By this time next year, Mississippi University of Women will literally be back in the game.
Tuesday, Jason Trufant, the W’s new athletic director, updated the Columbus Rotary Club on the university’s progress in resuming collegiate sports, which were discontinued in 2003.
Sports will resume in the fall with men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball. Baseball, softball and cross-country will begin play in the spring of 2018. Six more sports, yet to be announced, will begin play during the 2018-19 school year.
Much work has been done leading up to those games, and much work remains, Trufant says. Certainly, The W has already hit some major milestones, including Trufant’s arrival as AD in June. As architect of the school’s new athletic program, Trufant has been busy identifying coaching candidates. Interviews for all six head coaching positions have been completed and the hires should be announced soon, he said. The school is also close to unveiling its re-designed logo and the sports teams will retain their original nickname, the Owls.
Although the games will begin in less than a year, the process for establishing collegiate sports will be a long one. Trufant said the NCAA certification process, which is needed for The W to join and compete in a conference, will take four to five years. So the sports we will see in the intervening years will feature limited schedules.
Although Trufant is the man in charge of returning sports to MUW, the effort is brainchild of university president Dr. Jim Borsig, who began talking about bringing back the sports programs almost since the day he arrived as The W’s 14th president in 2012.
Borsig has always recognized what sports brings to a university. In his view, sports enhance to campus environment for students, strengthen and build ties with alumni and the community and serve to market the university regionally, often in places where MUW is largely unknown.
The W has grown since Borsig’s arrival and sports is another means of broadening the university’s student recruiting efforts.
Although MUW will compete on the NCAA Division III level, which means there will be no athletic scholarships to fund, bringing back sports remains a costly proposition.
Coaches, facilities, equipment, travel, all require funding at a time when the Legislature, by choice — and, more recently, by necessity — is not inclined to open up the purse strings.
Trufant said the sports programs can be established with available funds on a very basic level, but there is little question that the school can achieve its goals.
These programs will need the financial support of alumni and the community. That may be a difficult task. Even the most optimistic must agree The W faces a challenge.
The decision to bring sports back to campus is a bold move, certainly.
And, we wish The W — rather, the Owls — every success in this endeavor.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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