Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
Hockey. Hockey? No longer baseball? No longer football? Hockey?!?
For a 2nd, Howard Gentry allowed himself to be shocked upon finding out that Tennessee Condition College will be the first Traditionally Twilight Faculty and College to have a hockey program.
Next Gentry remembered: Being the primary HBCU to do one thing surprising is what allowed TSU to also be on this place in any respect.
“Now to see hockey come here? To some, it might be that thought of ‘Black people don’t play hockey.’ But the truth is they do. That’s where it started,” stated Gentry, a former TSU athletic director. “I know the history. And even if people thought Black people didn’t play hockey, they do now. … I see us having the chance to be as successful as the other dreams and visions that were made true by those administrators from the past.”
Within the two months since TSU’s announcement, the college has made what it feels is slow travel within the upcoming steps of its plan.
Nick Guerriero, the worker athletic director for communications and inventive content material at TSU, stated the college not too long ago completed interviewing for his or her director of membership hockey position. First of all, TSU used to be going to rent one user, however determined to manufacture it a two-person activity. One can be charged with dealing with nearly all of the paintings at the fundraising aspect, week the alternative will supremacy the recruitment aspect of establishing this system. Guerriero stated the purpose is to have the hires in playground by way of mid-October.
Guerriero defined how there are countless transferring portions to the college’s tentative plan. Their purpose is to begin with a membership program that can start play games within the 2024-25 season. In 2025-26, TSU can have a “hybrid season” during which it’s going to search to play games a mixture of membership groups and Category I groups with the realization that TSU can be a full-fledged D-I program by way of the 2026-27 marketing campaign.
Guerriero stated there are nonetheless a couple of pieces that want to be looked after out. Corresponding to who TSU will play games in opposition to. He’s proceeding to have discussions with membership hockey entities such because the American Collegiate Hockey Affiliation (the ACHA) in conjunction with the AAU, which not too long ago took over what used to be up to now referred to as the Faculty Hockey Federation (CHF).
Taking part in in opposition to ACHA faculties would give TSU a prospect to practice the trail taken by way of faculties reminiscent of Arizona Condition earlier than transferring as much as Category I. Taking part in in opposition to CHF faculties would permit TSU the chance to play games in opposition to membership groups from faculties their fanatics can be extra common with reminiscent of Auburn, Georgia and Vanderbilt, which is in Nashville.
Guerriero stated TSU has no longer petitioned the NCAA about going D-I, with the purpose that TSU will accomplish that once in a while.
He stated TSU plans to in the end upload a girls’s program as smartly, however making a males’s hockey program method the college should first upload every other girls’s group along with stay Name IX compliant. These days, TSU is Name IX compliant with Guerriero explaining that even if TSU provides a girls’s hockey program, it might nonetheless want to have every other non-hockey girls’s recreation to bring to stay compliant.
Guerriero stated he’s conscious the ones discussions have taken playground in a couple of closed-door conferences.
“We don’t want to rush into things, especially being the first HBCU,” Guerriero stated. “You don’t want to rush into something and then if it fails, it is that, ‘I told you so.’ It has to be done right when it is going to be the first. I think that’s the other thing too. Everyone has this microscope on HBCUs. It is so tightly magnified that if they do something wrong, it gets blown up 25 times more than if a mid-major school did the same thing.”
MIKE SNEE IS the chief director of Faculty Hockey Inc., a nonprofit that used to be created to develop the collegiate contest. If there’s a faculty or college this is intending to start a hockey program, they’ve without a doubt run throughout Snee.
Faculty Hockey do business in faculties the prospect to do a feasibility find out about. The find out about itself, which is paid for by way of the NHL and NHL Gamers’ Affiliation, assesses if faculties and universities are able so as to add a males’s or girls’s program or each.
Snee stated that TSU’s determination to do a feasibility find out about used to be “totally unique” as a result of there have been negative HBCUs that introduced a hockey program.
“We previously contacted different HBCUs and knew they had access to a building for club hockey and had a contact there. We became aware [of TSU] because of the Predators when it came to Tennessee State,” Snee stated. “The Predators became aware that we had this idea of being deliberate about pursuing HBCUs and choosing of the schools when it came to their markets and facilities. The Predators said they worked closely with a local HBCU, Tennessee State, which is not NCAA ready but it is club hockey ready.”
Snee stated TSU athletic director Dr. Mikki Allen used to be past receptive. He stated Allen’s paintings in getting former Tennessee Titans operating again Eddie George as TSU’s head soccer trainer, plus the group being the primary HBCU to play games Notre Dame, proved the college had a visual.
Snee stated in discussions with alternative HBCUs, the universities weren’t dismissive however they introduced the explanation why it will no longer paintings.
