Tradition is euthanized

Almost 48 hours have passed since Hofstra ended its football program, a good bit longer than I would have liked before putting my thoughts to screen. But times like these demand caution and a few deep breaths, even as the emotions run high.

The news is no longer as fresh, but the disappointment and disgust is stronger than ever, as is the belief that Hofstra football is dead not out of a desire to invest in academic initiatives but because president Stuart Rabinowitz wanted it dead.

Before tackling Rabinowitz (I bought a box of football puns at Job Lots in August, gotta use 'em while I can), let’s get this out of the way: Unless you’re one of the 172 season ticket holders, or somebody who donated funds to the football program, you are not blameless in the demise of Hofstra football.

That most certainly includes me. Being out of state covering baseball playoffs is a pretty good excuse for not going to a game between 2003 and 2007, but what about my scattered attendance between 1996 and 2002? What about going to home games once the playoffs were over in November? Nah, too tired or too this or too that, I can always go next year.

Within hours of the news Thursday, a Facebook group called “Help Keep Hofstra Football” was formed. There were more than 2,000 members by dinnertime. As I type this in the wee hours of Saturday morning, there are 5,043 members. Where in the hell were you guys when it mattered?

The uproar over the demise of Flying Dutchmen football reminds me of when I get mad at my wife for deleting a year-old show on TIVO.

Her: “You were never going to watch it!”

Me: “Yeah but I liked having it there.”

That’s what Hofstra football was to 99 percent of us. That old reliable show whose existence you were aware of, but which you never actually planned to watch (I really am going to watch the last season of My Name Is Earl, though, I swear).

We all could have done more to save Hofstra football. But the person who could have done the most instead killed it, even if Rabinowitz said Thursday “…there really is no concrete rebuttal possible” to the decision.

But there sure are plenty of Unispan-sized holes in it. For instance: Rabinowitz said dropping the program to the non-scholarship level was not a legitimate option because if Hofstra is going to compete athletically, he wants to do so at the highest level and for national championships.

Yet he also said no other program is in danger of being cut. Well, if rubbing shoulders with the elite is the objective, then everything except the basketball, lacrosse, soccer, softball and wrestling programs should be in big trouble.

Many, many programs at Hofstra are not going to compete for a national title or receive national media attention, and that’s fine. Athletic competition, even if the ceiling is no higher than a conference championship and the audience no vaster than friends and family, is a vital part of the college experience.

I wrote this when I was a student in 1994, and I believe it to be as true now as then: Even the sports that exist in complete anonymity—cross country, tennis, baseball—have a ripple-like effect on building Hofstra’s reputation. The parents of Hofstra athletes are scattered across the country, wearing Hofstra garb and spreading the school’s name recognition, year after year after year.

And over the last 15 years, nobody has boosted Hofstra’s profile more than its football alums. Hofstra gets scads of free publicity every weekend in the fall thanks to the likes of Wayne Chrebet and Marques Colston and Willie Colon and Raheem Morris. But Rabinowitz said Thursday he didn’t like the tone of the publicity Hofstra got via its grads in the NFL.

“I think we’re so proud of Marques and Wayne Chrebet and all those people and all they did for us,” Rabinowitz said. “But when you hear those names, what I hear, whether it’s explicit or not explicit, is ‘Wow, isn’t that shocking. Little Hofstra, these players made the NFL.’”

But what, precisely, is wrong with people identifying Hofstra with the ability of the underdog to make something better of himself? Isn’t that what college is all about? Grabbing hold of an opportunity, making a fresh start in a new place and reshaping your life? How many thousands of students arrived at Hofstra and pulled a Chrebet or a Colston of their own? I can tell you I sure did.

There aren’t a whole lot of kids born on third base thinking they hit a triple when nearly two-thirds of the population is comprised of commuters. Hofstra is not Yale, even though it charges like it is.

