03.22.24
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March Gladness: The One Chance for G5 to Shine

For TU, one of the solutions to football woes is to purchase either the old Temple Stadium site here or something close to it to revive a home-field advantage if there is no chance to build one on campus .

There is no rhyme or reason to fate.

Of course, in the end, the bad guys will win in college sports.

That’s a script the bad guys wrote and had approved by the NCAA and the Supreme Court in terms of the NIL and transfer portal.

Simply put, the bad guys are the richest ones in college sports, the big conferences with the big fan bases and the big bucks.

The good guys are the ones who ask for a fair shake, the guys who thought the NCAA would have enough power to regulate fairness and fight off the cheaters who want to buy championships.

Well, mostly on a day where the bad guys won, those of us who aren’t the richest or a part of the big conferences all celebrated what Oakland and Duquesne did on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

No. 14 Oakland busted a lot of Final Four brackets with an 80-76 win over No. 3 Kentucky. No. 11 Duquesne beat No. 6 Brigham Young. Samford was robbed when a clean block against Kansas was ruled a foul. Maybe the NCAA told the ref to do it. Maybe not.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

With the NIL and the transfer portal being what it is, the best players from the Duquesnes and the Oaklands will be bought and paid for by the bad guys.

When that happens, this magical NCAA Tournament will be over because Cinderellas are what made this March Madness story so great.

How does this impact Temple football?

In that more important sport, the Owls are more closely aligned with the basketball Duquesnes and Oaklands than they are with the Michigans and the Georgias.

Saw this coming a mile away. If I had $100,000 I would be able to buy Temple football enough players to win a natty. Instead, only had $10 and won $70.

Their No. 1 millionaire athletic booster, Lewis Katz, died in a plane crash and their No. 2, Bill Cosby, was effectively ostracized by legal allegations.

Who knows where Temple sports would be if those guys were still in the arena?

Now the Owls have basically zero NIL support because the bulk of their alumni fan base commuted to school on a train or a bus and would have been overjoyed to receive the same kind of scholarship current Temple football and basketball players have. In my case, it was four years of taking a trolley to the El and then getting off at Berks and walking 10 blocks west to school.

Both ways, uphill, on snowy days. That’s Temple TUFF. Would not try that walk in that same neighborhood today.

Those alums can’t be expected to hold their noses donate to players who are getting a full ride.

Fortunately, they are in the same boat with most of their G5 compadres.

They can win G5 titles, like the 2016 team did, but there is no shot to do anything better unless Congress steps in because we know where the Supreme Court stands.

Until that happens, Temple football will have to ride out the storm.

Batten down the hatches.

Monday: Style over Substance

Friday: Unspoken truths about the depth chart

6 thoughts on “March Gladness: The One Chance for G5 to Shine”

  1. I attended temple between ‘68-‘72 and was on the track team. I loved temple stadium and the fields that surrounded it. The brick work, Ivy covered stadium walls, beautifully maintained turf field, made me feel pretty damn good about my university. I wish we hadn’t sold it.

    Reply

    • If we had known then what we had known now, no way we would have sold it. Who would have thought that the “community” would object to an improvement such as a stadium (with jobs, increased security, lighting, etc.) and demand the rundown houses and unsafe unlighted neighborhood was a preferable option for them? Should have renovated and added about 15K seats to that Temple Stadium site and made the Erny Baseball Field a seven-tier parking garage for the football stadium.

      Reply

  2. I lament on the current status of Temple football. I often think back to those fabulous pre-player portal/NIL years 2015 and 2016 when we were a nationally well-known and respected football program. Beat Penn State after some seventy years, nearly beat Notre Dame in 2015, both before packed houses at the Linc with amazing student support. Hosted College Game Day as well that year. Won the conference championship in 2016. But that was then. It’s a whole different college athletics world now, particularly in football and basketball.

    Reply

    • Supreme Court really swung and missed on the NIL. Never even considered the aspect of fairness for all of the 130 football schools and opened a Pandora’s box of seedy characters offering wads of cash to only the greatest players, leaving the large majority of “student athletes” holding an empty bag.

      Reply

  3. Houstons Robertson stadium looked almost exactly like that, I really liked the look and am sorry they demolished it instead of expanding it. 

    Temple’s own stadium would really help its program, and I hope it gets done. a new stadium doesn’t have to be that big as the eagles will take your money for an occasional game. 

    your pain in the neck neighbors won’t be there forever, but the university is there for the long term, and they should slowly by them out to creat a buffer. That’s worked here in Houston.

    I am still an AAC fan and am glad I get opportunities to see some of their games. still in the process of losing my grudge against the big12.

    Reply

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