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... with in-state rival for refusing to play his school on the gridiron
http://delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2006090 7/NEWS/609070371/1006/NEWS
DSU official calls UD's refusal to play racist
Blue Hens, Hornets yet to meet in football
By KEVIN TRESOLINI, The News Journal
Posted Thursday, September 7, 2006
The University of Delaware and Delaware State University football teams play Saturday night. They just won't be playing each other.
They never have met on the football field and are not scheduled to at any time in the future despite the schools' proximity and membership in NCAA Division I-AA.
Chuck Bell, who became DSU's athletic director last year, said he knows exactly why the two schools haven't played.
"I'm convinced the basis is racism," said Bell, the first white athletic director in DSU history. "UD is a white school and DSU is a historically black school, and it's one of those things left over from the days of separate restrooms and separate seating areas."
Both universities owe their histories to the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862. Delaware College, which had previously operated under other names, reopened in 1870. It later became UD.
The State College for Colored Students, now DSU, was established in 1891 under a provision of the Morrill Act passed a year earlier for states, such as Delaware, that maintained segregated educational facilities.
All Delaware schools were segregated until the 1950s.
"I can't change history," Bell said.
At the beginning of the 2005-06 school year, 5.6 percent of UD's undergraduate students were black, while approximately 18 percent of DSU's were white. Blacks make up 20.4 percent of the Delaware population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
About one-third of UD's players on this year's team are black and DSU has some white players.
Told of Bell's comments, UD Athletic Director Edgar Johnson would not respond specifically on the subject of racial bias. As for the lack of a UD-DSU football game, he repeated what he has often said throughout his 22 years as athletic director.
"I'm sure it will happen someday," Johnson said.
When, he does not know. UD's nonconference schedule is set through at least 2009, with some opponents, including Saturday's foe West Chester (Pa.) University, penciled into the next decade as well. Future UD schedules do include non- or limited-scholarship I-AA programs State University of New York at Albany (this year and 2008) and Monmouth University in New Jersey (2007), but not DSU, which, like UD, is permitted to award as many as 63 football scholarships.
Johnson has frequently said UD has difficulty finding nonconference opposition but simply prefers to play schools other than DSU.
"You can make all kinds of excuses, and they're all lame," Bell said. "I don't buy any of them."
West Chester, an NCAA Division II school located about 45 minutes from Newark, has been on UD's football schedule every year since 1968. The schools have a long athletic and academic association, but are not as similar now as they were in 1968. UD and West Chester used to be rivals in nearly every sport. Now, they rarely compete outside of football.
UD and DSU, Division I in all sports, had only gone head-to-head in large track and field relay meets before the men's basketball teams broke the ice -- and the color barrier -- in December 1991. They have since met in several other sports, but not football, the one that matters the most at UD.
Many state residents and alumni, some from out of state, have clamored for a UD-DSU matchup and been befuddled by UD's stubborn resistance to make it happen. At times, politicians have suggested using the government to try and force the two state-supported schools to play, but nothing has ever been done.
Bell worked at Colorado State when it played Colorado of the Big 12 and at San Jose State when it played nearby Pac-10 member Stanford in football. Bell said, "Stanford would not even think about not playing us."
UD-DSU, he has found, is another matter.
"It's absolutely foreign to me that we don't play," said Bell, who has broached the subject with Johnson briefly and unsuccessfully. "It doesn't make any sense financially, competitively and from a rivalry standpoint not to play.
"I've been an athletic administrator 37 years and I'm 61 years old and I've never seen anything like it."
[end of article]
JohnEdited by: foreverfree
http://delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2006090 7/NEWS/609070371/1006/NEWS
DSU official calls UD's refusal to play racist
Blue Hens, Hornets yet to meet in football
By KEVIN TRESOLINI, The News Journal
Posted Thursday, September 7, 2006
The University of Delaware and Delaware State University football teams play Saturday night. They just won't be playing each other.
They never have met on the football field and are not scheduled to at any time in the future despite the schools' proximity and membership in NCAA Division I-AA.
Chuck Bell, who became DSU's athletic director last year, said he knows exactly why the two schools haven't played.
"I'm convinced the basis is racism," said Bell, the first white athletic director in DSU history. "UD is a white school and DSU is a historically black school, and it's one of those things left over from the days of separate restrooms and separate seating areas."
Both universities owe their histories to the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862. Delaware College, which had previously operated under other names, reopened in 1870. It later became UD.
The State College for Colored Students, now DSU, was established in 1891 under a provision of the Morrill Act passed a year earlier for states, such as Delaware, that maintained segregated educational facilities.
All Delaware schools were segregated until the 1950s.
"I can't change history," Bell said.
At the beginning of the 2005-06 school year, 5.6 percent of UD's undergraduate students were black, while approximately 18 percent of DSU's were white. Blacks make up 20.4 percent of the Delaware population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
About one-third of UD's players on this year's team are black and DSU has some white players.
Told of Bell's comments, UD Athletic Director Edgar Johnson would not respond specifically on the subject of racial bias. As for the lack of a UD-DSU football game, he repeated what he has often said throughout his 22 years as athletic director.
"I'm sure it will happen someday," Johnson said.
When, he does not know. UD's nonconference schedule is set through at least 2009, with some opponents, including Saturday's foe West Chester (Pa.) University, penciled into the next decade as well. Future UD schedules do include non- or limited-scholarship I-AA programs State University of New York at Albany (this year and 2008) and Monmouth University in New Jersey (2007), but not DSU, which, like UD, is permitted to award as many as 63 football scholarships.
Johnson has frequently said UD has difficulty finding nonconference opposition but simply prefers to play schools other than DSU.
"You can make all kinds of excuses, and they're all lame," Bell said. "I don't buy any of them."
West Chester, an NCAA Division II school located about 45 minutes from Newark, has been on UD's football schedule every year since 1968. The schools have a long athletic and academic association, but are not as similar now as they were in 1968. UD and West Chester used to be rivals in nearly every sport. Now, they rarely compete outside of football.
UD and DSU, Division I in all sports, had only gone head-to-head in large track and field relay meets before the men's basketball teams broke the ice -- and the color barrier -- in December 1991. They have since met in several other sports, but not football, the one that matters the most at UD.
Many state residents and alumni, some from out of state, have clamored for a UD-DSU matchup and been befuddled by UD's stubborn resistance to make it happen. At times, politicians have suggested using the government to try and force the two state-supported schools to play, but nothing has ever been done.
Bell worked at Colorado State when it played Colorado of the Big 12 and at San Jose State when it played nearby Pac-10 member Stanford in football. Bell said, "Stanford would not even think about not playing us."
UD-DSU, he has found, is another matter.
"It's absolutely foreign to me that we don't play," said Bell, who has broached the subject with Johnson briefly and unsuccessfully. "It doesn't make any sense financially, competitively and from a rivalry standpoint not to play.
"I've been an athletic administrator 37 years and I'm 61 years old and I've never seen anything like it."
[end of article]
JohnEdited by: foreverfree
