2010 was supposed to be the year. It was the year set for the resurrection of the ETSU football program. But due to the student vote in April 2007, which vehemently opposed the comeback of the program, it was not to be.

About 58 percent of the students that voted decided not to add an extra $75 to their tuition in order to restore the program, which would have brought the athletic fee to $350 per year. However only 27 percent of the student body even cast a vote.

Now when strolling through the athletic hallways of the “Mini-Dome,” seeing all the pictures of former all-conference performers in different sports at ETSU, you would never notice that ETSU once fielded a football team for 80 years.

It’s when you walk into the heart of the Dome that you realize what use to be.

Noticing the scoreboards on both sides of what use to be end zones. Or the play-clocks that are still covered by nets to protect them from when field goals use to be kicked, in a stadium that was partly built to entice fans into supporting the ETSU football team.

But the Mini-Dome was not a good place to watch a football game.

Every time the players would run to the sidelines, fans were unable to see the play during its final moments.

The basketball team would often fill the football stadium to almost capacity, while the football team would draw nearly half that.

Not to mention the 26 losing seasons which ETSU had, and the more than one million dollars that the program was losing each year since 1999.

These factors and more forced President Stanton to cut the program at the end of the 2003 season.

ETSU fans were treated to some greatness while watching ETSU, but it often came from opposing players such as Randy Moss and Chad Pennington in 1996. They played for the eventual national champion Marshall.

Even that game did not sell out though with 13,313 fans attending, which was the largest crowd to watch an ETSU game in the dome.

Although ETSU football was not a total catastrophe, some alumni had prosperous careers in the NFL including Donnie Abraham, Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Mike Smith and Gerald Sensabaugh, who was forced to finish his career at the University of North Carolina after ETSU disbanded there football team his junior year.

Football was not the only thing that ETSU gave up when it cut the program. They were also forced to change athletic conferences.

Leaving a stronger conference, the Southern Conference, for a weaker all around conference in the Atlantic Sun.

But the move hasn’t completely abolished the idea of football returning; two schools in ETSU’s current conference have football teams, Jacksonville and Campbell.

They play in the Pioneer Football League, a league that only holds football. Kennesaw State has also formed a committee to try and put together a football team.

It’s easy to see why there was a lack of support for a struggling ETSU team, when 90 miles in either direction will take you to such powerhouse football schools as Tennessee and Virginia Tech.

So for now the only reminisce of what use to be are the banners hanging from the ceiling of the Mini-Dome celebrating the few glimpses of greatness by the ETSU football team.

Including the 1969 defeat of Terry Bradshaw’s acclaimed Louisiana Tech team in the Grantland Rice Bowl, in which the defense for ETSU sacked Bradshaw a staggering 12 times.

The other reminder of the Buccaneer football program is the artificial turf which sits neatly rolled beside the walls, waiting to be called on again.

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