It's September, time for the spectacle of big-time college football. Increasingly in North Carolina, it's the season of small-time college football, too. Gridiron fever is growing in North Carolina, where colleges large and small are rushing into the costly sport. They are tapping alumni donations, building stadiums, hiring coaches and raising student fees. They are not in it for bowl games or money. They see football as a quintessential college experience and a recruiting tool to lure today's college students, who want amenities and entertainment.

UNC-Pembroke just kicked off its new program. Campbell University will add football next fall, and UNC-Charlotte is spending $150,000 to study the idea. Shaw University and St. Augustine's College revived the sport in 2002 after decades of absence. And Elon, Winston-Salem State and N.C. Central universities moved up to Division I in the past few years, in search of name recognition and a spot on ESPN's ticker.

Others say they have no plans to take the field, despite pressure from alumni and students. "We have 19 sports that are under-funded," said UNC-Wilmington Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo. "We'd like to get them up before we think about football. Although I keep telling people, 'The moment I get that $50 million check. ...' "

Football, with its large rosters, scholarship budgets and big-ticket facilities, can be risky. It is the most expensive sport to operate, yet more than 100 colleges and universities have added the sport in the past 20 years, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Dan Fulks, a research consultant for the NCAA who analyzes college sports spending, said fewer than 20 Division I universities make money on athletics. In Division IA, 56 percent of football teams make money, with an average profit of $11.5 million, and the rest lose an average of $2.5 million.

But in Division II, Fulks said, no school makes a profit on sports. The average deficit is $3.5 million overall and $745,000 in football. About two-thirds of the athletics budgets at these schools comes from the universities themselves. Only 3 percent comes from ticket sales and 6 percent from boosters; the rest is from student fees.

"You don't do it for financial reasons," said Fulks, an accounting professor at Transylvania University, which dropped its football program in the 1940s. "There are reasons to play football, or nobody would do it. The problem is, the benefits are intrinsic, and it's really difficult to measure."

Without football, Suitcase U

At UNC-Pembroke, football is one way to attract students and keep them happy, said Chancellor Allen Meadors, who argued passionately to add the sport over initial opposition by the UNC Board of Governors. Without football, he said, UNCP was often a suitcase school on weekends.

"We're in a rural town of 2,700," he said. "There is absolutely nothing for students to do off campus. If we don't provide activities, it's just not there."

Last weekend, in a revival of a long-dead program, the UNC-Pembroke Braves stormed onto the home field for the first time in 56 years. The students did the wave and reveled in pre-game tailgating outside the sold-out stadium.

"It was just a huge sense of community," gushed Student Government Vice President Barry Burch Jr. of Raleigh after the team's win over Greensboro College. "Everyone was smiling."

Unlike UNCP, UNC-Charlotte doesn't lack for weekend activities. The school of 22,000 is in the middle of a city with countless cultural and entertainment options, including several professional sports teams. But that presents another problem: Would enough people stay on campus to support 49er football?

That's the question an advisory committee is pondering. Annual costs could reach $10 million, said UNCC Chancellor Philip Dubois, a former University of Wyoming president who is very familiar with big football. Dubois goes into the debate somewhat skeptically, though he says he will keep an open mind until he gets hard data from the study next year.

"I certainly know how expensive they can be," he said. "They're great for alumni support and school spirit when you win, not so good when you lose."

UNCC doesn't need football to attract students. The university had 15,000 applications this year for the freshman class. And the recruiting advantage appears to be a myth. "When you survey people about picking a school," Dubois said, "football really isn't on the list."

Poll: 78% want it

But the customers want it, according to a recent poll of 8,300 students by the UNCC student government association. Seventy-eight percent said they would support a fee increase to pay for football, though the level of support varied depending on how big the fee would be.

"It just reinforced the view that students leave on the weekends and go to other schools that have football," said Justin Ritchie of Salisbury, student body president. He said many of his high school friends chose N.C. State partly because of football.

At Campbell University in Buies Creek, 110 players are already practicing for their debut next fall. The school has had to add locker rooms, practice facilities and game fields, along with more staff for training, tutoring and compliance. One thing the school won't add is football scholarships, said the athletics director, Stan Williamson.

"It was the most financially feasible route we could go and still feel like we have a positive impact on our students," he said.

Some schools that already had football are spending money to climb the ladder to Division I status.

Bill Hayes, athletics director at N.C. Central, said the move up has spread the university's name far and wide. This weekend, the school's team will travel to the Urban League Classic in Giants Stadium in New York. Along with that, the school gets to participate in college fairs that draw prospective students from New York and New Jersey. The university will also venture into new recruiting territory this year in Georgia and Kentucky.

"One week, we're in New York, recruiting, in the sports page, on the NCAA Division I ticker for 48 hours over the weekend, and all of a sudden, kids and parents start noticing us that never knew we existed before," Hayes said. "And all of a sudden, we get a better student because there's more variety, there's more numbers to select from."

Football visibility doesn't automatically attract applicants. Elon's admissions dean, Greg Zaiser, said the university has seen no appreciable difference in applications or students' qualifications that could be traced to the move to Division I.

Wanted: more men

And then there is the benefit schools want but don't like to talk about: attracting more male students. Fifty-seven percent of the nation's college students are women. St. Augustine's President Dianne Boardley Suber said her college is bucking the trend with 55 percent men on campus; the college plans to study the trend to see whether it is related to football.

UNC-Pembroke officials say starting football wasn't as much about boosting male interest as it was about providing students with social activity. But Meadors of UNCP points out, "All universities are having problems with male-female ratio. Obviously football can't hurt that."

Students at UNCP are footing the bill for the university's football foray. Two years ago, their athletic fees increased $140 and now stand at $547 annually -- the second-highest in the UNC system. Some weren't sure the higher costs to students was worth it.

Hannah Gage, a member of the UNC Board of Governors, voted for the fee increase reluctantly. "It was with the assurance from the chancellor, the coach and the board of trustees that they wouldn't come knocking on our door asking for money for a new building," she said.

But Meadors came knocking again this year with a request for $2 million for a stadium addition. Gage voted no, but the measure passed.

Fulks, the NCAA consultant, said sometimes programs from smaller schools in Division I survive financially by playing big-time teams that are willing to shell out money to have a likely win on the schedule. "I call them body bag games," Fulks said.

Appalachian State University received $400,000 from the University of Michigan to play at the Big House in Ann Arbor. It proved to be an expensive and humiliating loss for Michigan and a once-in-a-lifetime victory for Appalachian. ASU has quadrupled its revenues from sales of logo items in two years, after it won back-to-back national championships in the former Division I-AA.

Now everyone else is envious of the Mountaineers' success.

"It is exciting, and it's so easy to get wrapped up in it," Gage said. "Whether it's contagious, we'll see."

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