At Grambling, a Proud Football Program at Risk

GRAMBLING, Louisiana — All week, the football team and the athletic department at Grambling tried to return to normal, even if normal as they knew it was chaotic and underfunded and conflicted.

On Wednesday, workers painted hash marks on the field at Eddie G. Robinson Stadium. Officials ran out of room for reporters in the press box. Police officers stood sentry at the football complex entrance, their squad cars parked inside the metal fence. Talk centered on lawsuits and fines for the forfeit; on mold and dilapidated weight-room floors; on what happens now, after Grambling announced to the world it was broke.
      

Players returned to practice, and this was significant because late last week, they did not practice, and last Saturday, they did not play. As a proud university rich in tradition sorted through the disarray of the past 10 days — the boycott, a campus rally, the suspension and reinstatement of two student journalists, the removal of a second football coach this season — two issues emerged as primary causes: the brutal financial strains confronting the nation’s historically black colleges and universities and the region’s public universities; and the common discord on college campuses between powerful football coaches and administrators who want to exert control.

 

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