UIC FOOTBALL.....POSSIBLE?

[Chuck A]

I was just trolling university athletic sites and came across Liberty University. The university is owned by Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister in Virginia.

Liberty University is also the only other team nicknamed the Flames. They are members of the Big South Conference. I noticed that the Big South has added football as a conference sport and Liberty has a football team. Now Liberty, as well as the Big South, is a league that is so far below the HL it's funny. Nevertheless that school has a football team. They have nowhere near the funds or student body that we do. They also have a football stadium.

Why is it that we don't have a football team and there isn't even an inkling of UIC rekindling one? I would love to see that Flames emblem on the side of a Flame colored helmet.

I just want to know.

[Chuck A]

I just found out why we won't be having a team...at least in the very near future, from an extremely reliable source:

Two simple reasons: Title IX--We would need to add 100 female athletes if we have 100 football players and funding. Second, it would cost six million in start up not including a new stadium.

[Jason T]

If UIC wants to add 100 female athletes, it would help having a WOMEN'S soccer team (for starters). I'm not too familar with the women college sports out there. But I find it weird DePaul has a women's soccer team and UIC doesn't.

[Big D]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Title IX forces universities to have the same number of women and men athletes. Instead, I think it requires that each gender receive equivalent quality and benefits.

This still makes it tough because football is so expensive. If we were to add football and no women's teams, we'd have to give the current women more benefits...and there's no way we can afford that and football.

A similar situation was the hockey situation. We wanted to allocate more money to basketball, but if we did that and kept hockey, not only would we be paying for hockey, but we'd also have to increase money spent on our women's teams...and that's why hockey is gone...

[dk]

The Title IX ideal is to have the sports opportunities roughly equal to the student body make-up. Thus, if 55% female, 55% of scholarships to female athletes. There are other factors that can be worked out, however, such as student interest in forming such teams.

[EzE]

They cut the funding for bball and really didn't do us a lot of good. We should have kept hockey!