Dear Fellow 49ers,
My name is Mandeep Gill, President of the Charlotte Football Initiative of Students out here in Charlotte, North Carolina. I say fellow 49ers because I too am a 49er, a graduate of University of North Carolina Charlotte.
A couple weeks ago, the Charlotte 49ers announced their first ever football head coach. As I sat there, I reflected on the struggle that lead us to this moment. I also thought about Long Beach and your current struggle for football. We may be on opposite sides of the country, but we both have the determination of the students.
We started the movement for football almost six years ago. It started with a couple of alumni and a handful of students wondering why we did not have football. Our Athletic Director told us, “Well if you can show that anyone in Charlotte wants football, we’ll think about it.” That is when the Charlotte Football Initiative was born. We took every opportunity to get on TV or the radio and we forced our University to look at football. We made a goalpost and carried it to our Chancellor, demanding that we have football. We had the largest student body voting turnout on the subject of football.
Football is a tradition much like Sunday dinner. It brings together generations and strengthens ties. Football brings a spotlight to your campus that allows people outside of the University to see your academic accomplishments and your potential. At one point, the University of South Florida was a basement dweller of the Metro Conference, and UNC Charlotte was mopping the floor with them. A little more than a decade later, USF Football was ranked number two in the country. Though we missed out on a great opportunity years ago, we were determined not to let another opportunity slip by.
-Mandeep Gill, Queens University MBA ‘12, UNC Charlotte ‘08
Greetings 49ers,
Before you lies a tremendous opportunity: Football. Just one short year ago my school, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, announced it was starting a football program. This was and is one of the proudest moments I’ve felt for my fellow campaigners, my schoolmates, for my school and for myself. Also called the 49ers, we had staked our claim in something great.
Not long before, this was just a dream. There were many who doubted it could be done. However, Charlotte Football Initiative, a student and alumni organization of which I was the student branch’s Vice President, banded together and demonstrated that there was demand for a program. Through our efforts, UNC Charlotte’s vote for football had the highest voter turnout of any student vote ever held in the 17 campus UNC System and an overwhelming response in the affirmative for football.
You see, football is more than a sport. It is a time for members of the University family to come together. It is a chance to showcase your school to those who might not regularly see it. It is a medium for taking a University from a “medieval study hall” to a true learning community. One where these people you see on campus aren’t just other people at your school — they are family. A community where your campus isn’t just a place to learn — it is home.
By voting in such overwhelming fashion to add this football program, our students said, “We want more!” They don’t just want to come to school to learn and then go home. They want us to come together, to have a true college experience, to stand up and say, “We are Niners!” They put the naysayers and the detractors in their place, and, in doing so, staked their claim in the richest University community possible.
I may never have been as proud of my school as I was on that day. You are truly lucky to have such an opportunity now.
GO NINERS!
-Will Tate, Vice President Charlotte Football Initiative Students, UNC Charlotte ‘09
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