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Post by Aces&Eights on Mar 30, 2023 8:15:55 GMT -6
In early 1998 the UE board of trustees decided to drop the football program. Attached are the first 3 pages of a 7 page document attempting to spell out the reasons why the university should drop the program. As you will see there are highlighted sections and side notes by someone (obviously a former football player) disagreeing with the findings.
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Post by Aces&Eights on Mar 30, 2023 8:18:47 GMT -6
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Post by Aces&Eights on Mar 30, 2023 8:20:40 GMT -6
The final page of the document and the press release thus ending the football program. Attachments:
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2023 9:06:53 GMT -6
I surmise that report was condensed to include the general points that came from the 'study' but if that's all I knew before I was asked to vote, my first thought was: Am I supposed to simply conclude that these are facts because somebody claimed they were? Throwing out a number as an established truth and building a set of other truths to support it is how we run our world now and have since the days the Bible was translated. So not much of this is a new technique. Trust me, I know the facts here, OK? Athletics at a university is a sunk cost. It's one of the components that draws people to the school. It is the whole and exact reason the IHSAA state basketball tournament was set up in 1911 -- by the IU Boosters as a way of drawing fans to Bloomington so that the resourceful would send their kids there to college. It was NOT done because they liked basketball. They just milked an existing cow. Football is no different than the landscaping in the oval outside the Olmstead tombstone. It's no different from frat rush in the fall to insurance for the kids who are learning how to act, sing and dance -- or keep the lights on the flag at night outside the Union building. It's part of the collegiate experience. If it breaks even, it's still something that people who manage it gain in experience in how to run a small company -- a hundred people being coordinated to schedule, practice for, travel to and execute a football game and a season -- and everything else that comes from maturing inside it. That's what universities do. These dipsticks thought the bike race was a bad investment of time. Apparently a craft show displaying Nepalese art and learning Swodonian ethnic dances on the Village Green is what kids from Rural Indiana come to UE to experience. Instead of a Saturday at the football game. Those were, in my years at UE, an extremely stress-free Saturday away from campus with a cheap date with a nice young co-ed who was new on campus. Shameless display of poor academic disassociation with reality, the demise of football. You don't need to win at sports. You need sports as a reason to keep going. Rant could go on. The choir has heard this one.
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Post by 83Ace on Mar 30, 2023 10:16:13 GMT -6
I am finished with the scores of UE football. In the future I plan to add site locations, dates and attendance on the season scores. Thanks for doing this, Harrison88! I've enjoyed learning about the earlier years and reminiscing about the later years.
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Post by harrison88 on Mar 31, 2023 17:56:51 GMT -6
In early 1998 the UE board of trustees decided to drop the football program. Attached are the first 3 pages of a 7 page document attempting to spell out the reasons why the university should drop the program. As you will see there are highlighted sections and side notes by someone (obviously a former football player) disagreeing with the findings. I just read this report and all I can say if the powers to be wanted football then UE would have kept football. If the UE administration was concerned about space and only 5 football games played at Arad McCutchan Stadium then Arad McCutchan Stadium could have be converted to a football/soccer field. If the UE Administration was concerned about not being competitive in the Pioneer League the UE could have left the Pioneer League and play as a independent. UE could have tried to kept Kentucky Wesleyan, Butler, Valparaiso and Cumberland-TN on their schedule. That would have left 6 games to fill. Surely UE could have found 6 games with all the D3/NAIA/D2 schools in the region. UE could have scheduled one "money game" against a Division I-AA scholarship school every year to help with the football budget.
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Post by harrison88 on Sept 1, 2023 11:02:31 GMT -6
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Post by Aces&Eights on Sept 1, 2023 12:07:11 GMT -6
Obviously this stadium was never built. I have never seen this article or ever heard of the proposed stadium so it must have been someone's pipedream.
