1999-2007: NEC Affiliation and Scholarship Football
Stony Brook entered Division I football in 1999 participating in the Northeast Conference until 2006. Continued growth of the program was assured with the construction of the Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium. The Seawolves had a hard time on the field struggling over the span of three seasons with sub .500 records. The 2002 season coincided with the opening season of the stadium and the Seawolves posted their best winning season under the NEC banner with an 8-2 overall record, an a 5-2 record against the NEC with a total of over 27,000 fans attending their opening season. However, the Seawolves weren't able to replicate their inaugural year's success and fell on hard times the following two seasons winning only nine of twenty games. The 2005 season was the last season under Sam Kornhauser, rewarded with the program's first NEC co-championship after a 6-4, 5-2 NEC season.
The desire to offer scholarship football climaxed in 2005 and the decision was taken among administrators to transition the Seawolves to full funding status. The 2006 year would mark the beginning of a new era in Stony Brook football. Scholarships were offered in football for the first time, part of an ambitious plan to transition the program to full scholarship funding. Chuck Priore took over the reins of the program and with the support of the department awarded the equivalent of 27 scholarships to 38 player for the initial season. This same year efforts to market Stony Brook Seawolves football to a bigger audience intensified and for the first time the Seawolves were to be fully broadcasted over the airwaves on the campus radio station, 90.1 WUSB FM, and through a parallel online stream at WUSB.FM. A Sunday night talk show with Chuck Priore was initiated on the radio followed by weekly letters "From the Coaches Corner" released in the athletic website. The season also witnessed a much tougher schedule than the previous years with Hofstra, #1 New Hampshire, and #9 Massachusetts, and Georgetown all scheduled to play. As a result, the four initial games of the season were lost but the Seawolves came back to win four straight in conference play before losing their title hopes to Central Connecticut to end the season 5-6, 5-2 in the Northeast.
The Seawolves departed from the Northeast Conference despite signing a contract extension through 2010, largely due to the NEC imposed limit of 30 scholarships and the desire to increment scholarship allowance to 63, the maximum allowed by the NCAA. The program participated in 2007 as an independent taking advantage of independence to increase scholarships offerings and to schedule higher-caliber unconventional teams like #20 Richmond, #6 Youngstown State, #14 Hofstra, #24 Elon, and Maine while also scheduling previous conference rivals Central Connecticut, Albany, Monmouth, and Bryant. The Seawolves also played against Patriot League members Bucknell and Georgetown. The 2007 season ended with 6-5 record and the announcement of Stony Brook joining the Big South Conference with full sixty-three scholarship funding.
Read more about this topic: Stony Brook Seawolves Football, History
Famous quotes containing the words affiliation, scholarship and/or football:
“Women will not advance except by joining together in cooperative action.... Unlike other groups, women do not need to set affiliation and strength in opposition one against the other. We can readily integrate the two, search for more and better ways to use affiliation to enhance strength—and strength to enhance affiliation.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)