R.I. college football preview: Homecoming weekend showcases the promise of Bryant football

Saturday, October 3, 2009

BY MIKE SZOSTAK
Journal Sports Writer / www.projo.com

If you want to see why Bryant University president Ronald K. Machtley started a football program 10 years ago, make your way to Smithfield on Saturday for the 1 o'clock kickoff between the Bulldogs (2-1, 1-0 Northeast Conference) and Wagner (2-2, 1-0 NEC).

Unless inclement weather keeps the crowd down, more than 5,000 students, parents, friends and alumni will pack Bulldog Stadium and the nearby parking lots for Homecoming & Reunion Weekend. They will fire up their tailgate grills before the game, cheer the Bulldogs for 60 minutes and celebrate old friends and, they hope, another Bryant victory well into the evening.

This is the atmosphere Machtley found lacking when he became president in 1996. A star athlete in high school and quarterback of the lightweight football team at the U.S. Naval Academy in the late 1960s, Machtley knew what a well-run football program could do for a college. He knew that football energizes students and draws alumni back to campus in ways that soccer and field hockey never will. He knew that football makes headlines and highlight shows. And he knew that football would attract 100 young men to Bryant and fill dorm rooms that were empty in 1996.

The results have been impressive. Coach Jim Miceli got the program off the ground in 1999, and a crowd of 4,817 attended the first home game. For the next three years, at least one home game drew a crowd of more than 4,000. It wasn't unusual for Bryant to outdraw the University of Rhode Island.

Bryant football has been even better in the six seasons that coach Marty Fine has prowled the sidelines. The Bulldogs have strung together four consecutive winning seasons, won two Northeast 10 championships, played in two NCAA Division II Tournaments and moved up to Division I last year.

And the crowds keep coming: 5,434 for Stonehill and 4,748 for Bentley in 2007, 5,530 for the Homecoming & Reunion Weekend game against Merrimack, and 5,630 for Robert Morris in 2008.

Read the complete article from Saturday's Providence Journal here ...