By: Isabella Urbani, Staff Writer
SFU varsity teams have been making headlines this year for all the wrong reasons. Between scrapping the football program, to negligent management preventing swimmers from attending the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships — it’s clear SFU has left the future of their athletes as an afterthought.
In February, SFU Athletics quietly issued a press release about the Lone Star Conference’s decision to forgo another contract with SFU’s football team. SFU was forced to move into the Lone Star Conference last season after their previous conference folded due to a lack of teams.
But the biggest shock was still yet to come. Last month, president Joy Johnson announced “the end of SFU’s varsity football program” after the team was unable to find themselves a new conference — essentially, a group of teams to play with. Johnson referred to the decision as “difficult” and said “football is no longer a feasible sport for SFU.”
What I find difficult is how the announcement was a trivial statement just longer than a Canvas discussion post. What Johnson said would be an adequate response if SFU had to cancel a few games — not an entire program.
The statement shows no regard for the dilemma SFU has put its students in. It only exposes the clear disconnect and apathy SFU has for the lapses in judgment it continues to make. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was a eulogy. More sentences were dedicated to talking about the program’s history than taking ownership over the reason why it’s not operating next year.
If it had not been for the hard work of the 97 impacted football athletes and alumni reaching out to BC MPs, lawyers, and Hall of Famers, SFU wouldn’t have done the bare minimum of reaching out to a special advisor to “review future football opportunities for SFU” at a varsity and non-varsity level.
SFU recently appeared in court on May 1, after a series of football players sued the school for a breach of contract. Athletes say SFU failed to provide players with the opportunity to play football and go to school like they were promised. Had SFU also chosen to tell players about the program ending earlier, they would have had more time to make a decision about their futures. If SFU is found liable, it will be forced to reinstate the program.
Assuming SFU was made aware of Lone Star’s decision to forgo their contract ahead of time, why wasn’t there a better backup plan? This is an NCAA program, not a recreational team. Instead of forcing others to involve themselves, SFU should have reached out to USPORTS — the league they previously occupied before becoming an NCAA school.
While USPORTS’ current policy requires all members’ varsity teams to compete in the league, which SFU wouldn’t be able to do, SFU hasn’t even bothered to reach out to USPORTS to fill out a formal application to see if they’d make an exception. And until they do so, USPORTS’ hands are tied. At professional levels, teams have received exceptions for contract disputes. The Arizona Coyotes, a team in the NHL, was forced to play out of a college arena this season after the city where the arena was located declined to extend its contract. In the meantime, the Coyotes are in the process of finding a new rink.
The BC Lions, the province’s professional football team, has even publically stated that if money is the issue, they will gladly offer assistance. However, even they are fed up with SFU. The owner of the team, Amar Doman, says he’s been unable to “get a response from SFU that is anything other than political.”
At this point, it’s pure negligence. SFU even hired a new special teams coach and offensive coordinator a few weeks before the program shut down. Why would you put someone else’s job security at risk if you were unsure whether or not you were even going to operate next year?
SFU’s reluctance to cooperate with people who are trying to save the program feels as if they were looking for a reason to cancel the program altogether. If SFU can’t play this year, they should look for another conference and prepare themselves for next season.
If the football team is reinstated at SFU, I can’t see how players could be happy, let alone trust the current athletic executives. The hastiness of SFU to even relay the news to athletes speaks to the need for a middleman. SFU football already has its own society made up of former alumni who work together to raise money and support athletes. It would be great to have alumni representation on the athletic governing board to represent student interest — because SFU isn’t. The university did what was best for themselves in this situation, forcing athletes to fend for the future they trusted SFU to take care of.
