 "Photo: Camille Harper")
For the past year, speculation and curiosity followed Georgia State University's athletic department awaiting the formal announcement of Georgia State's football program. Well the wait is over: Georgia State football kicks off in 2010.
What started as a vision from the minds of 16-year Georgia State University President Carl Patton and carried through with the hiring of current Athletic Director Mary McElroy and team consultant Dan Reeves is now a reality.
The team will start in 2010 in the Colonial Athletic Association at the Georgia Dome.
"When I first took over as President 16 years ago and started having round-table dinners with students, that was their first question, 'when are we getting football,'" said Dr. Patton after the press conference. "My answer then was 'not in my lifetime.' But here we stand, 16 years later."
The announcement, as McElroy stated in the press conference last Thursday afternoon in the Student Center, is only the beginning of a very expensive process.
"This is only the beginning," said McElroy at the podium next to the unveiled Georgia State football logo with "2010" written under it. "29 months might seem like a long time, but it really isn't."
When considering the $7 million that the committees will have to raise to get the program off the ground to secure land for a new practice facility and foot the bill to play the games at the Georgia Dome, 29 months feels more like 29 days.
In addition, McElroy announced that the university plans to find a coach this summer along with four assistants and a director of football operations. McElroy and Reeves both announced that they have received numerous inquiries from prospective coaches that rank in experience level from high school to the NFL.
Finding a coach is of course a priority, but will be no easy task for McElroy and company. They need a coach that can give them instant credibility because as one reporter said, the first few years are going to be rough.
"Obviously we need somebody who's not just going to use our boys as hamburger meat every Saturday," said McElroy when discussing the desired credentials of a coaching candidate.
"They are gong to need to be patient. We don't have facilities built yet, we don't have any players yet, we don't even have an office for the coach yet, they would be sharing with me."
One obvious candidate would be Dan Reeves, the consultant to the team. But Reeves questioned his own desire to be the head coach by echoing his previous sentiments about the position.
When talking about some of these challenges McElroy mentioned the Florida-Atlantic University and University of South Florida programs, which had to start out in similar ways. They used trailers as offices for the coaches, and have provided guidance to Georgia State in this endeavor.
As a temporary solution for a practice field, McElroy suggested said that Georgia State would use a high school field to practice on while playing there games in the Georgia Dome. But as Patton said, that's nothing new for Georgia State.
"We use the [Georgia] Dome for commencements and some basketball games; we are used to that," said Patton. "When they do the basketball and the commencement we have like 15,000 people there and they sit them all in that bottom section and dim the rest of the stadium.
They will probably do that for football too, I mean we would be just tickled if we could get 15,000 people at the football games."
That may not be that unrealistic. Students and alumni have been waiting for this, and even Dan Reeves showed some enthusiasm when he performed a cheer for the media he learned in his Americus High School days, whose mascot is the Panthers.
"P-A-N-T! H-E-R-S! That's the way you spell it! Here's the way you yell it! Go Panthers go," said Reeves to a delighted crowd of reporters. "My wife was the cheerleading captain in high school."
That is a chant that students will soon take with them all the way to the Georgia Dome in 2010.
Be the first to comment on this article!