One afternoon last month, freshman and finance major Austin Villa’s gateways advisor presented a question to the class regarding school spirit on campus and how the class felt it could be improved. Villa thought the answer was obvious: a football team.
Villa knew that the addition of a football team would create more of a sense of community around campus, so immediately after class, Villa printed out a petition form and started getting signatures in an attempt to get a football team at UT. By Feb. 7, he obtained around 1,700 signatures, just over a week after he started the petition.
“My goal is to get 2,000 signatures, but at this point, I want to continue on once I get there,” Villa said. He said he can usually get the 300 signatures he is short in a day.
“Having a football team will create new events around campus, like tailgating, to bring the school closer together,” Villa said. “It will also bring more male students to UT, which will even out the female-to- male ratio on campus.”
The female-to-male ratio among UT’s 6,143 students is 56 percent female to 44 percent male, according to 2014 statistics from U.S. News and World Report.
Villa also wanted to understand the
dynamics behind starting a football petition, so in an effort to better know the process and requirements and gain support, he met with Dean of Students Stephanie Russell Krebs and Student Government President PK Creedon. He also met with a marketing professor, Hemant Rustogi, this past Tuesday. In addition, Villa also set up a meeting with Athletic Director Larry Marfise.
According to Marfise, the reason why UT does not have a football program is one major road block: funding.
“It costs around $2,000 to equip a player with the needed equipment,” said Marfise.
However, the cost of equipment for each player is a small number compared to the needed renovations for UT to manage a football team.
“The major costs associated with starting a program here at UT, is that adding football would result in a need to have more locker rooms, additional office space for coaches, and the addition of football fields,” said Marfise. “Most schools have at least two fields for their football team.”
To meet these needs, the university would need to purchase additional land. This can be very costly due to UT’s downtown Tampa location and the limited land available. On top of that, four to six coaches, an additional trainer and equipment manager would need to be hired to meet just the minimum requirement to run a football program.
“It just isn’t possible right now with the funding, and the fact that the university has other needs and renovations that are more important,” said Marfise. “We could not justify starting a football team now when there are other projects on campus that need attention.”
Marfise’s advice to Villa was the idea of starting a club football team instead of an NCAA-certified team. As a result, Villa hopes that with this petition he can assemble a club football team here on campus.
“Our club teams are responsible for funding themselves, then maybe with enough interest somewhere down the road it could become something more,” said Marfise.
Overall, Villa has received positive
feedback on his petition thus far, and he is hopeful for its outcome.
“I think there has only been around 10 or less people that I have asked and didn’t sign it, and it was either because they did not like football or were international and didn’t really understand the football hype,” Villa said.
However, Fatin Amin, an international student and sophomore journalism major, is intrigued by the idea of having a football team on campus.
“I think UT definitely needs a football team. It will bring more unity and school spirit,” Amin said. “I’m not from the U.S. and I keep hearing about Homecoming being a huge thing with football games and many more, but I didn’t even notice anything for UT’s Homecoming. Football is such a huge sport in America, and if UT brings a football team in, it definitely will make things livelier for the sports enthusiasts.”
Villa will be tabling in Vaughn lobby on Feb. 17 and in Plant Hall on Feb. 18 between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Jesse Long can be reached at jesse. long@spartans.ut.edu
This just in, University of Tampa is thinking about getting a football team back and guess who is joining the team to kick start their career back up, thats right Tim Tebow himself! He states that due to no contract, he is willing to do anything again to play some footy footy football. Since he can only play with college students why would he not want to be the king of the losers and kick some ass on the D2 football field. He says that the only way he will play is if there is a Bible in in locker before every game and if the coach will get a tattoo of a pretty lady wearing his jersey. Hinting that he is still mad about rex ryan getting the tattoo of the lady with Mark Sanchez’s number on it. He also wants to be enrolled in the university because that is the closest thing he will ever get to a contract playing football again. Even though he couldn’t do it with the big boys who says Timmy can’t play for UT?