Ga. State inches toward goal for football
School officials make progress, not committed yet

By BILL SANDERS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/08/07

Three-hundred and eighty thousands dollars down, a whole lot of dollars left to go.

That's where Georgia State finds itself as it progresses through the financial feasibility stage of starting a Division I-AA football program. Is athletics director Mary McElroy worried about the daunting challenge of raising a couple million dollars to show the president and student-fees committee how doable this is?

You bet she is.

"I would've liked to be further along by now, maybe at a half million," McElroy said. "But we're still encouraged that this can happen. If all the stars align, we thought 2010 was possible. But there's no timetable that's in stone. If it doesn't happen by 2010, maybe 2011, or 2012."

McElroy isn't about to give up. She still thinks its more likely than not they'll have the funds pledged to make the case to the president's office, who is inclined to go forward too, if the backing is there.

The Panthers, who play in the Colonial Athletics Association, hired Dan Reeves earlier this year to serve as consultant and chief fundraiser for football. Reeves, the former Falcons coach, has indicated he'd be willing to do just about anything Georgia State needed from him — including coaching.

Right now, though, he has been spending most of his time hitting up deep-pocketed potential donors.

"This is new to me, but I think it's positive where we are," Reeves said. "I think there's no question that the next three months will be crucial. After July, August and September, I'd say we'll be able to tell whether or not this is a go."

McElroy said most of the pledges have come from first-time donors.

"We have 118,000 alumni in Georgia, about 90,000 of those in Atlanta," she said. "The first-time donations we've gotten signals an interest that we've not seen before. We've kind of relied on 20 or so donors in the past. I know we won't get money from every one of those 118,000, but if we could get $50 or $100 from them all, we'd be well on our way."

But just as quickly as McElroy starts to get excited, she come back down to earth. The prospects of starting a program remain as daunting as ever.

"We have no mandate to do this," she said. "I'm encouraged by some things, Dan is, but I think he'd agree that is been more challenging than either of us thought. A lot of people who say they are intrigued and interested are sitting back and waiting right now. We have to have $2 million to $3 million before we can go to the student fee committee."

Reeves is focusing his time on the other 89,980 Atlanta-based Georgia State alumni.

"Everyone I've talked to wants football," Reeves said. "No one is not excited about it. We just need to let people know how they can help."