Friday, December 14, 2012

Division I gambit a distant memory for Winston-Salem Rams

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina  --   There’s not much talk on the Winston-Salem State campus these days about “that Division I thing.”

As the WSSU football team prepares to play Valdosta State for the NCAA Division II football championship Saturday, the focus, quite naturally, is on that game. But there was a time, not long ago, when alumni and fans were divided after the administration stopped the transition to Division I.

“I remember that day vividly,” senior safety Malcolm Rowe said this week.

“That day” was Sept. 11, 2009 — the day Chancellor Donald Reaves announced that WSSU would remain in Division II and end the costly move to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and Division I.

By the time the 2009 football season ended, WSSU was 1-10, and the athletics department was in deep turmoil.

Reaves said this week he’d rather talk about the turnaround that Coach Connell Maynor and Athletics Director Bill Hayes have made in revitalizing the football program. He wasn’t interested in rehashing the decision to stay in Division II.

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