Is Arizona junior college football dead after this season? Maricopa Community Colleges are pulling the plug on football at four schools after the 2018 season, but supporters are in an all-out fight to save the sport.

Anne Ryman | The Republic | azcentral.com

Gerald Wilbon won a football scholarship from Southern Utah University for 2018. But what appeared to be the fulfillment of a long-standing dream to play Division 1 college football turned to disappointment when the 18-year-old cornerback's grades weren't good enough to enroll.

He gets a second shot at his dream this fall with a football scholarship to Mesa Community College, where he hopes to improve in the classroom, work on his game and eventually earn a scholarship to a four-year school.

"Without this, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now," the Red Mountain High School graduate said at a recent team practice.

But for Wilbon and about 400 other athletes, this opportunity to play football while furthering their education likely ends with the 2018 season. The Maricopa County Community College District, the state's largest community-college system, is pulling the plug on the sport for financial reasons.

District officials say the colleges need to prioritize their spending as enrollment has leveled off and the Arizona Legislature has eliminated state funding. A district task force also raised concerns about injuries and football's low academic performance compared with other sports.

The announcement earlier this year sent shock waves across the district, where four colleges — Glendale, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Mesa — have fielded football teams for decades.

Mesa Community College football prepares for potentially last season MCC football prepares for potentially its last season following the decision by the Maricopa County Community College District to end football.

Football supporters in other Arizona communities fear that decision will have a domino effect.

Pima Community College officials said Maricopa's decision "accelerated" an already-planned financial review of athletics. They announced in June that the Tucson school would also end football after 2018 as part of a three-year plan to cut college-wide spending by $15 million.

The departure of Pima and Maricopa will leave two junior college football teams in Arizona and three in the Western States Football League: Eastern Arizona College in Thatcher, Arizona Western College in Yuma and Snow College in central Utah.

Without Pima and the Maricopa schools, Eastern and Western will have to travel farther to compete. In June, Eastern announced plans for a "careful review" of football to see if a schedule is viable and if the sport can operate within budget beyond 2018.

The move to eliminate JUCO football in Arizona comes as the sport, in general, is under increased scrutiny as more studies show links between football and brain problems. Already, participation is down among high-school students nationally and in Arizona — partly because of concerns over injuries, athletic officials said.

'It’s an educational institution'

Risk and cost aside, Maricopa football is not going down without a fight.

A grassroots group is pushing to save the sport, including a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #savejcfootball. They are also pushing to shift the balance of power on the college district's governing board, hoping to elect four candidates sympathetic to football in the Nov. 6 election.

Attorneys filed a complaint in early August with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights on behalf of 22 Maricopa players, alleging cutting football violates federal law because it adversely affects African-American students, who make up 62 percent of the rosters. The department is evaluating the complaint but hasn't said yet whether it will investigate.

RELATED: Maricopa Community Colleges to eliminate football

Football supporters say college officials used false or misleading statements to justify killing the program. They aren't buying the argument that the sport was eliminated for financial reasons, not when cutting football is estimated to save $989,000 a year and the college district projects $682 million in general-fund revenue this year, or about $11 million more than last year.

"They’re trying to turn this into a business. It’s not a business. It’s an educational institution,” said Louis Casillas, a retired dentist who played football at Mesa Community College and is advocating to save the program.

In response to questions from The Arizona Republic, the district released a one-paragraph statement saying the decision to eliminate football was an operational decision made by district administrators after consulting with college presidents. "We will support our players, coaches and staff through this final season, and we will honor the scholarships of our players through the Spring 2019 semester," the statement said.

A district spokesman said Maricopa Chancellor Maria Harper-Marinick was busy with the start of the fall semester and unavailable for an interview.

Governing Board President Laurin Hendrix told The Republic he supports the administration's decision and has not heard any opposition from board members.

"Our mission as a community college is to educate people. It's not to train football players," he said. "If they play football while they are getting an education, that’s great. But our mission is to educate."

Last Chance U?

Temperatures hovered in the triple digits at Mesa Community College on a recent Monday night as players practiced drills on a grassy field. Hip-hop music blasted from speakers. Shrill whistles pierced the air along with shouts of "Go get 'em" and "Move!"

JUCO teams bring together a mix of backgrounds: players not big enough, fast enough, strong enough or mature enough for Division 1. Some who have struggled in the classroom. And others who have attended big schools but "bounced back" to JUCO because their grades or athletic abilities need work.

