Ten years after Boston University sacked its football program, Aaron Horvitz, a freshman, says he cannot stomach the idea of settling for cheering on Boston College's team.
Horvitz, studying in the School of Management, said he arrived at BU with a dedication to BU sports having grown up in the Boston area, and was more than a little disappointed to discover his friends would resign themselves to cheer on the cross-town Eagles on Saturdays in the fall.
"This is a big task," Horvitz said. "I know that it's no small feat."
As an initial step, Horvitz said he investigated how much money a Division I-A football program would cost.
Marvin Pave, a 1966 College of Communication graduate who covered BU football for The Boston Globe in the 1960s, said it would cost about $50 million today to create a Division I-A football program. In 1997, when BU's team was cut, it cost $3 million to operate and provide scholarships. BU's program in 1997 brought in $100,000 annually to the university.
When the university cut the program, it said Title IX - the provision that requires an equal number of male and female varsity sports on campus - as well as costs played a role in its dismissal.
The Boston Terriers United for Football, an alumni group formed in 1997 dedicated to bringing back football, compiled a study about football's dismissal that reported BU used the money formerly allotted to football to promote other sports.
While Horvitz said his ideas are separate from BTUFF, his work has not yet led to the formation of an official BU group, but he has recruited nearly 20 students for his cause. He has also created an email address to raise student support and allow students to contact him with ideas.
Horvitz said he knows it will be difficult to bring the program back quickly, but he hopes his group will make progress before he graduates.
BU's team first took the field in 1884 and played top teams in the country during the 1950s, including a Syracuse University team that boasted future National Football League Hall of Famer Jim Brown, Pave said.
BTUFF founder and former chairman T.J. Hartford said the team regularly drew 10,000 spectators while competing at the I-AA level during the 1980s and early 1990s, but attendance dropped during the final years of the program.
In 1997, with only 2,100 fans at the home opener and two consecutive losing seasons when the team lost money, former BU President John Silber decided to disband the program.
Varun Khedekar, who is one of the 20 students working with Horvitz, said Horvitz has reached out to many groups, including BTUFF.
"A lot of people are interested," said Khedekar, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman. "I can definitely see big support for it."
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