Is Division I football on its way to Chicago’s South Side?
That’s the question that Chicago State University is hoping to answer, as the university is putting together an exploratory committee to study the impact of a football program and provide recommendations to the school president.
“I think it would be huge,” athletic director Dr. Monique Carroll told The Athletic. “We would be Chicago’s only Division I football program, so a city that has as much going on especially in the sports landscape as Chicago does, to add to that with Division I football, I think that would be awesome. And then the campus, we are trying to grow enrollment. We’re doing different things strategically to see how we can make the university better. I think this enhances the student experience on campus. This engages the South Side community.
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“We are South Side Chicago. I get a little lost for words, because the impact is immeasurable almost.”
The exploratory committee will be announced in its entirety on Jan. 26, featuring school and community staff, students and leaders, along with football stakeholders in the Chicago area. Former Illinois and NFL fullback Howard Griffith will be among the committee members.
Atlanta-based firm Collegiate Consulting completed a feasibility study for the school last summer, an idea that took root under former AD Elliott Charles the previous fall. Charles, now the executive associate AD at Valparaiso, left Chicago State in April. Chicago State hired Carroll in July. When Carroll interviewed for the job, she said, the idea of undertaking a project of this magnitude was attractive.
“I am a builder by nature,” said Carroll, who was previously the AD at Huston-Tillotson University, an NAIA school in Austin, Texas. “I don’t know if I would do well in any role where I had to come in and do what the last person did, so that was something President (Zaldwaynaka) Scott talked to me very candidly about during the recruitment process; not that it was something that would happen, but that the university was committed to seeing if we could make it happen.”
The University of New Orleans, for which Collegiate Consulting completed a feasibility study around the same time as it did Chicago State, announced in September that it would add football by the fall of 2025.
Kennesaw State University in Georgia is the most recent school to add a Division I football program, beginning play in 2015. The Owls compete in the ASUN Conference but are moving up to FBS to join Conference USA on July 1, 2024.
“When we look at where the university strategically goes, I think the advantage that myself and President Scott have aligned with the university’s priorities,” Carroll said. “To grow enrollment; we know adding even 100 football players, what they could do for a university of our size. Looking at adding women’s sports along with that; we don’t have a number set for women’s sports, we don’t know what those sports will be yet; it aligns with the strategic goals. So it wasn’t that hard of a sale.
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“People want you to explain it and make it make sense. They want to really understand our why. But outside of that, everyone at large has been on board with, ‘Hey, let’s see.’”
Chicago State currently sponsors seven men’s sports teams and eight women’s teams. The feasibility study looked at the addition of beach volleyball, softball and a marching band as well.
A Predominantly Black Institution located in the city’s Roseland neighborhood, Chicago State has an enrollment of less than 3,000 and currently operates as an athletic independent, after spending nine years in the Western Athletic Conference. The school was a member of the NAIA and Division II before transitioning to Division I in 1994.
Carroll said she is optimistic that the committee’s findings could be completed by the end of the spring semester and that a fall 2025 start date would be manageable, based on the feasibility study’s findings.
Chicago State does not yet know where it would play if it were to launch a football program.
“The good thing about the city of Chicago is high school football is alive and well,” Carroll said. “We are currently in a massive campus planning project, so there are a lot of opportunities even for us to find somewhere to play on a temporary basis and/or be able to eventually build something on campus.”
(Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)
