Big East targets 4 C-USA schools

the tampa and orlando markets, plus shoring up the state of florida. USF feels a LOT like charlotte -- doesn't get the respect because they are the new kids on the block (compared to fsu, uf and miami). they used to be a suitcase college, but are now the largest university in the state.

 

The football issue revisted (the very beginning)

Several bits from Charlotte and UNC Charlotte: Growing Up Together by Ken Sanford, former director of information at UNC Charlotte...

One of the programs launched at the very beginning -- athletics -- did eventually create trouble. Arthur Deremer was the first Charlotte Center football coach. Before World War II he had played football for the Brooklyn Tigers, a team in the National League. Deremer came to Charlotte in 1946 to play center for the revived minor league professional football team, the Charlotte Clippers. He coached the Charlotte Center team on the side. Deremer wrote to other institutions in 1946 to try to schedule games. Mostly he scheduled the B teams of Clemson, Davidson, Catawba, Belmont Abbey and Pembroke. All equipment and expenses had top be paid from gate receipts.

In January 1947, (Charles) Bernard hired Howard Baker, an Erskine College graduate, as the first basketball coach. His team played the freshman teams of Davidson, Belmont Abbey, Burton Institute and Navy of Charleston, and the industrial teams of Cramer Mills and Lance, Inc., plus some community teams. A softball team played mostly pickup games. Two students who wanted to participate in track were allowed to run in track meets at UNC Chapel Hill.

The returning veterans considered athletic teams necessary. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the difficulties of running an athletics program on a shoestring became apparent.

In the fall of 1947, (C.E.) McIntosh complained about athletics taking students out of classes. He also said the teams should carry their own weight fincially. His concerns resurfaced when the school's second football coach, Marion "Footsie" Woods, reported that creditors were pressing for payment for "football suits" and other expenses. So Mcintosh told (Bonnie) Cone, "Unless the interest in Charlotte is sufficient to pay for the expenses of equipping the team we do not feel that we are justified in taking student fees and applying them to athletics."

Mcintosh admonished Coach Woods, "I cannot advise you nor the administration at Charlotte how to enlist greater interest.... But I hope you will exert every effort to have as large crowds as possible, both in football and basketball, for many people will be drawn to your center by its athletic accomplishments. You all know of course, that with no athletic fund available it is necessary to make your program carry as much of the expenses as possible. I believe you will plan your basketball program with this financial necessity in mind" -- a challenge that would make contemporary athletic directors shudder.

It was a challenge even in those days. Gate receipts at a1948 basketball game with the Lenoir Rhyne B team were $33.40, resulting in a net gain of $3.22 after expenses. There was a net loss of $3.74 when the team played Belmont Abbey. By April 1948, McIntosh wrote to Earl Crowe, captain of the baseball team, and told him that his office could no longer support athletic teams.

McIntosh told Crowe that he had to discontinue Coach Woods at the end of the winter quarter abd that the central office for the college centers was planning to make a loan to the Charlotte Center to help liquidate the football uniforms and equipment bought the previous fall but that the load would have to be repaid. He nopted that though Woods may have been a good coach, he lacked the ability to handle financial arrangments. Even so, McIntosh continued, a football coach should be considered for the next fall. A football coach was indeed hired for the fall of 1948, but Cone decided that Coach Carol Blackwell was not working out and dismissed him. --- pages 26-28

In 1980... In terms of athletics (Board of Trustees Chairman Cliff) Cameron said he visualized UNC Charlotte as predominately a basketball school. "I don't see us in football," he said. "It shouldn't even be considered." (Buck) Fraley added that football was too expensive, but Howard Hayworth , a furniture manufacturing executive and later a member of Governor Jim Martin's administrative team, said he was not opposed to launching football someday. -- page 178