The [url=http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/team/texas/]Texas Longhorns[/url] are also only about an hour up the road in Austin. But those teams don't belong to San Antonio.
So now the citizens wait until next fall, when the Roadrunners kick off as San Antonio’s team.
“There’s a tremendous enthusiasm for UTSA taking the field next year,” San Antonio mayor Julian Castro said. “San Antonio is one of the great football towns even though it doesn’t have its own team. Watching football is just sort of a way of life, so I expect UTSA’s team to have spectacular support.”
When Hickey arrived at UTSA in 1999, football seemed like a long shot. In fact, during her job interview, Hickey told her future bosses there was no shot. UTSA was a school with $1.5 million budget for 14 varsity sports. Texas A&M, where Hickey spent the majority of her career before UTSA, works with an athletic budget of more than $70 million.
UTSA was founded in 1969 and quickly grew to a student population of more than 30,000, making it the second-largest school in the UT system. But unlike Texas, Texas A&M and other, older institutions where the school loyalties are long-standing family traditions, UTSA is made up largely of first-generation college students who desperately want what the Longhorns and Aggies have -- a football team to cheer for and all the traditions and revelry that go along with it.
“I knew to ever pull our alumni back and really ever develop pride or visibility for the university, we really needed to make a run at this,” Hickey said.
But football isn't free, and UTSA had to come up with serious bucks to fund the new program. Excitement about the idea caused donors to step up and the school is working toward increasing its athletic budget to a respectable $20 million, but a good chunk of the money for football is coming directly from the students.
In 2007, the student body voted in a landslide to double the athletic fee, increasing it to $240 a semester.
Recruiting became job No. 1 for Coker as soon as he arrived at UTSA. Last time he hit the recruiting trail, Coker was visiting the most coveted high school players in the country, trying to convince them they could be the missing piece needed to get Miami back to the national title.
This time around, he found himself walking into rural Texas high schools, trying to convince players and their coaches that, yes, UTSA had a football program. People didn’t know the Roadrunners, but they knew of Coker, and his sparkling BCS championship ring got their attention.
The [url=http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/team/texas/]Texas Longhorns[/url] are also only about an hour up the road in Austin. But those teams don't belong to San Antonio.
Their school is similar to us, but their football program is much more aggressive than ours. They already have a stadium (Alamo Dome) and plan to be in FBS after 2 years. I believe Lambert will be consulting with them about recruiting for a start up and practicing a year without playing games.
The Alamo Dome is a quaility stadium but I feel college football is meant to be played outside. I’ll take our outdoor stadium on a fall Saturday in NC over their half empty Alamo Dome any day.
Fox Sports Net will be debuting “The Birth of a Program” reality series next week, “in an effort to chronicle the total endeavor of building of a major program from scratch”
Here is the tentative programming schedule for “The Birth of a Program” on FSSW, according to TitanTV:
Ep. 1 – Saturday, May 14 – 11:30 am *confirmed by DM, FSSW rep
Ep. 1 – Sunday, May 15 – 10:00 pm
Ep. 1 – Monday, May 16 – 12:00 pm *confirmed by DM, FSSW rep
Ep. 1 – Tuesday, May 17 – 6:00 pm
Ep. 2 – Saturday, May 28 – 10:00 pm *confirmed by DM, FSSW rep
If you live in the San Antonio area, you can find FSSW on the following channels, depending on your service provider:
Time Warner Cable – ch. 26 (SD), 150 (HD)
AT&T U-Verse – ch. 753/756 (SD), 1753/1756 (HD)
DirecTV – ch. 676
Grande – ch. 31
It looks like it will be airing throughout the Fox Sports Southwest and Fox Sports Houston coverage zones, even outside of San Antonio, so if you live elsewhere in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana or Arkansas, then check your local listings.
[quote=“survivor45, post:8, topic:25076”]Fox Sports Net will be debuting “The Birth of a Program” reality series next week, “in an effort to chronicle the total endeavor of building of a major program from scratch”
Here is the tentative programming schedule for “The Birth of a Program” on FSSW, according to TitanTV:
Ep. 1 – Saturday, May 14 – 11:30 am *confirmed by DM, FSSW rep
Ep. 1 – Sunday, May 15 – 10:00 pm
Ep. 1 – Monday, May 16 – 12:00 pm *confirmed by DM, FSSW rep
Ep. 1 – Tuesday, May 17 – 6:00 pm
Ep. 2 – Saturday, May 28 – 10:00 pm *confirmed by DM, FSSW rep
If you live in the San Antonio area, you can find FSSW on the following channels, depending on your service provider:
Time Warner Cable – ch. 26 (SD), 150 (HD)
AT&T U-Verse – ch. 753/756 (SD), 1753/1756 (HD)
DirecTV – ch. 676
Grande – ch. 31
It looks like it will be airing throughout the Fox Sports Southwest and Fox Sports Houston coverage zones, even outside of San Antonio, so if you live elsewhere in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana or Arkansas, then check your local listings.