Before returning to Butler as the school’s athletic director, Barry Collier spent time working at Stanford, Nebraska and Oregon where football was the dominant program, as it is at most power five conference schools.
Collier, a former basketball coach before becoming Butler’s AD in 2006, never saw a strong football program as an impediment to building an elite basketball program.
“If you think football is a negative, you’re probably using that as an excuse,” Collier said. “I never thought the key to building a basketball program was getting rid of football. It provides too many resources.”
Butler, like another noteworthy basketball school in Dayton, plays football, but it’s the non-scholarship type in the Pioneer League, so it’s certainly not threatening to the school’s basketball brand.
A handful of major programs have managed to excel at both sports. Florida won back-to-back NCAA tournaments in 2006 and 2007 at a time when its football program was perennially a powerhouse.
“What it shows is that, whether you’re talking about football or basketball, winning is hard,” said Winthrop AD Ken Halpin, who is trying to build a basketball power at the Rock Hill, S.C., institution. “Sustained winning is even harder.”
Darron Boatright, the AD at Wichita State, which has no football, doesn’t envision the school bringing it back, at least not on his watch. While football is a moneymaker at the largest schools, mid-major football can be a budget drainer if it’s not performing well. That makes him happy to focus on the Shockers’ emerging basketball brand.
“I don’t believe it’s for every institution,” Boatright said. “And I understand the ancillary benefits that football brings onto a campus. I love marching bands. But I’d say that the majority of schools are losing money on football, and they just keep investing in it.”