JUCO football doesn't draw the revenue, attention or prestige of Division 1 college football. But it's a key pipeline for athletes who want to play football at major universities.

About 65 to 70 percent of the Maricopa players are from Arizona, the rest from out of state.

RELATED: Pima College in Tucson to drop football program

Thanks to the popularity of the Netflix documentary "Last Chance U," it's fair to say more people than ever before understand what the acronym "JUCO" means.

"It just opens so many doors for people," said Joe Kersting, a former head football coach at Glendale Community College, who is leading the fight to save the sport.

Former Glendale player Kevin Cary, 48, credits JUCO football with opening doors for him.

He grew up in a single-parent household in Maryvale, one of 10 children. By the time he was born, his mother had lost the family's home. She and the four children still living with her moved into a mobile home.

A natural athlete, Cary played football at Trevor Browne High School, where he was recruited by many out-of-state junior colleges. But the partial scholarships they offered weren't enough to cover costs.

Cary and his mother decided he would live at home and attend Glendale Community College on a football scholarship. The team won the national championship in 1988, his sophomore year. In January of his sophomore year, Temple University recruited him on a full scholarship.

"My mom used to say to me, 'Use football to get your education. Your football will end. You have to have something to live on.' "

Cary followed her advice. He majored in health marketing and management and today works with 1,400 doctors as a physician coordinator for a major health-care system in Pennsylvania.

He considers himself a success, thanks largely to JUCO football giving him a start.

How football landed on the chopping block

The move to eliminate football has its roots in a strategic plan to transform the 10-college Maricopa system into a national leader in higher education.

To do that, district officials are focusing on student academic success. They want more students to complete degrees or certificates, and they want more to transfer to four-year schools after junior college.

To fund what is known as "the transformation," district officials and governing board members are also looking for efficiencies.

A March 2017 position paper written by Jeffrey Darbut, vice president of administrative services at Mesa Community College, offered several recommendations. Among them: to eliminate all athletic programs.

Darbut estimated the district could save $12.5 million a year by getting rid of athletics. Another $25 million to $75 million could be raised by selling the athletic land and buildings.

The report said athletics is "viewed by many faculty members as not contributing to the college mission" and that "there are no student outcomes to support the enormous cost of the athletic programs."

The document has become known by critics as the "Darbut manifesto" because the governing board has already implemented some recommendations.

Football is the only sport that is being eliminated after 2018.

Also, in May 2017, a college-district task force that had been reviewing athletics determined football players had the lowest grade-point averages, the second-lowest retention rates and the second-highest student-loan default rates of all sports. Football had the highest operating costs, the report said, and highest insurance claims.

Eliminating football would save $770,000 a year and another $219,000 in insurance premiums, a report said.

"The high risk of catastrophic physical injury, low levels of student success and high cost to maintain football teams outweigh the intrinsic value of participation in the sport," the report concluded. "The recommendation is made to eliminate these teams."

In October 2017, the chancellor announced football would remain in place and be re-evaluated in 2018-19.

Football supporters breathed a sign of relief.

But the relief was short-lived when in early February, college employees received an email just before college-football signing day. The district had made a difficult decision, the email said: Football will be eliminated following the 2018 season.

How accurate were statistics cited to kill the program?

Football advocates say the district used incomplete or misleading statistics, in some cases, to justify getting rid of the sport.

Take fall-to-fall student retention, which measures whether students who play football return to the Maricopa district the following fall. A school wants retention to be as high as possible, because students who come back are more likely to earn a degree or certificate.

Half of football players don't return the next fall, the second-lowest rate of all college sports behind men's soccer.

But football supporters say this statistic is misleading because it gives the impression that all of those players drop out. Retention rates fail to take into consideration a key goal of JUCO — for players to get scholarships from university teams.

Consider 22-year-old Juan Giraldo. He wouldn't count toward the fall-to-fall retention rate because he spent a semester at Mesa Community College in fall 2014 but was recruited the next semester to Eastern Michigan University, where he played football for three years as a safety.

He said his tuition was covered by athletic scholarships at Mesa and Eastern Michigan. He graduated this spring with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Without the scholarships, he wouldn't have attended a four-year school, he said.

Also a matter of dispute: the projected cost to maintain and improve football facilities.