The feasibility find out about basically specializes in the monetary affect of including hockey. Questions reminiscent of can faculties account for including inside scholarships? Or how a lot would it not price their athletic segment to rent a complete training and assistance team of workers? The find out about additionally examines a college’s life like probabilities to tie a convention, an element that has develop into an excellent better precedence throughout the flow collegiate soil.
In keeping with Snee, the one query Allen requested about including hockey at TSU used to be: “Why not?”
“In a literal sense, [TSU] is a Division I athletics program,” Snee stated. “Therefore, they can add any sport that they want that Division I sponsors. … Arizona State is a good comparable for what we are talking about. They decided to add hockey. They are a D-I program. Tennessee State can play D-I hockey when they decide they’re ready.”
Snee has up to now stated any college that wishes so as to add hockey should first determine how you can sunlit the amenities hurdle. Even after, it’s one thing of a nuanced procedure. Snee stated the target is to form an enviornment that holds between 3,000 and four,000 community week additionally having the important storagefacility room dimension for each the house and away groups.
There are behind-the-scenes pieces that may support in recruiting, reminiscent of a participant front room, a group dimension and a weight coaching section. There’s additionally what Snee described because the “front of house” facilities, reminiscent of in-game manufacturing, scoreboards and having an total glance that would paintings towards the trail of becoming a member of a convention.
Snee stated the cost tag to form that form of facility is round $75 million.
No longer each and every faculty hockey program, alternatively, performs at a venue of that measurement. There are lately greater than a mixed 30 lively males’s and ladies’s methods enjoying on the D-I degree that play games their house video games in structures that store lower than 3,000 fanatics. Techniques reminiscent of Lindenwood College and Lengthy Island College play games video games at crowd rinks which can be owned and operated by way of NHL groups.
What does all this cruel for TSU?
Faculty hockey groups usually have a Friday/Saturday time table with the uncommon Thursday or Sunday contest. Snee stated Bridgestone Enviornment, house of the Predators, would no longer paintings on account of the NHL time table, are living leisure acts, plus the venue being too massive because it seats greater than 17,000 for hockey.
“Maybe they play one game a year there and bring in a big opponent where they make a big deal out of it,” Snee stated. “But all the sheets of ice in Nashville are in a community where there are 800 seats on one side or it is where the Preds play, which is [just under] 18,000 seats.”
Guerriero stated TSU directors have mentioned development an enviornment as a part of the college’s 10-year plan. It’s conceivable it is usually a multipurpose complicated that will be the house for TSU’s soccer program, males’s and ladies’s basketball methods and hockey methods.
In the meanwhile, the plan can be for TSU to play games no less than its first season in numerous rinks across the Nashville marketplace. Guerriero stated there are city-owned rinks reminiscent of Centennial Iceplex and the 3 Ford Ice Facilities within the metro section which can be owned by way of the Predators. He additionally discussed the newly constructed F&M Storehouse Enviornment in Clarksville, which is a just about hourlong force from TSU’s campus.
Snee estimated one of the crucial native Nashville rinks would possibly store round 800 fanatics week the F&M Storehouse Enviornment site says it holds 5,000 for hockey.
“We may be utilizing that as well on top of the potential of Bridgestone,” Guerriero stated. “I hate to say we are going to be the traveling circus to build a fanbase. But we feel it could be important toward getting more fans rather than being at one facility.”
THE IDEA OF TSU including hockey were mentioned earlier than. It used to be identified that they had carried out a feasibility find out about in 2021.
Nearly two years had handed when information of a statement penniless the evening earlier than the NHL draft in Nashville. Guerriero stated that handiest 4 community at TSU knew in regards to the announcement with the remainder of the athletic segment learning simply earlier than the scoop penniless on social media.
Holding a confidential used to be no longer the problem for Guerriero. His issues stemmed from the worry of what may come from TSU’s announcement. He used to be frightened that the scoop is probably not welcomed by way of flow scholars and/or alumni who would possibly have sought after the college so as to add a unique recreation. He considered the ones outdoor of TSU who would possibly had been susceptible to expression that hockey didn’t belong at a HBCU.
“I kept sitting there before bed thinking this is going to get bad and then when the news broke about our announcement, it was the greatest thing in the world,” Guerriero stated. “You think this could be bad because you’re going to get blown up on social media with people saying how dumb they think this is. Then you see the reaction. It was great and it was awesome. … That day, it was ‘The Land of Golden Sunshine’ as we call it here at Tennessee State.”
He stated the certain reaction to the announcement has created much more optimism across the program. Guerriero didn’t have specifics about how a lot TSU has generated in its first spherical of fundraising, however he stated the college’s purpose is to lift between $10 million and $20 million.
