SCSU looking to increase scholarships

NEW HAVEN — On the surface, the Northeast-10 Conference football coaches’ poll offers few surprises.

Assumption and LIU Post, who’ve split the league championship the past three seasons, are predicted to finish 1-2. New Haven, a perennial contender since joining a decade ago, is fourth.

Southern Connecticut State snuck into the top half at fifth, hardly unexpected considering the Owls finished last season with four straight victories to tie New Haven and Stonehill for fourth in the standings.

It’s a testament to the recruiting and coaching of Tom Godek and his staff, which operates with the fewest total scholarships and scholarship funds in the 10-team conference. And it’s not even close. According to figures obtained by Hearst Media Connecticut, Southern currently has 8.9 scholarships for football. There are 95 players on this fall’s roster. Every other team in the league offers at least twice as many scholarships with the exception of St. Anselm, which has 15.3.

The NCAA allows Division II football members a maximum of 36 scholarships. Five schools in the NE-10 offer at least 30 — American International (35.9), LIU Post (34.7), Assumption (33.2), Pace (31) and New Haven (30). Stonehill (29.5) and Merrimack (24.3) offer triple the number of scholarships of Southern.

“We’re competitive now,” Southern athletic director Jay Moran said. “Imagine if we had a little more money for scholarships.”

Southern lags well behind its conference brethren in total scholarship funds. The school operates with a budget $214,800 allotted for scholarship money over a four-year period, or roughly a third of the total of its closest competitor, St. Anselm, which has $653,324.

Every other school in the league has at least $1.2 million in scholarship funds, with Pace ($1.959 million), AIC ($1.8 million), LIU Post ($1.796 million) and Assumption ($1.722 million) leading the pack.

It’s not a new issue at Southern, the only state school in the NE-10. The lack of funding affects all sports. That wasn’t the case twenty years ago, when tuition for in-state students was reasonable. The cost to attend Southern is roughly $25,000 a year for in-state students; $35,000 for out-ofstate.

Rising costs place a financial burden on all prospective players. Yet nearly every other program in the NE-10 has increased resources for football in the past decade. The Owls have struggled to keep up in what’s become a constant uphill battle. For recruits, the choice between a partial scholarship that may come with a $20,000 annual bill or a full ride to another school in the same conference isn’t difficult.

Private schools also have the luxury of deciding how athletic funds are distributed and which sports to emphasize. That’s not the case at Southern, which operates as part of the Connecticut State University system.

In spite of the competitive disadvantage on the recruiting trail Godek, a former captain and longtime assistant at Southern, has done marvelous work. The Owls have finished fourth each of the past two seasons.

Still, the Southern Football Alumni Network would like to narrow the gap. In January it launched with the goal of raising funds to assist the program. The group includes several with prominent sports backgrounds. Larry Ciotti, who coached football at HandMadison before a long career as a Yale assistant, is a proud Southern alum and member of the board’s executive committee. So is Mike Katz, a former New York Jet and Mr. Universe and Andy Talley, the recently retired football coach at Villanova.