Sprint Football: Football The Light Way

In 2006, Mansfield University, an NCAA Div. ll school in Mansfield, PA, dropped its football program as part of a huge slash of budget cuts of up to $1.5 million. Mansfield finished the 2006 season without winning a game. The team hadn't even scored a touchdown in quite some time. Mansfield University President Maravene Loeschke looked at every other alternative she could to keep the program. "I consulted with every one in the world before a made my decision," Loeschke said. "But the bottom line was that if we could not do this well, then we should not do it at all".

However, a year later, Mansfield was back to playing football: Sprint Football. It's football played by lightweight players weighing no more than 172 lbs. It is a sanctioned Varsity sport by the NCAA and six colleges: Army, Navy, Cornell, Princeton, Pennsylvania and the newest member, Mansfield. These six schools make up the Collegiate Sprint Football League (CSFL).

Steve Murray, the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference of which Mansfield is a member, asked MU Sports Information Director Steve McCloskey if he had ever heard of Sprint Football. Murray had seen a piece about it in an NFL Films special.
Sprint Football was founded in the 1930s by the President of the University of Pennsylvania. He wanted to make sure that smaller, talented athletes got a chance to play football. A league was founded in 1934 and it was called the Eastern 150 lb. Football League and it consisted of Cornell, Lafayette, Penn, Princeton, Yale, Villanova and Rutgers. In 1998, the CSFL added the term "Sprint" to describe the speed and quickness of the athletes.

Rutgers, Villanova, Lafayette and Yale would move on to play only conventional football. Navy later joined the CSFL, but the athletes grew as the league shrank. Therefore, the league capped the wight limit to 172 lbs. According to Mansfield SID Steve McCloskey, the same passion and fire that you see with conventional football is the same: "The biggest question you get is are there 11 players per side and if they wear pads and helmets", McCloskey said. "But once you watch it for 10 minutes, you don't see size. You see talented kids playing football. There's the same excitement and pride from these players about running on to the field and representing their school. The only difference is that if you're a 170 lb. kid, you're considered a big guy on the team."

Mansfield's Matt Gant, a wide receiver on the Sprint Football Team, made a catch on a 10-yard slant pattern during a drive that ended with RB Desmen Johnson scoring one of his two touchdowns to lead the Mounties of Mansfield to a 26-14 win over Princeton this past Saturday. This was a far cry from when Gant was a Freshman three years ago. He served as Manager on the football team. Last Saturday, he caught 7 catches for 90 yards as a starting wide receiver. He is also the team's Punter.Gant said that his punts weren't as good as he had hoped for, but that he made up for it with a few receptions. Think about it. If it hadn't been for the inception of Sprint Football, Matt Gant, and several other current players, might not be playing any kind of college football at all.

Sr. Solomon Isom plays Free Safety for the Mounties. He was extremely disappointed that Mansfield dropped its Division ll Football Program, but now realizes the Sprint Football was the best thing for Mansfield. "After doing my own research about it, I knew that Sprint Football would be a more manageable alternative for the University" Isom said. "It's not Division ll Football, but it's something, and something is better than nothing. Everyone is excited about this program."

Sprint Football is apparently much less costly and more cost-effective than traditional football. Now realizing what I (the blogger) now know, I'm surprised that more schools, especially small schools like Mansfield, don't have Sprint Football. This is a very viable option for schools that don't have the funds to field a regular football team. Since all the players on Sprint Football teams are lightweights, that's less pounding and wear and tare on the field. This also gives opportunities for student-athletes who are not big enough to play conventional College Football a chance to experience College Football the "light" way, a type of football that is at their level. Information in this article was obtained from an article written by Gary Brown in NCAA Champion Magazine. You can access that article by going to www.ncaachampionmagazine.com.