The district said that ongoing costs to maintain football programs "could exceed $20 million" in capital improvements. But this figure is an estimate that came up in a meeting; there is no written report that details projected costs.

Football supporters say athletic facilities such as stadiums will still need to be maintained and improved even if football ends because other sports teams use them.

Football advocates also take issue with the task force's conclusions that eliminating the sport will save about $989,000 a year. That figure fails to take into account tuition paid by football players who aren't on scholarships.

Nor does it account for the scholarships that players earn to four-year universities. Mesa Community College players have earned about $1.1 million a year in scholarships from other universities for each of the last three years, according to Ryan Felker, Mesa's football coach.

The college district declined to answer specific questions that The Republic posed about data in the athletic report.

Hendrix, the governing-board president, said he has not read the report but said the chancellor briefed him on it. He said a mixture of facts — financial, risk of injury, insurance concerns — supported eliminating football.

"Unfortunately, there's a group that feels football is necessary to go to college. I don't agree with that point," he said.

Nov. 6 election could decide football's fate

Arizona State University announced it was dropping three sports from its NCAA roster in 2008 — men's tennis, wrestling and men's swimming — because of state budget cuts. But the decision was made by university officials, not by the Arizona Board of Regents who set policy for the universities.

Wrestling and men's swimming were saved via fundraising. Men's tennis was cut and returned in 2017-18 because of donations from the athletic director and the Adidas sportswear company.

Similarly, the decision to eliminate football never came before the Maricopa Community Colleges Governing Board and such a decision doesn't require a board vote.

Hendrix, the board president, said he has not received any requests from board members to discuss football at a board meeting. "I think the administration made a good decision, and I support the decision they made. I don't see it coming (to the board)," he said.

An email exchange between governing-board members on Oct. 20, 2017, shows at least one current board member opposed football. In the email to board President Hendrix, Chancellor Harper-Marinick asks for clarification on where fellow board member Jean McGrath stands on football:

"Is she in favor of keeping football or eliminating? It is not prudent to take that one on at this time, (in) my professional and political judgement," the chancellor wrote.

Hendrix responded: "Ms. McGrath's hot buttons at the moment are sabbaticals, travel, union memberships and most recently football. If we give her victories to give to her supporters, it will keep her on board for the bigger agenda, namely the transformation," Hendrix wrote, referring to the district's strategic plan. "The ball that we need to keep our eye on is the transformation. This other stuff is window dressing but we need it so that the board members can share their list of victories with their supporters and remain supportive for the bigger picture."

Hendrix told The Republic he wrote the "candid" email to the chancellor as a preview of issues that were going to come up. He said he wasn't passionately in favor of or opposed to football.

McGrath told The Republic the college district can't afford football. "I'm not in favor of it going away, but ... it was a financial decision."

McGrath said she is especially concerned about liability if players are injured and sue. The NFL is being sued by former players who suffered concussions, and attorneys representing the players estimated that payouts from a settlement could top $1.4 billion, according to the Associated Press.

"I don’t see how any educational institution can afford football," McGrath said.

But football advocates are hoping to save the sport by throwing their support behind four candidates running in the Nov. 6 board election who they hope will be sympathetic to reviewing the decision.

Four seats are open on the seven-member board with only two incumbents, McGrath and Augustine Bartning, running for re-election. Football supporters are backing challengers Tom Nerini, Stan Arterberry, Marie Sullivan and Roc Arnett.

Arterberry is the sole candidate running against incumbent McGrath, whose District 4 includes the Sun City area.

Arterberry told The Republic he hasn't committed to saving the sport. But if elected, he wants the board to review in a public meeting the data that went into the decision to eliminate football.

"Having said all that, I support athletics for students," said Arterberry, who attended college on a football scholarship.

"Because of football, I stayed in school, I passed my courses and most important graduated," he said.

Did a football coach go too far?

The rhetoric surrounding the football debate has become heated at times.

Hendrix, the board president, said he received in March a threat via Twitter from Scottsdale Community College football coach Doug Madoski.

Madoski had responded to questions on Twitter about the decision to eliminate football.

The March 2 tweet said, "My mom taught me patience is a virtue and my dad taught me that when battling the king you only get one shot...make sure you kill him before he kills you. No need for other schools to panic I'm pretty calculated as are the others fighting this fight. Patience is a virtue."

