FGCU: Forget about football

Everywhere he goes, people ask Wilson Bradshaw the same question: When is Florida Gulf Coast University going to get a football team?

Bradshaw is still basking from the glory of the school's basketball team reaching the NCAA Sweet 16 last year and earning Fort Myers the Dunk City moniker.

But he says football won't be a part of FGCU anytime soon. “Get it off your minds,” Bradshaw told a gathering of commercial real estate executives in Fort Myers recently.

There's no state money available for football, especially at a school with fewer than 20,000 students, he says. FGCU even did a feasibility study to examine the issue (you can read it here).

Still, Bradshaw says one day, when there are enough students and enough money from alumni with fat checkbooks, “football will happen at FGCU. It's not a question of if, but when.”

But Bradshaw got a good lesson in the impact of college sports. Last year, after FGCU's Eagles reached the Sweet 16, the school reported a 35% jump in applications for its freshman class and a 40% increase in applications from students outside the state.

This fall, FGCU will have an enrollment of 15,000 students and that will grow another 4% to 5% annually over the next five years. “We're bringing talent to the area,” Bradshaw says. Maybe the money will follow.