The call has been made. Football is cancelled. Now, in the wake of that decision, the same Maricopa County Community College District that went back on its word to delay a decision about the future of its football programs until 2019, is struggling to provide honest answers to questions regarding the reasons, timing, and justification for that choice- and in doing so, pushing local media members to issue unnecessary retractions.
Since ArizonaVarsity.com broke the news that MCCCD would be ending football programs at Glendale, Mesa, Phoenix and Scottsdale Community Colleges, a groundswell of attention surrounding the issue has come forth in the form of media attention, social media activity, and even online petitions. The responsibility for the reaction to the attention has primarily fallen in the lap of Communications Director Matthew Hasson, who was hired in May of 2017, a few days after the initial story about the potential cancellation of JuCo Football in Maricopa County had already been addressed in the media. Hasson came to MCCCD from a career in the U.S. Air Force, and according to the Maricopa.edu website, had an extensive background in communications and public relations.
The many interviews Hasson has given over the course of the last two weeks have provided critics, as well as those with a knowledge of the inner workings of Maricopa County Junior College football, plenty of ammunition with which to question current MCCCD chancellor Dr. Maria Harper-Marinick and others on the decision they have made. While many of those statements made by Hasson, such as JuCo football scholarships only being $350 per semester, provide cause for further review, none have been as inflammatory as his statement that Community College football players "are not there for the education," a statement that Hasson subsequently denied making when asking Glendale Star/Peoria Times reporter Darrell Jackson for a retraction and apology- a request that Jackson acquiesced to.
However, in an interview with AZFamily's Derek Staahl, MCCCD Communications director Matt Hasson said exactly that. His direct quote, which had been broadcast on 3TV a short time after the cut was announced, was "(Football players) are in and out of the schools and are not there for the education, and when you spend the money we spend, we want to focus on the collective community."
Hasson claimed that Darrell Jackson had been quoting someone else, and mistakenly attributed the quote to Hasson. He then used the official MCCCD Twitter account to thank Jackson for correcting a story that had been correct all along. No one from MCCCD, including Hasson himself, has publicly acknowledged lying to Darrell Jackson to have the quote removed from the story, and at the time of the publication of this article, the tweet thanking Jackson for correcting a story that was never incorrect to begin with, has yet to be deleted.
While it is well within the rights of MCCCD to make, as well as defend, the decision to eliminate football at its schools, the explanations for doing so deserve scrutiny- especially when those explanations include reasoning that paints JuCo football players as students that aren't worthy of the same consideration as others. Let's take a look at some of the things MCCCD representatives have claimed in the media thus far, and see how they hold up upon further review:
"Our stadium, Matt O. Hanhila Field, is in dire need of repair and would exceed $23 million to bring into compliance and repair of various plumbing problems and upgrades.” -Interim Glendale Community College President Terry Leyba Ruiz
While nothing has been produced to prove out that these repairs are actually necessary, or that the cost estimate is accurate, it also has yet to be addressed what Glendale Community College is going to do about its track and soccer programs if these repairs don't happen, nor have they promised that those repairs will happen for the benefit of the other sports if football is cancelled. So which is it?
The zeroing out of state funding for capital improvements means MCCCD could have to come up with $20-30 million to support football over the next 3-5 years.
Matt Hasson told Mark Carlisle of YourValley.net that “When you can make a decision and spend $20 million on 200,000 students, which is our student population, versus 300, we’ve got to make very difficult decisions.”
Aside from the fact that I was told by Chief Marketing Officer Rob Schwing that state funding levels would not factor in to any decision about the future of football when this story broke last May, this central claim to the reason for the discontinuation of football posits several unanswered questions. What capital improvements? Are they necessary? Have they been priced out by contractors? Why the discrepancy in potential money and years? Do these capital improvements only affect football? Will other sports suffer without them? Does the $20-30 million exist in any current budget? If so, has that money already been allocated to helping other students? Have any considerations been given to strategies that would greatly reduce the potential need for this funding besides outright cancellation?
Students aren't getting the necessary materials in classrooms because of the expense of football.
Hasson told Jason Skoda of mynewsmesa.com the following:
“We have quite a few programs that were struggling in our district. If we can’t make improvements and get the technology updated, get our professors the materials they need then our entire student population is hurt.
It wasn’t an easy decision and we looked at all of our options. There are 530 NJCAA schools in the country and there is a reason only 65 have football programs. It doesn’t bring in revenue and it was clearly cost effective.”
This again begs the question of how the reallocation of the nearly $800,000 per year that sponsoring football costs MCCCD will happen? If Hasson going to go to the level of appealing to the public Pathos at the behest of his superiors within MCCCD, should we not also be given an explanation of exactly where MCCCD has been failing to provide for its students, as well as an example of how reallocated funds will alleviate the burdens created by having to fund football in the first place?
At the end of the day, Matt Hasson is simply a spokesperson for a district that unanimously voted to eliminate football and increase the percentage of Junior Colleges without a football program to nearly 90. Matt Hasson didn't vote to eliminate football, and he didn't reject an appeal from private businessmen to attempt to alleviate some of the cost of football within the district to save the programs. The district did those things. He is, however, paid to defend those decisions, and in doing so, has made several statements that are cause for concern and demand further clarification- especially regarding the district's attitude about football players in general, and the truth about the cost projections for continuing football, and how those funds, if they exist, will be allocated to help MCCCD's students.
In May of 2017, Maricopa Community College’s interim executive vice chancellor and provost Paul Dale told KTAR that community college leaders want to hear from members of the community in regards to this issue. “Given the magnitude of this decision, Dale said. "This is not something we take lightly.”
Nine months later, amidst a flip-flop from October of 2017 to February of 2018, Community College football coaches have largely been muzzled, and questions from the community have done little more than illicit unclear, inconsistent, sometimes insulting responses from MCCCD.
If it is indeed true that this is the end of JuCo football in Maricopa County, and as Mark Carlisle quotes Matt Hasson- 'there’s nothing the public can do to change the district’s decision,' the least MCCCD and Matt Hasson can do is give Darrell Jackson an apology.
And maybe then they can finally start giving those who question them an honest explanation.
