Undefeated Since 1996

By Bill Fusco, Director of Athletics

They are selling a T-shirt in the University Bookstore that reads on the front “Sonoma State Football, Undefeated Since 1996.” A clever retail marketing strategy or cruel joke? Perhaps it’s a little of both. Since SSU dropped football in 1996 it is a given that the shirt will keep selling for years to come.

It is impossible to avoid this time of year. College football is in the air. A true American tradition that will again captivate millions of fans across the country. But in our great State of California, you might find a college football game more difficult to locate than you think. The reality is that the majority of all four-year degree granting institutions in California do not sponsor intercollegiate football on any level.

Yes, the obvious ones are very visible like USC, Cal, Stanford, UCLA and Fresno State. San Jose State and San Diego State round out the seven schools that compete at the highest NCAA Division I level. The next level is the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division IAA) and features schools like UC Davis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Sacramento State and University of San Diego. The remaining 10 schools that sponsor intercollegiate football consist of only one school competing at the NCAA Division II level (where SSU competed) and that is the Lumberjacks of Humboldt State. Azusa Pacific is the lone NAIA school sponsoring football in California and then there are eight NCAA Division III schools, mostly in Southern California that field football teams every fall.

Out of approximately 70 four-year schools in California, only 21 sponsor a college football team. The question I am asked the most over the past 12 years is “When are we bringing back football?” The answer is simple. Unless Bill Gates shows up with a $100,000,000 endowment for SSU Athletics it will probably never happen. The reasons are simple. There are hardly any schools in NCAA Division II sponsoring football on the West Coast. Four to be exact. The travel required to play a competitive NCAA Division II schedule would be economically prohibitive. Title IX also is a major factor in this process. Add a football team of 85 male student-athletes, then gender equity would require you have to go out and find enough women’s teams to handle 125 new female student-athletes.

Since I enjoy college football and really dreamed about SSU having football again, perhaps the best I can do this fall is watch on TV or go over to Cal to see Pac-10 football. Or an even better idea is to save the gas and stay right on campus watching our top-ranked SSU “football” Soccer teams keep the winning tradition of Seawolves Athletics going strong.