This episode features Timothy P. Brown from FootballArchaeology.com, who delves into the fascinating history of college football programs that have dropped or de-emphasized their teams, specifically focusing on the relationship between stadium size and program viability. Brown discusses the impact of budget constraints and manpower shortages that led many institutions to discontinue their football programs, particularly during the significant societal changes around World War II. He highlights how Catholic universities, in particular, were influenced by the success of Notre Dame, prompting them to invest in football during the 1920s, only to later struggle with sustainability. The conversation also touches on the unique challenges faced by urban universities in maintaining football programs due to land constraints and financial demands. Join us as we explore these intriguing stories and the patterns that have shaped the landscape of college football over the decades.

Of course, this discussion all stems from Tim`s original article found here: Stadium Size, Football Dropper - Catholic Univ

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We have a great episode ahead of us tonight.

Timothy p.

Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to talk about a program in college football in a stadium that once was very high on the charts, found its demise, and we're going to remember him today.

Tim's up in just a moment to.

Tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hays is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the great ire one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of Pigskind dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another edition where we get to talk to one of our guests, our famous guest, Timothy P.

Brown, that visits us Every Tuesday from footballarchaeology.com Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Looking, looking to drop some knowledge here.

Well, you definitely do that to us each week.

And from your tidbits, your books that you have coming out, you just, you know, we just talked about your, your football book recently and you know, that's going well for you and we, everybody's enjoying that, so appreciate that.

And you know, this, this story that you have today, you're going to talk on your tidbit you have titled Stadium Size Football Droppers and De Emphasizers.

So there's a lot in that title.

Tim, maybe you can help clarify.

So let, let me back up first and just talk more generally about the, because I'm doing this series, right.

And so for me it really helps to sometimes, frankly, it's hard to find an idea to write about.

You know, I, I have like back, I, I probably have 300 things that I kind of maybe going to do an article about.

But you know, sometimes it's just hard to make it come together, which is why part of the reason I do factoids, the factoid piece.

Right.

But so this one, you know, I started a series a month ago or whatever it was to just look at programs that either dropped football or de emphasized it and just kind of also look at, okay, how big were their stadiums, you know, what happened to their stadium.

Just kind of looking at that, you know, as, as we, you know, as part of the history of the program.

So it's kind of the program itself and then their stadium, you know, that's kind of the way I've approached it.

So, you know, for me, the thing that's been really Fun in doing these is that, you know, I just find every time I try to approach the history of football from a slightly different angle, I just learn some new things.

It just, you know, I just.

I search using different terms.

I just, you know, I ask different questions, so I find new stuff.

And so these have just been fun because it's just like going in and looking at a school, like.

I don't know.

Frankly, I've never really spent much time looking at the history of Catholic university football.

Right.

I've been aware of them.

You know, they played D3, and, you know, I think they've had some pretty good teams from time to time.

And so, you know, so.

But it was like, okay, I.

I did know.

I've known for a long time that.

That they, you know, at.

At times, I mean, they.

They.

Right.

So there was a time when they were playing, you know, at least moderately good football.

You know, they.

They were playing competitive.

Competitive ball.

And so it's just kind of looking at the, you know, so in this case, just looking at the history of this particular program, and they are one of, you know, there's a lot of.

A lot of the schools that once had kind of proud football programs that have since dropped the program.

They kind of fall into two categories.

They're either Catholic, urban, you know, universities, and then there's another group that's kind of what I'll call directional state universities.

Right.

I mean, it's not like, for the most part, I mean, like, Vermont dropped, but for the most part, it's like such and such State as opposed, you know, you know, Fullerton State or somebody along those lines.

Right.

And so.

So anyways, it's just kind of interesting trying to figure out, like, what was it that led to, you know, schools dropping.

Pouring some money into their football programs.

Well, why would they do that?

Well, one of them is because this place called Notre Dame, you know, which became famous and, you know, had this guy rock me and they, you know, they go to the Rose bowl and, you know, and they win the national championship in, you know, I guess, 24 and then 25 Rose Bowl.

And so it was like a huge deal among Catholic universities that Notre Dame could pull this off.

And because they were still a dinky little school that, for the most part, nobody knew about other than through their football program.

So it was kind of this whole thing of both promoting the school itself, promoting Catholicism, you know, all those things kind of wrapped together.

But a lot of schools invested in their football programs at that time.

So Catholic, you know, as an instance in the 20s, like, I think it was 24, they built Brooklyn Field or Brooklyn Stadium, which was a 30, 000 seat stadium, you know, and, you know, that's a good sized stadium.

There were not that many schools with stadiums of that.

Nobody in the SEC or anything like that had had a stadium of that.

I can tell you there was only maybe one or two NFL games that would even fill that.

Even get close to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, you know, I mean, if you look at the drawing or if you look at the images and everything, it looks like they kind of did it on cheap, but whatever.

They could pack in, you know, 30,000 people into that stadium.

And, and like I said, you know, they, you know, they were basically trying to compete with other Eastern Catholic schools for them, Holy Cross, Georgetown, you know, crosstown rival, you know, folks like that.

And then, you know, then, you know, you had the whole Notre Dame factor.

And, you know, so, you know, they.

They kind of did their best.

They had a lot of success.

You know, they tied Arizona State in that.

And then like a lot of these school, a lot of the Catholic schools, they just weren't that big.

You know, a couple thousand students.

And when, as you know, things were starting to gear up, you know, even before.

