LAWRENCEVILLE, Va. — Saint Paul’s College football player Osmund Brown headed across a nearly deserted campus in search of his transcript — his ticket to a new place to play.
“I came here to play football,” says Brown, who transferred from a junior college in California to play tight end for the Tigers this year.
But the day after commencement, Brown, his teammates and others in this Brunswick County community were stunned when the college announced it would sacrifice athletics to save itself.
“We’ve just taken the stance that we had two options,” says Raymond Holmes, Saint Paul’s provost and vice president for academic affairs. “One option is we close the doors and have football. Or we keep the doors open and at least temporarily eliminate athletics with the hope we can bring it back in a couple of years.”
Now Brown and more than 250 other athletes are left with a tough decision — stay at Saint Paul’s and give up their sport, or transfer in hopes of finding a new team and a new home. Brown expects most will try to transfer rather than play on the intramural teams the college plans to start.
With just 517 students this year, an exodus of athletes is something this school struggling with declining enrollment and desperate finances can’t afford. The college’s financial troubles threaten the school’s accreditation, which would deepen its troubles.
The historically Black college, founded in 1888, needs to boost its enrollment to about 650 students, the level it was at just a few years ago, says Holmes. A consultant has advised the college that eliminating athletics would likely cause only a short-term effect on enrollment.