Speaking of that: When Rabinowitz talks about how the money from football will go towards need-based academic scholarships, I don’t want to hear him tugging at the heartstrings with stories of kids who can’t afford to go to Hofstra or can’t afford to finish their studies there. Not when he has presided over a school whose costs have risen at rates that almost defy description.

During the 1999-00 school year, the Hofstra student paid $20,922 for tuition, room and board and student fees. The cost this year? $42,526.

Tuition and room and board at Yale, by the way, is $47,500, an increase of 3.3 percent. Tuition at Hofstra this year ($29,980) increased more than nine percent from last year ($27,600). Tuition rose almost four percent from 1998-99 ($13,328) to 1999-00 ($13,750).

“No, it’s a relatively inexpensive school,” Rabinowitz said to Mike Francesa Thursday. Let them eat cake.

Even if the university wanted to reallocate football’s funds to general scholarships, there was still so much more that could have been done to save the program and allow it to survive at a lesser level. Why not call on the Hofstra and Long Island communities to offer their support or else? Why not solicit donations from the NFLers to help offset some of the giant investment?

It should also be noted that, in the mid-1990s, the lagging wrestling program was told to raise its performance or else. And look where it is now.

If, after a year or two, the Flying Dutchmen are still wallowing around .500, Shuart Stadium is still playing to one-third capacity and the endowment is still couch change, fine. The decision wouldn’t sting any less, but at least there would have been a feeling that all options had been exhausted in trying to save Hofstra football.

And at least people would have had a chance to say goodbye to Shuart Stadium and their memories of it, even if they said hello to football far too infrequently.

But that’s how it works at Hofstra. This was the plan all along, and the less people that knew about it—and the less time they had to build a case for the survival of football—the better. Rabinowitz can say the final conclusion was reached Wednesday night, but it’s really hard to believe he didn’t know the answer to the question as soon as the two-year review of athletics started.

It’s still hard to wrap my mind around the finality of it all. This isn’t analogous to getting fired, because the company usually goes on. In some ways, this isn’t even like a business folding, an analogy that CAA commissioner Tom Yeager used quite eloquently Thursday (I’m going to miss that guy when Hofstra is in the A-10 next year). There’s always the possibility that the displaced journalists at a newspaper, for example, could start their own website.

There is NO picking up the pieces from this, NO coming back from it. The big red button has been pushed. If there’s anything left after the dust settles, it’ll take decades before it’s inhabitable again.

Nothing happens quickly in college athletics, yet it took Hofstra just 19 years to go from Division III to Division I-AA power to defunct. From 1991 through 2000—Hofstra’s independent years—the Flying Dutchmen went 13-5 against Marshall, Montana, Buffalo, UConn and South Florida. Everyone except Montana—which is in the I-AA playoffs for the 17th straight season—has moved to I-A. The four I-A schools have combined to make 15 bowl appearances.

Again: Nobody really expected Hofstra to make the leap to I-A, and as I have written many times before, it was impossible to expect Rabinowitz to turn a James Shuart-like blind eye to the reality of football’s bottom line. But to let the program crumble? To destroy what generations of campus leaders built? To leave dormant in the fall a gorgeous stadium named after a former school president who played football here?

As someone who gave his life to Hofstra and rescued the school from real financial distress and gave it the type of foundation that has made Rabinowitz’ big dreams possible, Shuart deserved better. A lot better.

Instead, Rabinowitz didn’t even refer to Shuart by name Thursday. “My predecessor was president for 25 years, was a football player,” Rabinowitz said.

Even if you support the decision, or don’t mind the dismissal of football, think about this: It has taken nine years for the first 65 years of Hofstra athletic traditions to be erased. Flying Dutchmen? Gone. A football program that was almost as old as the school itself and produced more professionals than the rest of the programs combined? Gone.

Of Hofstra football, Dave Cohen always said “tradition never graduates.” Turns out, though, it can be euthanized.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

We’ll have a different kind of debate…when I moderate

Ha ha! Your medium's dying! And no one's asking your questions tonight, either!

