University of California Riverside Athletics Director Stan Morrison will answer selected questions from our online readers throughout the school year. To submit a question to "Ask Stan Morrison", click here.

Question:

"Stan, why don't we have football at UC Riverside" and "When will we be adding football at UC Riverside?" - Submitted by many.

Stan's Reply :

"No one is a greater fan than I am when it comes to college football. The reality of our situation is that college football will not be played on the UCR campus again. First and foremost is the great cost for equipment, coaching salaries and scholarships necessary to build a program. Auxiliary costs, including travel, insurance, trainers, meals, housing, etc. would run the bill into several millions of dollars. All that and we still don't have a stadium! Remember, to play at the Division I-A level, a minimum stadium size of 30,000 seats is required. All of the additional locker rooms, training quarters, weight training needs, etc. would run the bill out of sight. And, you need to average 17,000 fans per home game to stay at the Division I-A level.

Let's say that we had a "sugar daddy" out there who was willing to pick up the tab for this excursion into college football. The next question would be, "Who are we going to play?" Remember, the Big West Conference is a Division I-AAA (no football) conference. Would we look to play in another league? Not the Pac-10! How about the Mountain West or the Western Athletic Conference (WAC)? Think about the expenses of being involved with a conference where the majority of your "away" games would be played out of state. Compare that with the expenses of playing primarily in a California conference, like the Big West Conference, with the obvious exceptions of Idaho and Utah State.

UC Riverside dropped college football in 1975. Our last coach was Bobby Toledo, the current UCLA Head Coach! He won championships here and the sport was dropped due to Proposition 13 and it's economic impact on our campus and throughout the state. Many College Football programs have been dropped over the past two decades including Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Cal State Northridge, University of the Pacific, Santa Clara University and UCSB.

Finally, the question of Gender Equity enters the equation. To field a College Football squad, the University would be required by federal law, Title IX, to have an equal amount of funding, facilities, coaches salaries, scholarships and auxiliary expense funding to support an equal number of women student-athletes in our Intercollegiate Athletics program here at UCR. So, double the ante, if you will! I know we could field some exciting Women's Field Hockey, Water Polo, Equestrian, Gymnastics and Swim teams to level the "competitive opportunity" playing field for our women student-athletes. This Athletics Director believes in Title IX and fully supports the concept of fair and equal opportunity.

I am asked the "When will we have college football again at UCR?" question two or three times every week. I hope I have adequately outlined our response to this popular question. Thanks for asking.

"Braveheart is Alive!" - Stan Morrison"