After all, the school had discontinued its football program twice before, in 1984 and again in 1998. Both of those times, the Peacocks’ roster numbers had dwindled to beyond dangerous levels. In 1988, the Peacocks were scheduled to face Iona in the season opener and the team had 24 healthy bodies.
So when Athletic Director Bill Stein said that the school was pulling the plug on the football program because, as Stein said in his statement, “I have a responsibility for the health, safety and well being of our student-athletes,” the existing football roster, with 66 names on it and only nine graduating seniors, was nearly three times the size it was the last two times the program was tossed aside.
So what was the cause of the demise this time?
If you read Stein’s words, you get one message.
“We feel that at this time with the demise of the MAAC Football League and recruiting difficulties we are having, that it is time to no longer sponsor a football program,” Stein said in the statement released by the school. “It is too difficult for St. Peter’s College to become competitive in football. Recruiting in the area is nearly impossible without giving athletic scholarships due to the very strong NJAC schools and other Division II schools in the area. In addition, we have no on campus facility and it’s becoming tougher to schedule opponents that are on level of competition.”
Stein also told other reporters that the scheduling difficulty that playing home games at Caven Point Cochrane Stadium provided, that the Jersey City Board of Education, which owns the facility, would only provide Thursday nights and Saturday nights for home games.
So let’s put this all together in a nutshell. It was the health and safety of the program, the inability to recruit, the demise of a conference football league and the lack of an on-campus facility and scheduling time. Put them all together and you have Harvard on the Boulevard’s reasoning for the final nail being driven into the coffin of the much-maligned football program.
To all of that, I say phooey.
Let’s not hide behind some lame excuses here. Let’s be frank and truthful.
The real reason why the football program at St. Peter’s College is now 100 percent deceased – something it more than likely should have been when the program was dropped the last time almost 20 years ago – is money. This was a financially based decision. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The program’s death certificate was dated July 1 for a reason, because the school’s fiscal year begins on that date and the school can use the $400,000 it set aside for a football program in other facets.
And by cutting the ties to football right here and now means that they don’t have to pay head coach Chris Taylor and his assistant coaches a penny after July 1.
Let’s take a look at the other reasons that Stein mentioned, besides playing with a insufficient roster. That excuse was a good one, because there were less players when Taylor took over the mess left by former coach Scott Kochman, who played the first game two seasons ago with 14 players who were not academically cleared to play _ and therefore not officially enrolled students at the school.
How about the demise of the MAACFL? It would have been a pertinent excuse, except for one thing. The MAACFL disbanded almost five years ago when schools like Fairfield, Siena and Canisius dropped their football programs. Why did it become an excuse now five years later?
Then there’s the inability to recruit excuse. Sorry, that one doesn’t fly either, because when Rob Stern was the head football coach at SPC from 1999 to 2003, the program was successful. In fact, the Peacocks actually won 10 games in 2001, earning the mark as being the top non-scholarship Division I-AA program in the country. The Peacocks completed the 2001 season with an overall record of 10-1 and a 6-1 mark in the MAAC Football League. They led the nation in scoring defense (8.2 ppg), total defense (157.7 ypg), passing defense (99 ypg) and pass efficiency defense. They also finished second nationally in rushing defense (58.7 ypg), allowing less than a yard per game more than national leader Penn.
The Peacocks also led all of the I-AA programs in turnover margin (plus 35) and turnovers gained (47 on 27 interceptions and 20 fumble recoveries).
When Stern achieved such heights at Harvard on the Boulevard, I thought it was impossible. After all, I was the Sports Information Director at SPC when football was dropped the second time in 1988. I was involved with the decision to end the season before it began, because the football roster stood at 24 – a ridiculously dangerous number for college football.
Ask Stern now how he was able to do what he did at SPC, he begins with one simple phrase.
