Commentary: Black Colleges Should Have Their Own Championship Game

By Christopher Stevens
Black College Wire

Photo credit: Delaware State Delaware State University wide receiver Shaheer McBride was the 2004 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference rookie of the year. The NCAA gives MEAC the short end of the stick.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I-AA football playoffs are a noble concept, as far as deciding a small-college national champion.

However, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) continues to get the short end of the stick in this contest because in most years, only one of its teams is invited to participate -- usually in the one place automatically given to the conference champion. In other words, too many worthy teams are left out for this to be a fair competition.

Black college football deserves to find out who the true black college champion is on the field, instead of competing on a level where its teams never really have been given a fair shake.

The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), the black college powerhouse, already has a successful championship game, held annually in Birmingham, Ala. MEAC would do well to follow suit and start its own.

Why? If Mike Tyson were here to describe the way playoff selection works now, his use of "ludicrous" might make the Guinness Book of World Records. The injustices that the Hampton Pirates suffered in this year's playoffs should not happen to a conference championship team on any level.

As the MEAC champion (and this year's lone conference representative in the Division I-AA playoffs), Hampton had to go on the road for its first-round game with the College of William & Mary, an Atlantic 10 Conference school. Hampton's Pirates were seeded below the Tribe of William & Mary, which explains why the team did not get to play at home.

How does that matter? In I-AA playoff games, of funds brought in beyond the ticket revenue guaranteed to the NCAA, the NCAA takes 85 percent and the host school keeps the remaining 15 percent. That netted William & Mary $11,000, according to an estimate by William & Mary athletic director Terry Driscoll in the Dec. 9 edition of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch.

So not only did the Pirates lose a close 42-35 battle with the Tribe on Nov. 27, but they didn't take home any big bucks.

Meanwhile, the Mid-Eastern conference runner-up, South Carolina State University, was left out of the I-AA playoff picture, despite having a better regular season record (9- 2) than all three of the Atlantic 10 schools that accompanied William & Mary to the playoffs. (The University of Delaware, James Madison University and New Hampshire were all 8-3 in the Atlantic 10 conference.)

So, what is the MEAC to do? Continue to allow the I-AA playoff committee to toy with the feelings of the players, coaches, fans, alumni and administrators? Or come up with a bigger and better idea?

What idea is that, you ask? Simple. Break away from the playoffs and have its own championship game.

It seems a little far-fetched, but this can be done if marketed and thought out carefully.

However, there are some small hills to climb for this to be a success. For example, NCAA rules state, unfortunately, that college football teams can play in only one post-season game at a time, but think of the economic potential that this regional championship idea possesses.

Also, there are logistical issues to work out. With only nine schools with football programs, the Mid-Eastern conference is short on teams right now. But with the inevitable addition of one school, the conference can be split into divisions working toward a one-game playoff to see who's boss.

Help with that may be on the way. Winston-Salem State has begun an ambitious program to reclassify itself as a I-AA program, moving up from Division II and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), and joining the MEAC as soon as the 2006 football season.

This would give the MEAC 10 football teams, and the ability to split the conference into northern and southern divisions.

In the northern division, you would have Delaware State, Howard, Hampton, Morgan State and Norfolk State universities.

The southern would consist of Bethune-Cookman College, and Florida A&M, North Carolina A&T, South Carolina State and Winston-Salem State universities.

Then you would have the two division winners face off for the MEAC championship at a neutral site at a National Football League stadium in Baltimore, Washington, or even Charlotte, N.C., making the potential for sustained revenue tremendous.

To take it a step further, let's revive the Heritage Bowl (missing in action since 1999) and have the Mid-eastern conference winner battle the Southwestern conference champion to decide the true black college football champion.

Could you imagine, during any given year, Hampton vs. Grambling? Florida A&M vs. Southern? North Carolina A&T vs. Jackson State? I know you're excited.

Leaving the I-AA playoffs might seem a step backward to many; however, it is worth remembering that without the automatic bid, MEAC likely would have no teams in the playoffs. The automatic bid basically means that when you win your conference, you are entered into the playoffs, something the MEAC had to wait 18 years for -- MEAC football did not get the automatic bid until 1996.

Plenty of Delaware State alumni are still stinging from the 1985 fiasco, in which the Hornets finished the season 9-2 and were excluded from the playoffs.

A conference title game and a Black College Bowl to determine the champ are long overdue.

The teams would have something to play for in terms of pride, instead of falling victim to unfair selection practices and backward thinking. The fans and alumni of these two conferences should have friendly rivalries that make for a new tradition in black college football, restoring a pride in our HBCUs that seems to be on the downswing.

Black college football has always had its own tradition, style and pride that outshines anything else that major colleges could ever dream of. Having our own championship game would prove that better than any playoff invite.

Christopher Stevens, a student at Delaware State University, is sports editor of The Hornet.

Posted Dec. 15, 2004