EAST TENNESSEE STATE Program's days are numbered

The Division I-AA football program will be cut following the season.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) -- East Tennessee State finished 4-8 last season, then the university announced it was ending the football program after this year. No one would have blamed the coaches and players if they had left.
Team loyalty proved too strong for that to happen.
The Buccaneers, who open the season Thursday at Eastern Michigan, have been holding preseason practice like all the other teams nationwide with nearly every player returning.
"Even if I was offered to go, I wouldn't have because this is my school. I love playing here. I love the coaches. They have been like a father to me," senior defensive lineman Brandon Calton said. "I just couldn't turn my back on the situation."
Pinching pennies
University president Paul Stanton announced in May his final decision to eliminate the Division I-AA football program after the 2003 season to help save money.
"My first thought when I got the word was, 'What do I tell the players and how do I continue to make the players believe and realize that certainly good things are going to happen for them? And let them know that whatever the future holds for them that I was going to help them?' " said coach Paul Hamilton.
"I assured them I was going to stay in this thing to the end."
Each player was released from his scholarship and will be allowed to play at another school immediately without sitting out a season like regular transfers.
When workouts began this month, only one upperclassmen had decided to transfer, leaving 63 on the Buccaneers' roster. Of the 15-member signing class, five freshmen enrolled. Every assistant coach, including six hired this winter, remained on the staff.
Freshman Brandon Barnes, an offensive lineman, initially thought about finding another school but changed his mind.
"I've committed to them and I promised I'd be up there, so I'm going to go ahead," he said.
Defensive coordinator Billy Taylor, a former linebacker and assistant coach since 1997, wasn't ready to leave his alma mater yet.
"I was hoping I could retire here. But those plans definitely had to change," he said.
Budget cuts
There was little public debate about ETSU's decision. Stanton was faced this summer with having to cut more than $7.5 million from the university's $139 million budget as part of a statewide initiative.
Football, which loses $1.1 million annually, would be in trouble anyway because of a decision by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, which governs all state colleges and universities, to remove all state funding from athletics programs by 2007.
ETSU would have to find other means of making up the deficit, and private fund raising was not considered a realistic alternative. The school's home, the 13,000-seat domed Memorial Stadium, also would likely need its indoor turf replaced in the near future.
"You have to take the bull by the horns. Even though it's a difficult decision, it's the right decision to make," Stanton said at the time.