Temple: Race tackles football

You didn't have to delve very deeply beneath the surface to feel the racial tension at Monday's special session of the Temple Board of Trustees, which unanimously approved $1 million in planning funds for the controversial football stadium on Broad Street.

Community protesters played the race card against Temple. The online comments play the race card against the protestors. There were crude comments about crime and laziness, ignoring the reality that the overwhelming majority of African-Americans are honest and hard-working.

If you take a step back, it's not really race that propels all this. It's class and economics.

Let's immediately concede Temple's presence, and expansion, on North Broad has been beneficial for the city, and for many residents of North Philadelphia.

But not all of them.

The gentrification that led to an explosion of housing, restaurants and entertainment venues also led to the removal, one way or the other, of long-time black residents.

While the Temple student body is well integrated, the Trustees remain mostly male and white and seen by some residents as outsiders.

As I mentioned Tuesday, John Bowie, a lifelong resident of North Philadelphia, spoke eloquently at the meeting. I called him Tuesday to hear some more. A 59-year-old grant writer with a graduate degree, he criticized the Trustees for not caring about the community. "They're changing it for the better of education but they're wiping out several generations of African-American history and culture."

He also poured blame on elected officials.

"We've had 24 years of African-American mayors who have sold our legacy," he said. "We are as angry with our own leadership as we are at Temple's leadership."

Speaker after speaker, all nonwhite, criticized the university. The only person speaking in favor of the stadium was John Longacre, a white Temple alum who said the school doesn't spend enough on football and asked, "Did the Liacouras Center create any problems?"

Bowie said yes, traffic problems, but agreed it was a plus for the community.

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On the issue of the stadium itself, Temple is the 26th largest university in the United States but seems – some think – to lack the luster of other big "name" schools. Temple has an inferiority complex that it thinks can be cured by a powerful football program.

Even though Temple sacrificed five intercollegiate sports to free up more money for football, I think it's unlikely it can develop the chops to have a consistently winning football team.

The Owls went 10-4 this magical season, but -- not to diss team mascot Hooter T. Owl -- the team has had only six winning seasons since 1980.

Before that, Temple was lucky to draw 20,000 fans to a game at the Linc.

Let's sprinkle unicorn dust on ourselves and pretend Temple can develop a muscular, consistently winning football program. You know, like Penn State.

Penn State's Beaver Stadium seats 106,572. Temple played Notre Dame this season. Capacity of Notre Dame Stadium: 80,795

So if Temple achieves Nittany Lions or Fighting Irish type success, the 35,000-seat stadium will be too small.

I've read opinions that a dynamite football program will attract "better" applicants to the school. That sounds like code for middle-class, and I have nothing against the middle class.

But my vision of Temple is a school that is a magnet, and a shelter, and a proving ground for the lower class, too.

When I walk across the Temple quad, I'm knocked out by the rainbow hue of the faces, kids who are not trust fund babies, many of whom work to support themselves in school. I love that diversity and want economic diversity, too.

There are other ways to achieve a "national ranking."

How about in scholarships awarded? How about in numbers graduated? How about in inner-city lives reclaimed, redirected?

Those are worthy goals for Temple.