Monarch Football & Rookie Pitchers

REALITY -- Old Dominion University held a press conference on Thursday announcing the start of a football program (still three years away). As a new student at ODU, and as one that has really enjoyed their basketball program I am looking forward to this new addition to west Norfolk.
ODU will be joining the new CAA football league (division I-AA). The CAA was made famous this spring in the success of the George Mason Patriots on the hard court. It's a conference that's origin was in the second tier division one schools in Virginia and North Carolina. Schools that wanted to play at a division one level but weren't able to (and weren't interested in) putting the resources together that would allow them to compete with the big dogs of the ACC. During the late 90's and early 2000's though the CAA lost some important participants (east carolina and my alma mater University of Richmond). In an effort to increase revenue for this non football playing conference they quickly lost their original identiry and added teams in NYC (Hofstra) Philly (Drexel) and Atlanta (Georgia Southern).
The naysayers correctly point to the fact that I-AA football never makes money. It also may sap resources from the STRONG mid major basketball programs at ODU. I'm one that thinks there is hidden revenue that isn't charted. Current ODU alumni are distanced from their, then, commuter school ODU. Host a real homecomming and tailgate before saturday football? My guess is the larger amount of alumni returnin to campus will see the 'new' ODU (monorail and all) and open up a bigger checkbook. This may not be on the ledger for the I-AA football but it's football revenue all the same to me. The only question I have about the start will be what sweatshirt I wear the first time UR Spiders travel to Norfolk to play the Monarchs.

FANTASY -- I am currently leading my primary fantasy baseball league by a very slim margin. I did the very hard thing this week of trading away a player I also happen to root for in real life. Justin Verlander pitched for ODU and I took great pride in following his QUICK assension up the minors and to the Detroit Tigers. He's been light's out this spring and has joined the Tigers in a resurgent success. However, fantasy is fantasy and the reality is rookie pitchers are generally NOT ready for the rigors of a 162 game magor league schedule (minors play about 140 and college dramatically less). It is my guess that Justin will hit a wall at some point and either get injured or wear out letting people start hitting his fastball. Add to that the fact Detroit is playing over themselves (even though a quality team) and it was the right time to trade him for max value. Tune in in September to see how this worked out...