Editor’s note: I realize Michael is a little off-topic this week, but if you live in the
© 2007 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“The perfect football record is seven wins and four losses. The fans are happy, the alumni are sullen but not mutinous and the NCAA does not feel a need to investigate.” – Former coach Warren Woodson
I was thinking of that quote as another four-flush, steer-jobbed, never-have-a-great-season New Mexico State Aggie football year begins. In fact, this is my 40th Aggie football season. My first year featured Woodson, the last successful NMSU football coach in his last year at NMSU. Little did I realize that in my first year I saw the best NMSU football season for four decades.
In all of those years, the lack of sustained success has not been due to individual players or coaches, nor has luck played any real part. But there has been questionable leadership.
Collegiate football was introduced to NMSU in 1893 as a Saturday afternoon distraction. It was by and for the students. Played on Miller Field, a dirt field where Skeen Hall now sits, the game initially was played without bleachers, announcers or the forward pass.
The first NMSU players were homegrown agricultural students anchoring the line at 150 pounds per man. Over the years the sport changed, and now teams are made up of mostly out-of-state students specializing in football year-round. Today’s collegiate teams require a large fan base to generate millions of dollars in operational revenues.
Over the years, NMSU has tried to find its way back to the success of Woodson, to no avail. Each new coach comes in a conquering lion and out a slaughtered lamb. Throughout the decades, NMSU football seasons vary between mediocre and horrible.
The question each year is, will this year’s team finally be successful? If history is any guide, this season the Aggies will try mightily and toward the end of the season the faithful will be heard to say, “Just wait until next year.”
That said, I have enjoyed moments of the many seasons, and have gone decades repeating the mantra of “wait until next year.” I have liked many Aggie players, coaches and college administrators. The exception was the late 80s, when I looked like a dog chewing hot pitch each time I left the stadium. During that stretch the Aggies had four wins and 40 losses.
Further, I am disgusted with three decades of NMSU selling losses. This started as a temporary tactic to cover a shortfall of money but turned into a long-term adaptation. On Sept. 22, the Aggies take on
Selling losses to fund high salaries doesn’t work
After all the talk about money needed for high salaries, it still boils down to the fact that programs are judged by their win/loss records. There is no asterisk for money games; therefore, there is never a time when the NMSU football program should sell a loss.
Selling football losses to support high salaries castrates the program. All NMSU really has gotten over the years has been the need to sell even more losses. When NMSU started being steer-jobbed, the team lost much of its occasional fan base.
Nothing drives a program crazy like walk-up fans who look out the window the afternoon of the game and then decide whether to go to the game. The loyal Aggie season ticket holders have been a small group over the years, while empty seats outnumber attendees season after season.
The secret to on-the-field success is that NMSU must improve faster than its opponents. While on-the-field success is important, NMSU’s primary goal should be to fill the home stadium every game. Not until the stadium is full for every game should NMSU raise ticket prices.
Every year I am painfully aware of the near-empty stadium toward the end of each season. Each successive athletics department has reasons why filling the stadium cannot be done. Year after year, decade after decade comes a long litany of people who do not fill the stadium for every game. Area high schools nearly fill the stadium, but it has been 40 years since the Aggies routinely filled their stadium.
Most importantly, over the years NMSU opponents have had more than twice as much financial backing for their football programs as the Aggies. NMSU has been and is four-flushed for money. While money can’t buy you love, modern collegiate football runs on money.
Football is part of the institutional identity. Those who say NMSU can do without football are not viewing students, town residents and alumni as consumers. The university must have a viable football program. But no NMSU administration has been able to change the disproportional funding of athletics, thereby leveling the playing field.
Ultimately, what NMSU needs is a realistic view of the process of moving from mediocre to good to great. That involves ensuring the stadium is full for each game, not just those games against the universities of
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.