While being recruited in the spring of 1971 to play football at UE I was shown a mock up of the future home of the football team (Arad McCutchan stadium). The fact that it was not constructed until the early 80s proves there was a problem getting the money to build it. The cost of construction was around $500,000, a fraction of the cost of the proposed Roberts Stadium site.
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Post by harrison88 on Sept 1, 2023 13:59:37 GMT -6
Obviously this stadium was never built. I have never seen this article or ever heard of the proposed stadium so it must have been someone's pipedream. While being recruited in the spring of 1971 to play football at UE I was shown a mock up of the future home of the football team (Arad McCutchan stadium). The fact that it was not constructed until the early 80s proves there was a problem getting the money to build it. The cost of construction was around $500,000, a fraction of the cost of the proposed Roberts Stadium site. The article was in the University's newspaper, the crescent, on January 5, 1971.
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Post by 65pointgame on Sept 1, 2023 15:26:38 GMT -6
Off subject, but seeing the theater ads in the Crescent clip, I remember seeing Tora!Tora!Tora! with my dad at Washington theater and seeing the Aristocats at the Ross. Great memories as a kid. ---
To bring it back to football, I also remember seeing UE games at Reitz Bowl with dad.
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Post by harrison88 on Sept 2, 2023 16:06:53 GMT -6
Obviously this stadium was never built. I have never seen this article or ever heard of the proposed stadium so it must have been someone's pipedream. While being recruited in the spring of 1971 to play football at UE I was shown a mock up of the future home of the football team (Arad McCutchan stadium). The fact that it was not constructed until the early 80s proves there was a problem getting the money to build it. The cost of construction was around $500,000, a fraction of the cost of the proposed Roberts Stadium site. I was wondering. Was the mock up of Arad Mcutchan Stadium on campus or next to Roberts Stadium?
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Post by Aces&Eights on Sept 2, 2023 16:22:59 GMT -6
I don't remember. I think I would remember a 25,000 seat off campus stadium if that was the case.
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Post by harrison88 on Sept 2, 2023 19:08:40 GMT -6
I don't remember. I think I would remember a 25,000 seat off campus stadium if that was the case. I just wonder if Arad McCutchan Stadium was a scaled back version of this stadium and if the original plan was to build Arad McCutchan Stadium next to Roberts Stadium or on campus.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2023 8:25:19 GMT -6
There was a proposal in December 1970 by a committee who wanted to build a stadium. Courier editorial reveals that such a proposal was offered. This is from Sunday 12-20-70. The 25K concept was applauded here as potentially being a practical number -- eventually. Seems like there were those who were still stuck in 1961. They may have believed the city was right for some kind of bowl game. Key names were land developer Don Davis and local "enthusiast" Bob Ossenberg, and the fact-finding committee was later to be enlarged to 7. (Coach Mac was included.) They were to finance this with increases in parking fees for UE games, a ticket tax on all city sports, and an increase in vendor fees at the Stadium (hot dog sellers). Stadium rental fees also included IHSAA games, though high school people in town doubted they would handle that added cost. A few other revenue options were being discussed. This was to be in the parking lot near the Stadium, so basketball and ice shows were going to birth the cash cow. Areas near the Civic Center and redevelopment downtown were also on the table. Part of this entire concept was a "wishlisting" that was common for cities that had seen their ancient shrines finally at the end of their lifetimes. Reitz Bowl was a sad shadow of its glorious past. This was also an era when the "cookie cutter" ballparks were being built around the country using AstroTurf as a tool for multi-use operations. Gleaming new sports palaces were a driving force for people who expected somebody else to pay for them. The Central High field was under construction with an estimated 9K capacity.
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Post by Aces&Eights on Sept 4, 2023 10:11:40 GMT -6
In a January 6, 1970 Crescent article President Graves commented there was a possibility of building a football stadium on a 40 acre tract adjacent to the State Hospital. This construction would be part of phase 1 of university projects in the 1970s. He also projected a student enrollment of 5,000 with 1,200 grad students in 1980. We know that neither the stadium nor the enrollment was achieved.
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