, and presented it to the school and the truth is Judy Rose and Chancellor Philip DuBois (Affectionately known as Chapel Hill Phil for his notorious reputation of submitting to the University of North Carolina System in spite of MY Universityâs best interest) would have never lifted a finger to start football without this groupâs persuasion.
On a side note, our seat licence prices actually range from $1000-$2500.
Iâm sure you have already heard from like minded citizens of Niner Nation already, we are a passionate group. Because of our involvement in the creation of the football program we take great pride in the fact that we will have a team on the field in 26 months. I hope that yourself and ESPN continue to show interest in our program as it builds up, theyâre are plenty of stories to be told from our journey.
Thank you again, and Go Niners!
[/quote]
Thanks for emailing him. It is one simple thing that students and alums can do to benefit the University⌠and its all free.
Iâd say 1,000x more. We really donât have that many large donors, not when compared to most state schools in BCS leagues. If the AD does not do something that a big time donor agrees with, theyâll be on the hot seat fairly quickly.[/quote]
This is why Phil and Judy keep their jobs. We dont have enough people to care about how incompetent they are at their jobs.
Iam just glad that Judyâs 20 year crusade to bring football to Charlotte has ended sucessfully. Thank you Judy for your vision and leadership. After 20+ years on the job we are still the best kept secret in Charlotte. You even said it yourself.
I read a very interesting section of a book recently that was about Tennessee athletics⌠The firing of Phil Fulmer, who has a list of statistics (including a national championship) that 99% of teams would die for, all began with the message boards. The book goes on to talk about how message boards, like this one, have changed the game completely, because now there is a portal for everything from university spending to what the team per diem is to be debated openly without end. Fanâs now have a place to get together and discuss the team, whereas before they would see a few folks around town or at the office and talk about the game or the school, but didnât have access to a wide variety of information and opinions.
The end result is the same: we start playing football in just over two years.
Everything else is just a pissing match over who gets the credit. Whatâd you think, they were going to build a statue of the CFI in front of the stadium?
On a more serious note, I am with ID, I donât think anyone is asking for specific credit. But I also think its important for a program which lacks a lot of traditions and history that we not leave this out. The story of Charlotte Football is not only a great one to inspire our fans and soon to be fans, but also could be a huge marketing angle.
And as I mentioned earlier, to leave out any mention of the student and alumni movement is an insult to the hard work and long hours spent on bringing football to Charlotte. I didnât fight for football to get a golden toilet (zing), but I did not expect the long hours spent by busy alumni and overloaded students to be ignored.
Braille, very well written letter Sir, I will be following that up with one of my own.
[font=arial][size=13px]Charlotte is expecting to grow to 40,000 within the next decade. So, yes, they should have football. Those on here who acts like they shouldn't add football because others don't want them to absolutely drive me nuts. Those guys are a pretty big player on the scene now, who are we to tell them that we are allowed to have football and they aren't? I have little doubt that it will be successful.[/size][/font]
[font=arial][size=13px]
Charlotte has a ton of die hard fans and their games are a blast to go to. Even though they haven't found much success on the court in the last few years their students still camp out, etc. The Georgia Tech game there a year or two ago was a ton of fun, though Tech won a close one. Any ideas that Charlotte is a commuter school are grievously out-dated, one need only go to their campus on the weekend. They also have one of the top golf programs in the country and a great baseball program as well.
The University is also classified as a Tier-1 âNational Universityâ by US News and they have several ranked programs. So they are getting it done on the educational side, too. Their numbers may not be as great, yet, but I have little doubt that they will be.
[quote=âNewNiner, post:49, topic:25504â]Reactions from the State Board: http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=178&f=2515&t=7623927[/quote]Surprisingly supportive from a few fans on there, did some of you register under Wolfpack names?
I will say that I recently saw more of campus for the first time in a while, it does look completely different than it did ~ 8-10 years ago. The new construction has really changed the campus, mostly for the better (though I hate to see so many trees flattened in wide stretches around the buildings).
The Manifesto talks about a lot of the issues being discussed here.
[u]Who We Are, and What We Want[/u]
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte is the most rapidly-expanding educational institution in the entire state of North Carolina. We feel strongly that our athletics program should expand at such a pace. For nearly half a century, we have longed for and pushed our administration for a football team. Never in our history has it made more fiscal and social sense to launch a UNC Charlotte football program than today. The time is now.
We are the students, alumni, and fans of UNC Charlotte who feel the Charlotte community would be better served with a collegiate football program. We want to build awareness within the campus of UNC Charlotte, and among the Charlotte community as well, that the benefits from a Charlotte 49er Football team far outweigh the costs. UNC Charlotte administrators have always been aware of this campusâ disconnect from the Charlotte community. The missing link is football.
[quote=âZombieLew, post:46, topic:25504â]Who gives a s***?
The end result is the same: we start playing football in just over two years.
Everything else is just a pissing match over who gets the credit. Whatâd you think, they were going to build a statue of the CFI in front of the stadium?[/quote]
Well said, the whining on here gets so old after a while. Just enjoy the fact the stadium is going up and August 2013 will be here soon.
Hells yea! It really could be useful, but I doubt it gets used properly by our school. I think it would take the encouragement of some 3rd party âŚthat probably needs encouragement from us.
â2006: The Charlotte Football Initiative (CFI) is formed as a grass roots organization to help bring college football to the Charlotte 49ers campus.â
The official website, put together by the athletic department, acknowledges CFI.
Furthermore, it acknowledges other âgrass rootsâ efforts:
âSeptember 16, 2008: UNC Charlotte students lead a âMarch to the Endzoneâ pep rally in support of Charlotte 49ers Football. The march begins at the Belk Tower and winds its way to Halton Arena, on the UNC Charlotte students vote in favor of adding footballâ
CFI was also acknowledged in plenty of the articles both before and after the announcements. Creditâs been given out in multiple facets. Though it misses some important points, you also have to remember that this is (likely) not a local journalist who is piecing together the story based on what many other schools have done. He targets our AD for the interview and Iâm sure, just like in other articles (if youâve ever been interviewed then you know), they didnât print all she had to say. Who knows for sure?
I donât think Judy discounts what CFI is and what CFI has done. I also donât think she feels like she âowes it all to CFIâ so she mentions it in anything sheâs interviewed for about the starting of our program. If you think she didnât want football all along, then I think youâre as full of it as the guy who said we didnât get football because of Bonnie Coneâs grandson or whatever being injured. But I also think a majority of you just like to complain.
Itâs all somewhat interesting if you think about it. Judy had our named changed from âUNC Charlotteâ to âCharlotteâ but didnât get football until just recently. Dubois helped in getting football but hasnât yet changed our name to UofC. None of those topics were widely supported by the leaders about them at any point. But they did do what was best for the university, either in terms of what they thought, or in terms of what we (students/alumni) thought.