As you may have heard by now, tonight’s the night Hofstra makes history (oh man, a Styx reference in the first sentence…I can’t lie, I’m proud of myself) when it hosts the third and final presidential debate of the 2008 election. CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer will serve as the moderator (unless someone ponies up $15 million for Katie Couric) as John McCain and Barack Obama discuss the economy and domestic policy.

Which, you know, means neither candidate will speak about the issues that matter to you—the Defiantly Dutch-era alum of Hofstra University. This is your University. You were at the Hofstra Arena long before it was magically transformed from a place that had far too many seats to a place that had far too few. Shouldn’t someone vocalize your thoughts and concerns? Shouldn’t that someone be me?

It’s probably a good thing for American democracy that it’s not. But here’s what McCain, Obama and I would talk about if I was sitting in the moderator’s seat tonight.

1.) Both of you have promised to provide tax breaks and other assistance to small businesses. Along those lines, there are 3,000 journalists watching this debate right now from a few feet down the road in a building that has been empty of a professional sports team for well over a decade. So what, particularly, will you do to help the United States Basketball League resume operations this year with a Long Island franchise that employs Hofstra alums, plays its home games at the Physical Fitness Center and infuses the Hofstra economy with dozens of dollars every summer?

(I actually found an old Long Island Surf program from the 1994 season in the basement earlier tonight. Tickets were $5. Good times!)

2.) Small businesses are the lifeblood of businesses in the area surrounding campus. So many of these mom-and-pop operations are bars—and so many of them have been forced to close over the years. Fezziwig’s. Bogart’s. McHebe’s. Screwy Louie’s. Even Wayne Chrebet, who gave Hofstra more publicity than this here debate, had to rename and rebrand his bar that he opened on the site of the old Bogart’s. What will you do to encourage states to lower the drinking age to 18 so that students under the age of 21 can contribute to the economy by consuming cheap, watered-down beer without having to find a Hofstra ID with the blue bar?

(Or was it the yellow bar? I can’t remember.)

3.) Both of you supported the bailout plan that will result in government buying a stake in the American banking system. Can you next take over the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, too? God knows you guys can’t be any worse at it than the bozos who have been mucking it up for years.

(This will sound like a good idea until Navy or Columbia gets an at-large bid despite a 12-16 record. Fun fact: The Flying Dutchmen basketball team is a combined 12-7 all-time against the alma maters of McCain and Obama!)

4.) Both of you have said it’s imperative to make a college education affordable to all Americans. Have you had a chance to mention this goal to anyone here, where the cost of tuition per semester this year is $13,800—a mere two-and-a-half times what it cost 14 years ago, when tuition was $5,530 per semester?

(This is when I wish I could figure out a scanner so I could actually display my tuition bill from the spring of 1995)

5.) Lastly, our current financial crisis was created in large part by too many people being approved for mortgages they could not afford. But who could blame people of my generation—who were approved for credit cards from the moment they walked on to a college campus despite their tiny incomes, minimal financial expertise and youthful impetuousness—for believing they were entitled to buy beyond their means? As president, what will you do to rid Hofstra—and campuses nationwide—of the weasels from the credit card companies who leech on to unsuspecting freshmen and transfer students during move-in weekend and send them down a path of debt that will take them a decade or more to erase?

(I’d actually like to see that one happen)

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Food For Thought

Long day today, as I’m in a 9-5 routine for a little while, so let’s jump straight into the letter I was saving for today and figure out a way to make it connect to sports as we go along.

Actually, first things first: Loyal reader P.J., who is much more experienced at this blogging thing than I am, points out that “E-mail on a blog is known as a comment.” Yeah but “comments, we get comments…” doesn’t roll off the tongue. We thank P.J. for reading and join him in hoping that the Phytins embarrass the Mets again this month!

