For North Carolina Central University, Division I humbling, rewarding

Eagles crash-land often in first year at top NCAA level, but the money is good

DURHAM, N.C. - Imagine being an athletic competitor -- someone who has been taught all your life to play to win. Now imagine being an athletic competitor and knowing you have virtually no chance. For members of N.C. Central's men's basketball team, imagining is unnecessary. In their first season at the highest level of college basketball, losing has been their almost certain fate. Only one team out of 341 in Division I has fewer wins than Central, whose record went to 3-23 with a win against Chowan on Saturday.

Losing is hard on the players, dispiriting for the fans, but oddly profitable for Central. As a newly minted D-I school, Central is a team big-time basketball schools are eager to play -- and pay -- for another notch in their win column. In NCAA circles, these are "guarantee games," in which a team agrees to visit for a price and makes no demand for a return match at its home arena.

Records show that NCCU has received $434,500 so far, the combined take from 21 road games -- including 17 guarantee games. Every guarantee game was a loss. Central has fewer home games this season than any team except Presbyterian College. Of Central's first 16 games, 15 were on the road.

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Great Story! The Eagles will prevail in the end and the move to Division I will be proven the right move to make. However, the athletic director need to ease back on the guarantee games in 2008/09 and give the team a competitive chance of getting a .500 record. Money is important to sustain the program, but it is also very important to the players and for recruitment to show competitive progress. There is no shame for NCCU, as none of the current Division I HBCUs could defeat Duke, Florida or Nebraska at their home arena or neutral site for that matter.

Central deserves membership in a conference.

The administrators at NCCU should not limit themselves to only the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference but should make overtures to the Big South Conference and the Southern Conference. The MEAC has severe limitations in developing a comprehensive marketing program that generates serious revenue for the conference from television, satellite radio and Internet, with little income being generated for the member institutions. NCCU should consider all options.

-beepbeep