One year after one Alabama school temporarily shut down its football program, another school in the state is shutting down its program for good. Stillman College is expected to end its football program immediately and, unlike UAB’s program, it doesn’t look like it will ever come back.
According to the Tuscaloosa News, the school will compete in Division II with the SIAC through the spring semester. The school will field only men’s and women’s basketball teams and move to the NAIA starting in 2016-17.
Stillman, alma mater of Redskins linebacker Junior Galette, is the second SIAC school to end its program in the last year. Paine College dropped football following the 2014 season after a one-year attempt at reviving its program from more than half of a century of inactivity.
As disappointing as this must be for students, alumni and fans of Stillman College, all must acknowledge that it could be worse. The Tuscaloosa, AL school, located across the tracks from the University of Alabama, has seen its enrollment drop to around 1,000.
While losing a football program certainly isn’t an encouraging sign, the academic institution must come first. We’ve lost St. Paul’s and are still hoping to resurrect Morris Brown. Let’s hope we can keep Stillman off that list.