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Sunday, August 23, 1998
Bulldogs take to field as Texas Lutheran resumes
football
By KELLEY SHANNON
AP Sports Writer
SEGUIN, Texas (AP) -- It's been a decade since the students
and alumni of Texas Lutheran University have cheered on their
Bulldogs in football.
That all changes in a matter of days.
The Bulldogs will take to the field Sept. 5 to face Langston
University of Oklahoma, resuming Texas Lutheran University's football
tradition 10 years after the program was halted for financial
reasons.
"It's very exciting," said coach Bryan Marmion. "Initially
people were kind of thinking, 'Well, I'll believe it when I see
it.' ... The reality of it is definitely here."
Marmion, former defensive coordinator at California Lutheran
in Thousand Oaks, Calif., was hired in April 1997 to guide the
Bulldogs back into the world of college football.
That's been no easy task.
"Everything had to start from scratch," Marmion said.
"There were just so many things associated with getting the
program started that didn't really have anything to do with football.
Now to have the opportunity just to coach is actually kind of
nice."
Marmion, 31, had to order everything from jock straps to the
team's black and gold uniforms while attending to other details,
such as making sure a new field house was suitable for the team.
Then there was the huge job of recruiting for the non-scholarship
squad. The coaching staff drew heavily from south-central Texas
and occasionally looked out of state in hopes of finding about
60 players for the start of the season.
To their surprise, a total of 110 players showed up when practices
began Aug. 13. All those who want to remain on the team can stay
as long as they do their best, Marmion said.
That doesn't mean they'll all get to play in games as Texas
Lutheran plunges into competition in the American Southwest Conference.
While its conference competitors are all Division III schools,
Texas Lutheran remained in Division II in football to stay consistent
with its other sports. However, the NCAA granted a waiver to allow
the Bulldogs to join the conference.
Other schools in the conference are Austin College, McMurry
University, Howard Payne University, Sul Ross State University,
Hardin-Simmons University, Mississippi College and the University
of Mary Hardin-Baylor, which also starts a new football program
this fall.
The Bulldogs will play home games in the Seguin High School
stadium. Seguin is 34 miles east of San Antonio.
Most of the Texas Lutheran players are freshmen, though a few
-- like wide receiver Brandon Parrott, who played two years at
the University of Kansas -- have transferred from other schools.
"It's a great opportunity to have, to be able to start
out a tradition. It's kind of a big responsibility," said
Parrott, who attended Smithson Valley High School in the area.
Freshman quarterback Robby Brosius, who went to high school
at Southwest Christian in Burleson, chose Texas Lutheran over
other colleges because he believed Marmion blends football with
his Christian faith.
"Education was my highest priority," said Josh Reinhart,
a freshman linebacker from Austin Westwood who scored a 1,560
on his Scholastic Aptitude Test, just 40 points short of perfect.
Juan Thorn, a freshman wide receiver, took a two-year break
after graduating from Clemens High School in Schertz before deciding
to attend Texas Lutheran, his father's alma mater.
"The opportunity pops up, and I thought, 'Hey ... go for
it,' " Thorn said. "This is a good opportunity to come
here, get a real good education, play some football."
The school opened as Texas Lutheran College in 1891 and fielded
its first football team in 1912, the year the school moved to
Seguin from Brenham.
The Bulldogs were playing in NAIA Division II by 1974, when
Texas Lutheran commenced a two-year reign as national champions
under coach Jim Wacker.
The Texas Lutheran board of regents voted to dissolve the football
program after the 1987 season, citing financial concerns. At that
point the Bulldogs' opponents were mostly colleges outside of
Texas, making for hefty team travel costs.
Jon Moline took over as school president in 1994 and saw football
as a way to boost sagging enrollment -- particularly among male
students -- at the small liberal arts college.
Estimates are that for every 100 football players who enroll,
25 to 50 other students attend to participate in band or related
activities or because they like going to a school with a football
team, Moline said.
Moline hopes the current enrollment of about 1,200 eventually
climbs as high as 1,600.
"It's part of the college experience for people,"
he said. "They want to come to a school that has football."
In addition to resuming football, Texas Lutheran has added
women's golf, track and cross country, has hired separate coaches
for the men's and women's soccer teams and has spent $3 million
on athletic facilities.
It will take time for the football team to make its mark. Marmion
predicts the Bulldogs will be a competitive force in the conference
three or four years from now, when most current players are upperclassmen.
In the meantime, the school and Seguin will have a college
football team again. That, said Moline, should make the Oct. 24
game against Sul Ross the best homecoming in school history.
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