Please Bring Back Brandeis University Football --Petition--

The 1957 Brandeis Football team was recently enshrined in the Brandeis Athletics Hall of Fame. Below you will find a portion of the nomination letter written by Tony Lahnston,'60, who played on that team and was the porimary force behind the successful nomination of that team. These two pargarpahs are in no way meant to endorse the return of football to the Brandeis campus, but they are provded as a way to document what football had accomplkished at the time...beore ot was dropped.

"The impact of the 1957 Brandeis football team cannot just be measured in wins and losses, nor can it be measured in terms of individual accomplishments and honors. This team had a major positive impact on – and contribution to -- the quality of campus life. In 1957, attending a home football game and rooting on this power house team was what almost ALL of the undergraduates did. Brandeis football, school spirit, and campus unity were all focused on the afternoon home game. Most of the Brandeis community…students, faculty, administrators… enthusiastically supported the 1957 football team. In addition, many residents from Waltham were in attendance in addition to hundreds of Brandeis students."

"One other significant contribution by the 1957 Brandeis football team (as well as other football teams that preceded it), was that it furthered the message that then President Abraham Sacher and the founding trustees wanted to promulgate. The football team, with its diverse demographics, helped establish that Brandeis was a “pansectarian” university that extended its vision to all ethnic and religious segments of society. The 1957 Brandeis football team and its incredible array of student athletes truly epitomized the vision of Sachar, Friedman, and so many others."

#1: Marty Zelnik '61 -

Great news:

 

I have a conference call set up in January to speak with our Athletic Director. The  topic of discussion will be :

"What are the roadblocks, if any, of adding a Club Football or JV Football team at Brandeis?"

This is a friendly informational call, which was graciously set up by our AD, to openly discuss the topic.

I am extremely excited to learn more about the Athletics Department process during this call and how they feel about this proposal.

As you all know, I feel that we MUST have the support of the Athletic Director and staff and hope to win their support.

 

Please continue to spread the word to those who might also support and sign the petition.

 

I truly feel that Brandeis needs a Football program to be the University it wants to be. Football is part of our Society and many other Universities are adding programs this year!

 

I welcome comments and suggestions as we are in the early stages of this process still and I am learning about the process more each day.

 

Happy Holidays to all and I will update the site as we progress.

 

All the best,

Scott M. Khourie 98

I would first like to personally and publically thank Sheryl and Lynne who run our Athletics Department.

I have not spoken with them much over the years, however, they were gracious enough to take time to speak with me recently about the prospects of Re instating Football at Brandeis.

The conversation topics I was hoping to discuss were:

1) Can we reinstate football, if so, what are the hurdles and needs?
2)If not, why and can we overcome them with a real plan.

I had the opportunity to cross reference some of the research I have compiled with other Athletic Directors and have to say that most of what our Athletics department reflected to me was right inline with what I had thought, related to finances and NCAA rules.

Some data points and points of interest:

We discussed in depth the Gender Equity NCAA rules and how Brandeis has some flexibility given its current landscape of 10 mens teams and 9 womens. We would have to consider adding a womans sport in the future to make up ground, however, I feel that, after talking to the AD, we are well positioned to install Football related to the rules, if we so choose, have the appropriate financing, support and logistics.

The AD mentioned we would be able to utilize the soccer field to get started if need be, with the long term plan of designing a true expanded stadium where all sports can benefit, TBD.

--We will be discussing further logistics of locker room use and practice fields on my next campus visit. The Sheryl and Lynne were both gracious enough to invite me to meet in person in the near future for a walk through, and further discussion of Brandeis Athletics in general and the new football program idea(thinking late Feb March, if their calendars work)

--I have rough numbers of costs related to financing a football program from other AD's. Sheryl threw out a number of 500k annually for a budget(not counting any logistical changes which may have to be made), however, I have heard slightly lower(AVERGING A FEW OTHER SCHOOLS) from other programs of similar size and geography. I will further research this topic with some of the schools which have launched D3 programs this year to drill down into these numbers further in the coming months.

--I will be opening a special account(either escrow format or via the Brandeis Alumni page) to beging fundraising and have notified the Boston Globe, and the Mayor of Waltham about the progress we are making so you may see some headlines in the near future of the happenings on campus. My contact at the Globe is an old footballer and is excited to see our progress and cover the story over time.

Net net, I feel that Football is a way to increase the long term Alumni engagement of the University, something that our development staff works tirelessly to improve. Sometimes you need to think a little outside the box and having been an athlete and understanding that Football is a positive influence on college campuses, I truly believe this is, at the minimum, and honest way to bring students and alumni together for years to come--on a more consistent basis.

Sorry for any misspellings, I am not being graded on this I hope, whew!:)

Go Deis'

If this idea ever breaks ground I would be shocked. The school doesn't care about athletics and that is their prerogative.

#5: Class of 2000 - Brandeis Football 

 Thank you for your thoughts "Class of 2000".  Do you have any specific grounds to prove that this comment holds water? I would be interested to hear your story privately if you do not wish to address this publically. ---- From what I have seen over the years, the "school" seems to care greatly within its means, means which we can hopfully expand over time.  I am a concerned with some of the Athletic Fields  and facility conditions/decay, and feel rounding out the programs with Football can be a long term solution to solidfying Athletics, as many other Unversities have found. Thank you for your participation---Scott

Still waiting for a response from the Athletic director. I am not sure if they work during the summer.
Fortunately, I think we have a few seats changing hands on the Trustee board.
I sense this may spur some progress in terms of fixing lingering issues.

617-645-2442