Posts tagged sports

A couple of years ago, my alma mater made the jump from NAIA athletics to NCAA Division III. Berry College currently has no football team, nor has it had one in recent memory. The conversation has come up many times about whether Berry ever would, or should add football to the list of sports it competes in. Not much has come of that thus far, but that could be changing soon.

Today, the school’s president, Stephen Briggs, sent out an email to alumni announcing that Berry and seven other schools are forming their own conference, and football was brought up. He addressed some of the history of the discussion of football that I mentioned above, and discusses the possible future of football at Berry. Here’s what he says:

Members of the new conference will begin working on detailed plans for the inaugural year of play in 2012-13, as the SCAC finishes out its last year of play in 2011-12. As part of this process, Berry will give careful consideration to the possibility of adding football and track and field. As you may know, on-campus discussion of football began last year independent of the forming of this new conference. That discussion will continue into the fall semester. We anticipate a decision by the Board of Trustees at its October meeting.

You can find some of this information in this press release on Berry’s website. Unfortunately the press release doesn’t contain the portion of the email that I quoted above.

This is a controversial topic among members of the Berry College community. Many seem to feel it will change the atmosphere of the school, or bring in a bad element. While I’ll admit there could be credence to those viewpoints, I have been and still am tentatively in favor of football being added to Berry athletics. I’m a fan of college football, and would love to drive down to Mount Berry, Georgia to cheer on the Vikings on a Saturday afternoon.

From Mark Green at GoMiddle.com:

On Thursday night Middle Tennessee had to opportunity to show Minnesota and the nation that it had arrived. The team fought hard and showed Minnesota that it deserved to be on the same field, but an opportunity to beat Minnesota slipped away. If you are angry, good - it’s a sign of an advancing program. If you’re feeling good about the effort - then you got a ways to go walking away from that “small school mentality.”

If that’s true, I don’t want to ever walk away from that “small school mentality.” As a fan I don’t want to walk away from a game angry about how the game went down. A large amount of emotion goes hand in hand with being a fan of any sport, but sports fans far too often let that emotion get the better of them. It seems the modern sports fan cares for little else other than winning.

If you walked away from last night’s game between MTSU and Minnesota angry then I feel sorry for you. I understand the point Green’s trying to make. Later on in the article he says:

Expectations have grown and fans have come to expect more than just a good showing - they expect a victory - and that’s a sign that your program is on the rise. 

Fair enough, but there’s a difference between being disappointed in a loss and being angry about it. I was disappointed we didn’t win last night, but I was also mightily impressed by the way the Blue Raiders played. I had a blast watching our guys, particularly in the second and third quarters.

First MTSU had to overcome the adversity of losing senior quarterback Dwight Dasher to an indefinite suspension for off-the-field behavior. Dasher is a special player, perhaps the single most talented player that has ever played for Middle Tennessee State University. Last season he became the fourth quarterback ever to throw for 2500 yards and run for 1000 in the same season. That’s not at MTSU, that’s of all NCAA players ever. Stepping in to replace him, Logan Kilgore made his first start in a Division 1 football game and did a mighty fine job for the most part. During the second quarter in particular MTSU’s offense was just shredding Minnesota’s defense.

For almost the entirety of the third quarter MTSU led Minnesota 17-14, but ultimately Minnesota’s size led to their victory. It was plain as day that MTSU was undersized compared to their opponents, and ultimately that gave Minnesota the edge they needed to get the victory.

But what last night showed is that MTSU, a team at the bottom of the premier level of college football was able to hang with a team from a BCS conference and look respectable doing it. That to me is the sign of an advancing program we should be looking for, not angry fans.