George Fox getting serious about football

Well, I was planning on leaving you with the Press Hop video in the post below to get you through the weekend but thanks to the D3football.com twitter feed, I saw this morning that George Fox announced a big land donation valued at $1.2 million dollars (24 acres) and this prompted GFU to subtle but formally announce the possibility of football coming back to the Newberg campus. In the news release the GFU board has commissioned a feasibility study for the return of football:

Board Considers Football

George Fox University fielded a football team from 1894 to 1969, but dropped it primarily for financial reasons. The university’s board has been considering adding football since 2002 and has requested a feasibility study from the administration. George Fox is a member of the Northwest Conference, which competes in the non-scholarship NCAA Div. III.

Wow. If GFU was thinking this probably won’t happen then they wouldn’t have even bothered mentioning football so in reading between the lines this tells me that GFU is serious about it. With Pacific most likely hitting the gridiron in 2010 it has to make it that much easier for GFU to rally support and not fall behind the rest of the conference in terms of missing the highest profile college sport in their athletic department.

This could mean that in a few years down the road the NWC could have 9 football playing members with Whitman being the only school with no football program. Obviously, finding quality division III football players is tough enough and having another school in the talent pool will have some impact but the positives should far outweigh this negative.

Of course, we’ll keep an eye on this story as it develops as well as keeping tabs on Pacific progress.

***Correction: The donation was actually a $1.2 cash gift to build the facilities and fields on land that was deeded GFU at a prior period.