Anyway, we got a cool comment the other day from “Mozzarella Fish Sticks,” which is the early leader in the clubhouse for the coolest screen name here. Writes Mozzarella: “Does Lackmann still serve those rubbery yet addicting Mozzarella Sticks? I ate those for dinner 5 out of 7 nights for three semesters in a row in the Ratt.”

First of all, who came up with the bright idea to bestow upon a campus eatery a name (Rathskellar) that could be shortened to mean a filthy rodent? I’d prefer it if the place was named after the guy who is still waiting to sleep with Stacy Hamilton or, perhaps, if it was named after the totally awesome hair metal band. And along those lines, thanks to Loyal Reader Mike, who pointed this out to me tonight (scroll all the way to the bottom). I have a new favorite Division I-A player.

Back to The Ratt. As most of you probably know, it’s located in the basement of the Student Center, and with Greek letters adorning the walls, has been the dining hall of choice for fraternities and sororities for generations. Since I spent most of my waking hours in the Student Center and could only take so many Hofstra Burgers that had grown hard as a rock sitting under a red hot lamp for 27 hours, I ate at the Ratt more than most independents. I never felt unwelcome there, though I can understand why other non-Greeks would.

I don’t remember the Mozzarella Sticks at the Ratt. I do remember ordering some truly awful pizza there, though, during my first few Friday nights on campus. Nobody partied like me! Then I discovered that Fezziwig’s didn’t card for Happy Hour and that was the end of Friday night pizza.

On the bright side, the Ratt made the freshest burgers this side of Hofstra USA and had a pretty good steak sandwich too. They’d also cook to order: I also remember when two friends, including this guy, went down there on Elvis’ birthday in 1995 or 1996 and asked for an Elvis sandwich. Minutes later, they were paying tribute to the King.

Mozzarella continues to wax nostalgic about Hofstra food: “The other two nights it was dry yet floppy subs for breakfast at 3:00 in the afternoon, at Dutch Treats. My arteries are clogged with Pennzoil, but it was worth it.”

Not having a car—and having a meal plan—helped conceal what a giant ripoff Dutch Treats was. What was the markup there on six-packs of Coke? Seven hundred percent? They did make a mean ham sandwich, though, which was my preferred meal during Monday Night Football, and it was a great place to use up points at the end of the semester. Of course, all the points in the world usually netted me a six-pack of Coke.

Here's my completely unofficial rundown of my favorite places to eat at Hofstra:

Hofstra USA: Great place to watch the late Sunday afternoon football games. Also the place I had my first legal drink in 1994.

Netherlands: As I noted earlier this week, it was home to steak night, where Sully Ray, myself and a bunch of other Chronicle staffers would put Chris Turk to shame every Wednesday night.

Lion’s Den: A hidden gem next to USA. My roommate, Loyal Reader John, and I used to assault that all-you-can-eat-buffet.

Hofstra Café: I think that’s what it was called, anyway. It was across from the Stadium and it was the only place on campus to buy a hot pretzel.

Student Center: They served a pretty good breakfast and all-you-can-eat pasta night on Tuesdays was a favorite tradition. Everything else? Ehh.

Bits-n-Bytes: We used to call it Bits-n-something-that-rhymes-with-Bits. Those fries were horrible. Indeed, the only thing good about B-n-S, err, B-n-B was its location. And even then I’d walk the Unispan to get something better.

Don’t get me going on Sbarro’s, which single-handedly disproved my notion that pizza, like baseball, was still pretty good even when it was bad.

We’ll allow Mozzarella to take us out. “This was back when smokes were $1.90 per pack at the HUB, so damn I feel old,” writes Mozzarella. Well, Mozzarella, how’s this for sticker shock. Doesn’t even leave someone enough money to buy a six-pack of Coke—inside or outside of Hofstra.

Well. That wasn't really about sports at all, was it? Come back tomorrow and I promise we'll have a sports-related post.