UVM Football...Making a Comeback?

SGA reconizes a new football clud which hopes to become a varsity football team in the future

Noah Staum Cynic Correspondent

Issue date: 2/6/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Kensington R. Moore

Student gets pumped to play football

The shirt that reads "UVM Football: Undefeated since 1974," might have to be recon-sidered, as the Student Gov-ernment Association (SGA) recently passed a bill to grant recognition to the UVM Foot-ball club, according to the SGA Web site.

Speaking in favor of the bill at the Tuesday, Jan. 23 meet-ing, was freshman student Doug DeLuca, who came-up with the proposal for the club.

The team will need $26,000 to get started and pay for equipment, but DeLuca says that it will eventually be self-sustaining, according to the Web site.

The Web site states that the club is hoping to play at the Burlington High School field and will be affiliated with the Northeast Independent Foot-ball League (NIFL).

Teams already affiliated with the NIFL include the Mass Fury, Southern Vermont Storm, Central Maine War-riors, Exeter Gamblers and the University of Maine Black Bears, according to the NIFL Web site.
DeLuca says that there has been extensive communica-tion with the Athletic Depart-ment and that they fully sup-port having a club football team, according to the SGA Web site.

A coaching position, which DeLuca is confident would be filled, will be completely vol-unteer, but DeLuca was urged to seek further funding for the club from alumni, according to the Web site.

UVM dropped its then struggling football program in 1974 and thus far has not taken initiative to reinstall the Varsity program, as it would now have to compete at Divi-sion I-AA level, according to the NCAA Web site.

This would put a varsity UVM team in league with Uni-versity of New Hampshire, Umass Amherst, William & Mary and Montana State, who all have developed and settled teams.

Diana Conconubo, who is Chair of the Student Ac-tivities Committee, was the one who introduce the bill to grant recognition to the club, according to the SGA Web site.

The Web site has quoted DeLuca as saying that al-though it may take the Uni-versity campus some time to warm-up to the idea of a team football club, there is no short-age of talent to play.

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