“Relentless recruiting,” Stern said. “I was fortunate to have guys on our coaching staff who made it an obsession to recruit. We had a plan, because we were a need-based school, to go out and get the right people who had a perfect blend of financial need and academic background. We were relentless to find those kids. We tapped into Florida and got 30 kids there. We scoured the Internet, collected tape. We knew what kind of kids to get and how to sell it.”
According to Stern, one of the biggest lures was the proximity to New York.
“We had the greatest city in the world in our backyard,” Stern said. “We used that as a selling point. It became our obsession to be good.”
So strike the recruiting excuse. As for the lack of on campus facility, St. Peter’s has never had an on campus facility and it’s been fielding football teams for more than a half century. Now, it’s an issue? Sure, it’s a pain in the rectum to schlep your equipment down to Lincoln Park West and that patch of grass known as Jaroschak Field, but after a while, it becomes part of the fabric and you live with it. It’s a major inconvenience, but not a legitimate excuse to end everything.
Again, why were Stern’s SPC teams able to become dominant with no on-campus facility and the current team cannot now bare to live without one?
The use of Caven Point? Please, the Peacocks only play five home games. That’s five Saturday mornings or nights we’re talking about. It’s not the end of the world.
No, this was financial through and through. There’s a new president at SPC, Dr. Eugene Cornacchia, who replaced Rev. James Loughran, S.J., who died suddenly last December.
Although he was not a fan of athletics, Loughran fully believed that having a football program actually increased the enrollment, that kids actually went to SPC because of its football program. However, Cornacchia, the new president came in, saw a big red line item in the budget and decided to get rid of it. One swoop decision saves $400,000.
There’s only one problem with this decision, especially its timing. There’s no question that football at SPC was a difficult and trying exercise for everyone involved.
But if the powers-that-be at Harvard on the Boulevard wanted to pull the plug, why do it now in June? What does Taylor now try to do for a living? What do the returning players do? They certainly can’t transfer to another football program. Even enrolling at another school for the fall semester will be a mammoth chore.
But these kids have nowhere to go right now. If the administration at SPC made this decision in December, when they should have, then the kids would have had the option to head elsewhere. Right now, they’re in limbo, which means local kids like Oscar Quintero of Union City and Arnie Padin of Bayonne have nowhere to go and play football in the fall.
What about the current high school seniors, who would be incoming freshmen in the fall? They made a commitment to SPC and now they have nothing in return.
“I personally feel for the returning student-athletes, the incoming freshmen and the coaching staff about the decision,” Stein said in the statement. “No athletic director ever wants to eliminate a sport from its program. We also want to apologize to our 2007 opponents.”
Stein did not return phone calls in time for this column.
Former coach Stern, now the head football coach and athletic director at Hudson Catholic, said that he didn’t understand the timing of the move either.
“When I heard, that was my initial reaction,” Stern said. “I’m not surprised that it happened, because I saw it coming. But why not do it January 15? Where do these kids go? I feel bad for everyone. It’s not a good situation. It’s just a shame.
Added Stern, “It’s like you plant a flower, but if you leave it out in the hot sun and don’t water it, it’s going to die. They didn’t take care of their football program. This hurts me because of where it was when we left it.” And the reason why Stern left? The administration wouldn’t give him a commitment for more than one year. Even with him being the all-time leader in coaching wins there, the school would only commit to Stern month-to-month. He never had a yearly contract.
Incredibly, the death of the football program, which really should be of no surprise at all, comes at the same week when the school announced that its long-standing basketball rivalry with Seton Hall appears to be dead as well. Nearly 80 years of history tossed aside because two sides can’t agree on terms.
If Stein is really thinking about retiring as athletic director as has been hinted, he’s sure as hell leaving in a blaze of glory.
But one thing is for sure. You can’t sugarcoat this decision. It was made with one thing in mind. Money. No matter how you put a spin on it, money is the reason why 60 some odd youngsters have no collegiate future. Maybe St. Peter’s College can put that in a press release.