Football return proposed
By Jason Kosareff
Daily Forty-Niner
Students may have to decide whether or
not they want to shoulder a raise in tuition in order to bring football
back to Cal State Long Beach.
Associated Students Inc. President Toby
Sexton has submitted a proposal that would allow CSULB students to vote
first on reinstating the sport and, second, on paying an additional $123.46
each year to fund it.
The proposal in its present form "will
not fly" because of the high cost students would have to pay, Sexton said.
He said he will seek alternative sources of funding to lower or negate
the cost to students.
During the summer, Sexton submitted the
proposal to Bill Shumard, director of the CSULB athletics department and
CSULB President Robert Maxson.
"President Maxson wouldn't feel comfortable
having the students pay for football," said Armando Contreras, executive
assistant to the president.
Sexton agrees.
Sexton said he will not bring his proposal
to a referendum until he has found additional funding from alumni, boosters,
the Long Beach community and the university.
None of the cost of building the football
team and providing a stadium would fall on the athletic department, according
to Sextonís proposal, and neither would the cost of expanding current athletic
programs and scholarships.
"The athletic department doesnít have a
very stable budget," Sexton said.
Sexton emphasized that the first priority
of his proposal is to take care of existing athletes and athletic programs.
"It's not just a proposal for football,
it's for all our athletes," Sexton said.
Currently, there are only 91 CSULB athletes
on full scholarship although the NCAA permits 141. The first part of the
proposal would allocate money for 50 more scholarships, the cost of which
Sexton said he wants to pass on to boosters.
The proposal then would allocate $1.18
million each year to augment existing programs and operational expenses.
The proposal allows for 63 football scholarships,
totaling $629,000, and 87 additional womenís athletic scholarships, totaling
$828,571, to meet Title IX gender requirements.
Title IX is a NCAA regulation that requires
the budgets of college athletic departments to reflect the proportion of
men and women on campus.
Executive Order 661, from the Cal State
University Chancellorís Office, requires one-third of all new fees to go
to financial aid. In order to comply with this regulation, an additional
amount would be tacked on to the fee increase.
The total annual cost of having a football
team, including scholarships and operational expenses, amounts to approximately
$1.2 million, according to the proposal. This means an additional $1.8
million must be spent on womenís sports to satisfy Title IX.
Sexton also proposed the building of a
new 10,000-seat football stadium on campus at a cost of $10 million. The
interest on the interest-bearing bonds that will have to be issued to finance
the stadium will bring the total cost to approximately $18.81 million to
be paid out over 30 years.
Sexton said he would like to bring the
referendum to students this year and institute the fee increase beginning
spring of 2001 if he can find support for the project.
Fees would go up almost annually so that
by the time a 49er football team is ready to take the field, each student
would be paying $123.46 a year, Sexton said.
"I think Toby did an excellent and very
thorough job," Contreras said. "But I don't believe it will go to a referendum."
Shumard was not available for comment. |
![[news]](http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/Icon/news.gif){kind=icon}
![[opinion]](http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/Icon/opinion.gif){kind=icon}
![[sports]](http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/Icon/sports.gif){kind=icon}