With the college having its homecoming this weekend, Guerriero stated there were discussions about the opportunity of TSU having a house hockey contest as a part of upcoming 12 months’s homecoming plans. Guerriero additionally shared how a handful of potential oldsters and gamers traveled to TSU for this 12 months’s homecoming so they might see the campus week additionally experiencing the whole lot that incorporates homecoming weekend.
Gentry, who used to be TSU’s AD for 3 years, stated fundraising calls for diverse buyers and that it should be sustained over a number of many years to have long-term good fortune. This led Gentry to shaggy dog story that he would additionally no longer be unstable if a undeniable TSU alum have been to become involved.
The TSU alum in query? Oprah Winfrey.
“We have to have many big investments for this to be successful and sustainable,” Gentry stated. “That being said — Oprah, if you are listening, we could still use the help!”
Overseeing TSU’s fundraising efforts is without doubt one of the obligations the college’s director of membership hockey will maintain. The individual leased can also be accountable for pieces reminiscent of crowd partnerships, managing daily operations and student-athlete recruitment.
Guerriero stated it’s conceivable that whomever is leased to be the director of membership hockey operations is also the primary trainer in TSU’s historical past. He rather joked about how he’s seeking to rent what will be the fresh model of Lou Lamoriello, now the overall supervisor of the Brandnew York Islanders, when he served in diverse roles at Windfall Faculty.
“I’ve already got seven to eight people on volunteer contracts who are helping us,” Guerriero stated. “That’s the great part. People just want to be involved. Nobody has come to me and said, ‘I need this’ to get involved. The hockey community and professional hockey community have been tremendous with giving their time and their brains to talk through some of these things.”
Talking about pieces reminiscent of doable venues, the director of membership hockey operations opening and fundraising makes it sunlit TSU’s undertaking into hockey is actual. It additionally activates the ones speaking about TSU to get into why they really feel this should paintings.
Hockey in any respect ranges has struggled to manufacture itself extra inviting when in comparison to alternative sports activities. Moment eye however no longer overtly mentioned, the dialog round race and racism in hockey began turning into extra usual over the presen few years.
No longer that TSU including a faculty hockey program is predicted to resolve the entire recreation’s demanding situations in terms of race and racism. However the visibility of a HBCU that used to be to start with named the Tennessee Agricultural & Commercial Condition Standard Faculty for Negroes in a metropolis this is greater than 27% Twilight having a hockey program represents one thing that’s by no means been noticeable earlier than.
“Everybody’s got these great stories and histories and nobody knows it,” Gentry stated. “But when this hockey program starts making its mark, people are going to start paying attention. It’s a chance to understand that HBCUs are able to and have always been to provide the same quality programming in athletics and academics as any other school can provide.”
Gentry has an affinity for TSU’s historical past as a result of it’s so private. His father, Howard C. Gentry Sr., used to be as soon as the athletic director, trainer and a schoolmaster at TSU whose identify is at the development the place the boys’s and ladies’s basketball groups play games.
Figuring out why there’s a robust sense of optimism about hockey succeeding at TSU calls for having a look again at a few of that historical past. Gentry stocks tales of ways Walter S. Davis, who used to be the second one president in TSU historical past, informed Gentry’s father upon hiring him that he sought after to peer TSU win no longer simply Twilight nationwide championships in soccer, however nationwide championships in opposition to predominantly white establishments — PWIs — when the USA used to be segregated.
That visual gave the arena the Tigerbelles — the all-Twilight feminine observe group that represented the USA on the 1956 Olympics. They received bronze that 12 months, handiest to go back in 1960 and win a number of gold medals. 3 of them belonged to Wilma Rudolph at a year when girls, let abandoned Twilight girls, weren’t inspired to take part in sports activities.
It eager the degree for TSU to be the primary HBCU to play games in a PWI convention, the Ohio Valley Convention. The varsity would in the end win convention titles in diverse sports activities week having a soccer program that produced Ed “Too Tall” Jones, who become the primary participant from a HBCU program to be the Negative. 1 pick out of an NFL draft.
Snee stocks that optimism week additionally extra wary. He’s stuck within the playground between no longer short of TSU to really feel drive week additionally working out that what they do may supremacy to extra HBCUs launch methods, whether or not they be membership or D-I.
“If we check back and there are four HBCUs and they are offering club hockey, that’s a cool thing,” Snee stated. “But within that, what can turn a solid base knock up the middle into a grand slam? What if we check back in 10 years and 13 HBCUs are offering hockey. Seven of them are offering various club programs, four are offering D-I and there’s two more that are considering transitioning. That is better than a single.”