Hendrix said he interpreted the tweet as "when they refer to killing the king, I'm the president of the board. I have to think that might be me."

Madoski told The Republic the tweet was taken out of context, adding that he would never threaten anyone.

"The 'king' is not relating to an actual person or Mr. Hendrix," he said. "It was simply ... this is a large group of things, an ideological purpose, that we're confronted with now ... Be patient."

Is JUCO football on the decline?

Most of the country's 1,500 community colleges don't offer football. The sport exists in pockets with a strong, decades-long football tradition.

California has by far the most JUCO teams, with 68 belonging to the California Community College Athletic Association.

Another 66 are part of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), with six states fielding six or more football teams: Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, New York and Mississippi.

NJCCA Executive Director Christopher Parker said the number of schools sponsoring football has remained relatively steady over the last decade, plus or minus five schools.

Among the junior colleges that have cut football since 2010: Rock Valley College, Joliet Junior College and Harper College, all in Illinois, and Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan. All of the schools cited financial reasons.

Over the next decade, Parker predicts, "I don’t see a huge influx of schools adding and I don’t see a huge number of schools dropping."

He said he's been approached by some two-year colleges considering adding football as a way to boost enrollment. But he declined to name them until the schools make their decisions.

Concern over injuries

Participation in high-school football is on the decline, nationally and in Arizona, in part because of concern over head injuries, officials said.

The National Federation of State High School Associations reports participation is down 3 percent in the last five years, with about a million students playing the sport.

Football participation in Arizona declined from about 22,000 five years ago, to about 19,900 in the 2017-18 school year, said David Hines, executive director of the Arizona Interscholastic Association.

Hines said he's unaware of any large high schools that plan to drop the sport. He is seeing some smaller schools eliminate freshman teams because of a lack of interest.

"With the national attention on concussions, there are parents or kids that have said, 'You know what? I'm not going to play,' " he said.

The Maricopa colleges task force called football "the most risky of the intercollegiate sports" offered by the schools. The task force's report cited a 2007 study in the Journal of Athletic Training that analyzed 16 years of NCAA data and found football had the highest injury rate compared with other intercollegiate sports.

At Maricopa colleges, football injuries in 2014 accounted for 51 percent of injury-related insurance claims.

College officials have taken steps to make football safer, which has resulted in fewer sports-related claims, the report said. But that comes at a cost.

One of Maricopa's former JUCO players, former NFL running back Charlie Garner, recently went public with his health struggles.

The former Scottsdale Community College player revealed last year, at age 45, that doctors believe he is dealing with symptoms of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease found in athletes who have suffered repetitive brain trauma.

Garner played pro football for 11 years for the Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

"I don't have all my faculties anymore," Garner told sportingnews.com. "I can't remember things. When I go to the mall or grocery store, I have to take one of my kids with me to remember where the car is parked. I have trouble remembering conversations I had five minutes ago. Bright lights bother me. I just don't feel right all the time."

Ernie Renfro's son, 18-year-old Trevor, played football at Centennial High School and is on Mesa Community College's team this fall on the offensive line, at center and guard positions.

Renfro reflected on the increased scrutiny of football injuries as he watched the team practice on a recent night.

"I don't worry about it," he said. "I think they've gotten better with the helmets and equipment and the safety rules. Can it happen? Yes. But it can happen with everything you do."

Students try to focus, not lose hope

Amid the ongoing debate over the future of Maricopa football, players are preparing for their first games of the season. Mesa faces Phoenix College and Scottsdale takes on Glendale on Saturday night.

With football expected to go away next year, the push to land scholarships to Division 1 schools has never been greater. Those who get scholarships won't have to worry about the future.

Mesa has sent 88 players to Division 1 schools on football scholarships during the last six years, and a total of 169 players on to four-year colleges overall.

Ivory Williams is a 19-year-old, red-shirt freshman safety from Tempe.

Without a football scholarship, he said he has no way to pay for college. He has already turned down partial-scholarship offers from Division 2 schools because he can't afford it.

He hopes to secure a scholarship to a four-year school. He and other players are also hopeful that Maricopa college-district officials may reconsider their decision and keep the sport.

There are no guarantees on either.

Unless something changes, Maricopa football scholarships end after the spring semester.

And the stadium lights will go dark.

Reach the reporter at 602-444-8072 or anne.ryman@arizonarepublic.com.