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After UNC Charlotte trustees vote to add football late Thursday morning, a news conference is held in an adjoining room. When the talk ends, a 49ers football helmet, one of about five the school owns, is briefly left behind.
Charlotte won't play its first game until 2013, which is so far away it feels like a concept. The helmet makes it concrete.
Students enter the room at the Harris Alumni Center and approach the helmet as if it is a shrine. The helmet is striking, deep green with a thick gold stripe down the middle and a gold, green, black and white logo. On the front, in big red letters, is a name with which every fan is familiar – RIDDELL. Dangling from the bottom is a chin strap.
Students take pictures and pose. One wants a souvenir to show his future grandkids. Another bends to give the helmet a kiss.
I have no idea if any of these guys can play. But I guarantee if the university asked them to strap those helmets on, they would try.
Thursday was emotional and intensely satisfying for students and alumni, faculty and staff, Chancellor Phillip Dubois and athletics director Judy Rose, Charlotte the school and Charlotte the city, fans of football and fans of underdogs.
That the trustees would vote 8-0, with one abstention, to add the sport is no less an upset than the Davidson basketball team advancing to the Elite Eight.
Everybody will tell you, even if you don't ask, that 2008 is a terrible time to commit to an undertaking as massive as intercollegiate football. What they won't tell you is so were 2007, '06 and '05. If the 49ers waited for the ideal time, the only football they would ever play is touch.
The cost will be staggering, $45.3million and counting for a stadium complex, and students and alumni can't offset it without help. The hope is that, in contributions large and small, the community will respond. If funds aren't raised, the school could call the project off.
But why wouldn't the school succeed? Even the room in which the trustees meet Thursday bears the name of a sponsor. The building in which the room is located bears the name of the family that paid for the construction. If a room and building can attract a sponsor, you think an on-campus stadium might? You think the sponsor might make a few loyal friends for life?
The beauty of Charlotte's quest is that it began not with the administration, which has been highly supportive, but with alumni and students. Rather than trickle down, enthusiasm trickled up. Nobody whined or begged. They just worked.
Along the way, they were told they had no chance. Any time you attempt the ambitious and the rare, you'll be told you'll fail. Alumni know this; students will.
You're a commuter school on the edge of town, detractors said. Football is a sport established schools play. Know your role.
The 49ers established Thursday that their role is what they say it is.