Before Pearl harbor, there's a big effort to, you know, a lot of guys remove joining the military.

There's, you know, expansion going on to kind of prepare for what they thought was inevitable.

And so teams were just.

They just didn't have the manpower at some of these schools anymore.

So they did that before Pearl harbor, you know, so that just kind of tells you how much things were starting to shift, you know, in the country at the time.

And then like a lot of these schools, when the war ended, they kind of looked around and they said, you know what?

We're not gonna.

We're not bringing football back.

So football disappeared.

And then in the case of Catholic University, they.

They compete at the D3 level today and you know, in all sports.

And again, I think, you Know, they've done pretty well, you know, from time to time.

So I don't know.

It's just.

I just.

I just find the whole, you know, the whole pattern of why they dropped, you know, what place facilities played, it's almost always, you know, huge budget.

Budget issue almost every time.

It's budget, it's manpower.

And then one of the things that I found in, like, you mentioned NYU early on and Boston, You.

You know, I've done a story on them.

So the schools that are really urban, you know, that are like central city, land constraints are a huge issue for them.

You know, if you're NYU sitting there down in the East Village, you know, or the West Village, I guess.

And, you know, there's, you know, there's not a lot of land for a.

Football field, you know, and it ain't cheap.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, you can build it, you know, but it's going to cost you a lot of money.

So even back then, their.

Their guys had to go up to, you know, like.

Well, they had.

They had a football.

Their football field was up in the Bronx, you know, so.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's just a.

It becomes a very, you know, very, you know, the.

Just.

The land access is a huge issue for.

For more urban schools.

So anyways, yeah, it's just.

It.

You know, so the whole series is about trying to figure out, like, what were the.

What were the things that caused them to drop off.

Right.

And it varies from school to school, but at the end of the day, it's.

Money is the number one thing.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's kind of.

Kind of interesting because at least here in Erie, we are two.

We have two Catholic universities.

They're.

They've traditionally been D2 schools.

Gannon University, Mercier University.

And they both.

I.

I attended a public school, state college, Edinburgh University, which is about 15 miles south of here, and that.

The Catholic colleges, Mercers and Gannon started their football programs back up in the 80s when I was in high school and in college and they were playing D3.

They went to D2 right around a new millennium.

And Merciers this year has gone to.

There became a Division 1 school, you know, playing Division 1 double A or the.

The FCS or whatever they call it now, but kind of.

Kind of interesting that, you know, they.

And they're.

But they're urban.

You know, if you consider Erie urban, they're in the middle of the city.

They both are.

And you know, having quite the program.

It's really building up.

And Gannon, you know, always very competitive division too.

Too traditionally.

So kind of interesting.

They're almost having a certain.

Even, like, even, like, even like Erie, though.

It's not like it's not New York City.

No, definitely not.

So even.

Even if you are space constrained where you are buying the land nearby probably isn't.

That isn't anywhere near the same as Manhattan or you, you can take it, you know, you can.

Shuttle bus, you know, I mean, we did that in college.

You shuttle bus off to the practice field.

Right.

And so, yeah, it's just, it's an interesting thing.

But, you know, some of the dynamic has changed too, though.

You know, like, there's been not an explosion, but there's a lot of schools that have added, especially at D3 level, that have added football programs.

It's basically a way to get kids to come to their school.

Right.

I mean, there's a lot of kids.

And I'm sure starting a football program is not a cheap date.

It's.

They gotta make some major investment to do that.

No, but if, you know, if you can bring in 60 to 100 kids, not a year, but over the course of, you know, four years, you bring those kids in and the, the money that they bring, any either from the federal government or from, you know, their own pockets, that's a lot of tuition money, you know, and it's one of those.

What's it cost to educate one more kid at the school?

Well, not that much.

Right.

I mean, if you're often offering a business major to put two more kids into each class, isn't that big a deal.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, it doesn't cost you any more money.

Obviously you need dorm rooms and, you know, whatever.

But so, you know, at the end of the day, it's all in D3.

A lot of it's just about how do we get kids into the school.

Yeah, good point, good point.

So.

Well, a great story, interesting story.

And you know, the series is phenomenal.

And I, you know, I've been enjoying it and you know, some of the other things.

I don't know if it's a spin off where you're talking and some of your other tidbits about some programs that have had demise, you know, once great programs and been enjoying a bunch of those too, but you have tidbits on a wide array of different football aspects through history.

And maybe you could share with.

With folks how they can enjoy some of your tidbits.

Yeah.

So you know, number one recommendation is just to go to footballarcheology.com and subscribe.

You'll get an email.

Every time I release a story, you'll get an email that contains that story.

You can also, you know, bookmark the site and just go there whenever you want.

You can follow me on Twitter, on threads or on Substack, which really has pretty sharp app.

And so, yeah, I mean those are, those are the best ways.

But you know, if you subscribe, you know you're going to get it every time.

Whereas like on Twitter most of the time you're never going to know that I published anything.

Just the way their algorithm works.

So they don't like me.

I don't think they like anybody.

They don't like any.

But if you link out to a place other than Twitter, then they don't like you.

That's why, you know, they see, you see those 20 thread, 20 post threads that are terrible to try to read.

Well, Tim, we'll keep funneling up links to get to your Substack website and so people can check them out there, folks.

It's in the show notes and you know, enjoy it anytime.

Like Tim said, with those avenues to get his correspondence, how he does almost daily here.

So, Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here again this Tuesday and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Very good, sir.

Thank you much.