The poor economy and fewer dollars from corporate sponsors have put the hurt on all varsity athletics, Jacobsen said. He cites money woes combined with waning political support from power-brokers both on and off campus, as the major obstacles delaying a football kick-off.
Football supporters hoped for a perfect storm last year with the combination of achieving university status while awaiting a new school president that many hoped would be pigskin-friendly. President Holland has not yet announced his intentions either for or against a football program, and so the pot sits on the back burner for now.
Not all is at a standstill though. A start-up fund that began three years ago continues to swell towards a calculated $3 million goal – a figure Jacobsen says is enough to launch a football team. The fund, labeled as a “conference affiliation fund”, receives unwitting donations each year from every student enrolled at UVU.
The brainchild of 2006-07 student body president Jared Sumsion, the fund began collecting $5 per school year from every student the year Sumsion was elected. The five-year plan increases the student contributions every school year until spring 2011, when students will be pitching in $13 per year.
Written By: Matt Beaudry
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