By Jeff Benedict
February 14th is known all across the country as Valentines Day, but also on this day students and faculty found out Kennesaw State will field a football team in 2015. This day has been looming since September of 2010, when the first announcement of football was coming to campus. If the decision is made to bring football to KSU, it is a huge for the university. For one, just having the idea of football being played on campus is thrilling, and the exposure that football could provide to KSU could be enormous.
Football will add value to our degrees, which as a graduating Senior is most important. Dr. Papp said it best at the press conference announcing football, “We are a major University in the South, but major Universities in the South without football get no recognition”.
We know that this team will play in the newly named Fifth Third Bank Stadium, formerly known as the KSU Soccer Stadium. We know that football locker rooms already exist, I have seen them. We know that starting Fall 2013 each student will pay an additional $100 athletic fee to fund football and other title IX sports. We know that there is no immediate plan to add any additional seating to the 8300 seats at the Fifth Third Bank Stadium.
Here is what we don’t know. Unlike Georgia State, there was no head coach announcement during the press conference. Athletic Director Vaughn Williams wants to have one hired in the next five weeks. We do not know how tickets will be dispersed to tickets, alumni and fans. My only question regarding this is if the students are funding the program, what if all 25,000 students want a ticket to the same game? If students are funding the program, they should have first refusal to all tickets. These are all issues that must be dealt with in the immediate future.
All in all, I am very excited to have football coming to my University. I just hope we make the proper hires and start this exciting new time in Kennesaw State history off with a bang. To quote AD Williams “IT’S OUR TIME!!”
Lets play Football!
