In fact, the only university anywhere near the Great Lakes that has more students without a football team is Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, and how’d you like to try and fit that on the front of a football jersey?

In case you haven’t heard, nobody can beat the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee football team. The NCAA squad is undefeated since 1974. Not because they’re particularly good or anything, but because they no longer exist.

It’s time to start addressing the issue again.

However, before we can get into the issue, it has to be established why the football team was cut in the first place back in 1974. The answer may be surprisingly obvious; the football team lacked a permanent home. There was no space, as there is today, to build a full-time football stadium on campus. On top of that, the university did not have the money to support both a football and basketball team; it costs a great deal of money to keep a football team.

With the advent of Title IX, the amount of scholarships for football would need to be equaled by the amount of scholarships allocated to women’s sports. In case you don’t know, football has more scholarships than any other sport in the NCAA. That’s a lot of obstacles to restarting a football program at this school. Now let’s take a quick look at what is needed, and what can be done.

First things first: If there is no interest in football at UWM, there’s no reason to even explore the possibility. The fact of the matter is over 35 students paid $150 this semester to play for the club football team. This is the same team that played D-III Carthage College on Labor Day, losing to a team comprised mainly of Carthage starters by a couple fourth quarter mistakes.

More than 500 people were at that game, about 100 of which were UWM students who made the trip to Kenosha on a holiday. I asked 50 people in the UWM Union if they would support reinstituting the football team. A remarkable 46 said they would. It is obvious that at least a sizable amount of the 28,000 students on campus wouldn’t object to NCAA football in Milwaukee.

It costs serious money to start a football program, and students don’t have that kind of cash. Who does? The alumni. Throughout the years, there have been rumors that chancellors past and present have been offered money to restart football. I’ve heard as much as $40 million, but the number that keeps popping up is $16 million. Is it enough money to start a team? If not, it’s definitely a start.

Out of the 331 and growing number of institutions that play D-I sports in the NCAA, UWM is only eclipsed by six schools that have no football team and higher enrollment. In fact, the only university anywhere near the Great Lakes that has more students without a football team is Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, and how’d you like to try and fit that on the front of a football jersey?

Title IX remains a major road block to the forming of a team. The rule states that there must be an equal amount of scholarships for both genders in a university’s athletic department. With a large amount of players receiving scholarships in college football, where do you go to fulfill the women’s side?

There are a few options. Lacrosse, while not sponsored by the Horizon League, is a rapidly-growing sport that could be added to the conference if enough schools are interested in adding. UWM doesn’t compete in two Horizon sports: golf and softball. While golf may not add a whole lot of scholarships, softball does, and is the best bet for a school that already has a great baseball team.

Not to mention, if football is added at UWM, that leaves only one team needed for the Horizon League to formally add Football Championship Subdivision (Formally D I-AA). Valparaiso, Butler and Youngstown State all compete in the FCS, so the Horizon League wouldn’t need much more incentive to help another conference school start football.

The problem this university faced in 1974 is the problem it would face if football was to be reinstated. There still exists nowhere to put a football stadium. On the contrary, there is in fact such a place, and it’s not more than a brisk walk from campus. I’m speaking of the Park East corridor. This area of land, 64 acres located just north of the Bradley Center, has been the proposed site of a Major League Soccer stadium.

One of the biggest knocks on an MLS team in Milwaukee is that Milwaukee sports are stretched too thin. With the Brewers, Bucks, Admirals and Wave fighting over fans, the MLS keeps getting shot down in this town.

The fact is, soccer isn’t big in Milwaukee past the high school level. However, football has usurped baseball as America’s most popular sport, and one place evident is Wisconsin. In years past (when the Brewers were losing), one would find themselves talking Packer and Badger football in early August.

So, the Packers occupy Green Bay and the Badgers Madison. What about the largest city in Wisconsin, Milwaukee? This is a football crazy state, and a football stadium in the Park East corridor would be full every single game day, good team or not. So long as the stadium works well with the amenities around it in the downtown area, there’s no reason NOT to build one.

With the large amount of alumni that UWM has, at least some of them would be able to put up $50 million for a 20,000 seat stadium. What about Edward Zore and James Ziemer, the CEOs of Northwestern Mutual and Harley-Davidson, respectably? Ralf-Reinhard Boer, chairman and CEO at Foley & Lardner law firm? Harris Turer put up serious money and organized financial backers to buy the struggling Admirals, maybe he’d like to put up some money to bring football back to his alma mater?

There are a lot of road blocks on the way to bringing football back to UWM. While such a team would be cost time and money, the long-term advantages of football more than make up for the effort put into its inception. The interest among students and alumni is there; doesn’t the school owe it to them to at least explore the opportunity?

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