A chilly reception
Welcome to the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, Gannon, Mercyhurst and C.W. Post.
But not with open arms — at least when it comes to football.
The PSACexpands to 16 teams next season by bringing three private schools into a league that has always been comprised of state-supported universities. Gannon and Mercyhurst join the Western Division, C.W. Post will be in the East while Shippensburg moves from East to West.
"When Mansfield dropped football, our league had an uneven number and a lot of our schools had a bye on their schedule as a result,"PSACcommissioner Steve Murray said.
"We wanted to alleviate that situation. Bringing these programs in makes our league more competitive. It benefits a lot of sports teams in our league travelwise. Those are good things."
East Stroudsburg was unable to fill the open date on its 2007 schedule caused by Mansfield dropping football. As a result, the Warriors are playing a nine-game schedule, which makes them ineligible for playoff consideration.
The biggest issue PSACfootball coaches have with the expansion is the league's decision to expand its football scholarship equivalency limit from 25 to the NCAA Division IIlimit of 36.Gannon and Mercyhurst have been members of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a football league that requires each member to have at least 33 scholarship equivalencies."What's hard to understand is why those two schools weren't forced to reduce their scholarship limits to fit our league's rules,"Slippery Rock coach George Mihalik said. "Instead, our whole league is changing its rules to accommodate them. That's ridiculous."We're all facing state budgetary issues. Hardly anyone in the PSACeven approaches 25 scholarships now, and we're supposed to get up to 36?"Of the 13 current PSACfootball programs, only California (Pa.) offers the PSAClimit of 25 scholarships. Indiana (Pa.) offers 19, Slippery Rock 16, Edinboro 13. Every other school in the league offers 10 or fewer.California coach John Luckhardt, a former collegiate athletic director, understands the league's attempt to stabilize its membership."Mansfield dropped football and nobody's sure what Cheyney is going to do in that regard,"Luckhardt said. "Sometimes you have to look at other options."We're excited about this. We're committed to raising the athletic funding to compete. It's not all football — the PSACis lifting its total scholarship limit for all sports from 70 to 125."We have three full-time fundraising programs now and we're adding a fourth. We raise $1 million in scholarship money now. To achieve 125 scholarships, we need to raise $2 million. That's not going to happen overnight, but we're committed to going in that direction,"Luckhardt added.
IUP coach Lou Tepper said the Crimson Hawks will try to raise their scholarship totals as well."We're going to look at doing whatever's necessary to compete," he said. "In 50 years, our league has never had a national championship in football. When IUPgot to the championship game in 1993, this school offered 29 scholarships."We have teams good enough to reach the national playoffs, but when you're working with a budget of 10, 12, even 19 scholarships, you may knock off one team in the postseason that has 36. ... It's doubtful you're going to beat two or three."Murray said that raising the league's scholarship limit to the national average so a PSACteam could compete for a national title was "never an issue, never even brought up in discussion."If California and IUPbump up their scholarship equivalencies next year to join Gannon and Mercyhurst at that level, teams like SRU and Clarion will be playing four teams in its division that have nearly 36 scholarships each."That would be a mandated schedule, year in and year out,"Mihalik said. "I'm concerned about the future of our program, facing a situation like that."Bringing these schools in and going to the national (scholarship) limit, speaking from a football perspective, it's the worst thing the league could have done."Clarion coach Jay Foster said that Cal and IUPalways will be football title contenders, given their athletic budget commitments."Throw Gannon and Mercyhurst in there and, now, instead of competing for third or fourth in the league, the rest of us are competing for fifth or sixth,"Foster said. "The private support that Catholic schools have is not there for us."It's not a level playing field anymore."Murray argues that it never has been."We've never been a balanced league that way,"the commissioner said. "I never heard IUPcomplain when it played a Cheyney team with only four scholarships."Nothing is going to change here. If you're a good team in our league now, you're still going to be a good team in our league."
Edinboro coach Scott Browning said he likes the idea of the PSAC trying to move forward. Adding Gannon and Mercyhurst — both located in or near Erie — puts two neighborhood rivals on the Fighting Scots' schedule."But did we sit back and think through this whole process enough?"Browning asked. "Trying to compete at the national level is good, but at the same time, you have to be able to govern people."State and private schools are apples and oranges. It's OKat the Division I level because everybody is at 85 full scholarships. In Division II, the differences are too great."Millersville coach Joe Trainer, who coached previously at New Haven and Villanova, both private schools, emphasized the differences will extend beyond scholarship dollars.Coaches at the state schools are unionized. Coaches at the private schools are not."We can only work so many hours because of our union contract,"Trainer said. "Private school coaches can outwork us. Public schools vs. private schools — our mission statements and resources are different."It will be tough for us all to coexist in the PSACand keep things fair."To the contrary, Murray said he would have had reservations about bringing in two public schools currently at the national scholarship limit. Bringing in private schools is more in line with what a prospective player would have to pay out of pocket to attend a given PSACprogram."By nature, private schools are much more expensive than state schools,"Murray reasoned. "If Gannon, for instance, was to offer a kid a $10,000 scholarship, that kid would still have to pay maybe $17,000 out of pocket to go there."If Slippery Rock offers that same kid no scholarship money, he could still go to school there and pay less out of pocket."Foster scoffed at such a notion."They (private schools) will have an advantage in recruiting out-of-state kids because there's no additional tuition for them,"he said. "And the money Gannon and Mercyhurst will save on travel in the PSAC compared to the GLIAC — $75,000 or more — they can pour right into scholarship funding."One big recruiting edge we had on those schools was the travel, that the kid's family wouldn't have to travel far to watch him play in the PSAC as opposed to the GLIAC. Now we've lost that edge."Tepper agreed."Joining our conference is a no-brainer for them,"Tepper said of Gannon and Mercyhurst. "Would they have dropped their scholarship limit to join our league?Absolutely."Shippensburg offers only eight scholarship equivalencies in football. Red Raiders coach Rocky Rees said he believes competitive football was sacrificed for the good of other sports in the conference."This move fills other sports' schedules and reduces travel, so it's good for the big picture," he said. "In terms of football, teams that will commit to more scholarships love the move. Teams that won't, don't."We've always had to compete with those private schools in recruiting. Now we have to compete with them on the field. It's not just about football, but, from a football perspective, we're a little disheartened."
