VINCE Lombardi had already agreed to leave the Giants and come back to coach Fordham in 1954 when University President Laurence J. McGinley, facing a $200,000 deficit, dropped a football program that had gone 8-1 only four years earlier.
“Fordham could have been Penn State,” said White Plains attorney Bill Mulligan, Class of 1970 and a kid at the Polo Grounds when “it was packed and they gave away tickets for Giant games the next day.”
The Rams went undefeated in 1937, won the 1942 Sugar Bowl, then followed NYU’s lead and punted away the city’s last big-time program, leaving a void that 50 years later is still felt, the question being how much.
If the Jets build a stadium on the West Side, could Fordham come back? Would the school, which restored football on a club basis in 1964, and under coach Dave Clawson has become a I-AA power, ever take the leap to Division I?
The stadium problem solved, would alums, 125,000 strong in the metropolitan area, be a base for crowds of 40,000-50,000 when Syracuse and Boston College came to town as part of a Big East that would love a football presence in the media capital?
“Obviously, it would take a major commitment by alumni bigger than myself,” said Gerry Meagher, Fordham ’74 grad and benefactor who runs his father’s Old Town Bar in Manhattan.
“There’s doubt whether the Jesuits would ever do it, but the Jesuits are down to about 10 per cent of the Board of Trustees, and Fordham is trying to compete on a national stage.
“Besides, the Jesuits run Boston College, which has vaunted ahead of other schools in fundraising on the back of football. Twenty years ago, BC and Holy Cross had the same profile. Holy Cross didn’t make that kind of commitment and is now considered a regional school.”
Potential national impact is a reason why Temple, another urban school in a pro town, won’t drop the sport year after another dreary year. But look at Miami, where there was pressure to kill football during lean times in the seventies, and then there are these two words for anybody who says anything is impossible: “Kansas State.”
“Even with that stadium, we would also need drastic facility improvement and 85 full scholarships,” Athletic Director Frank McLaughlin said. “If someone steps forward with $100 million, I would never say never, but the alums and board are happy at the level we have now.”
Still, there are plenty of advocates of taking it at least one higher, from need-based to full athletic rides in a jump from the Patriot League to the Atlantic 10. Onwards and upwards, as Connecticut demonstrated out of nowhere in men’s and women’s basketball, emboldening a football jump to I-A.
“I don’t think it’s preposterous at all,” said Richie Marrin, Manhattan lawyer, president of Fordham’s football booster club. “We already spend a lot of money on football. I think we would step up further.”
You come back with only one Block of Granite, you could build back to seven with a strong coach and commitment, if, if, that stadium gets built.”
“I would love it,” said Mulligan. “But I’m a realist. Maybe, if you succeed in the A-10, in 5-10 years people would say ‘Let’s make the next step.’
“Recruiting wouldn’t be a problem. We’re getting all these players from Florida now. Applications are way up. It’s a gorgeous campus, 20 minutes from Manhattan and we have the Manhattan campus, too.
“The alums are well-heeled but not as cohesive as they could be. There are a lot of front-runners, but then success has been short-lived. We had it going in basketball [26-3 in 1971] with Digger [Phelps]. If he had stayed, we would have been more attractive than Seton Hall when the Big East formed.
“I do have doubts the University would make that kind of commitment. A lot of people just want to enjoy what we have now, but let’s see as we move forward. I think New York would go berserk for it.”