Game Over: Allen University Drops Football

Allen University, in Columbia, SC, has dropped its football program. In fact the schools board of trustees decided to cancell all sports for atleast five years.

The school no longer could afford the program’s cost, Allen University president Charles Young said. The school had been spending $1.4 million a year on the program, an Allen official said. “That’s a lot of money for a school with about 600 students. For half a million dollars, I could do so much,” Young said, nodding toward mock-ups of three new dormitories and a new cafeteria. The four buildings will cost $8 million and are a part of the university’s five-year master plan.

“School spirit comes from football. If they won’t come back for anything else, (the alumni) show up for football games,” said William Jefferson, director of alumni affairs and head of the alumni association’s 1,000 Plus Club, which contributed $40,000 a year toward the cost of the program. But those dollars and love were not enough to finance a football team.

Football cost the university $1.4 million a year, said Tony Spearman, Allen’s vice president of business and finance.
• $500,000 in direct costs for scholarships, salaries, contracts, transportation and medical insurance
• $900,000 to educate the players

The university provided about $300,000 in scholarships — ranging from $1,000 a year to a $12,000 full ride — to 80 football players each year, Young said.

Salaries for two full-time coaches and eight part-time coaches and medical insurance were the team’s other major expenses, Young said, without providing specific costs.
Spearman said the university brought in less than $30,000 in 2005 while playing six home games in two rented high school stadiums — Richland Bolden and Memorial — to less than half-capacity crowds of mostly nonpaying students.

The decision to cut the program had little to do with football and a lot to do with money, president Young said. Allen now can focus more time and money on courting students who dream of careers in math, science, business and the humanities, Young said. “The National Football League does not come here to recruit,” he said. “But the FBI, BellSouth, Merrill-Lynch and other corporations are coming here to recruit Allen University students. So we need to focus on what we do well.”