Richmond Professor Trolls Richmond Fans Better Than Opposing Fans Do

There are certain things in our little CAA sports internet world that give us great joy. One of those things is the way some folks (like us) tweak Richmond fans by insisting that the Spiders are on the way to Division III. It inevitably sets Spider fans off attempting to refute the allegations with all sorts of evidence and logic. Unfortunately for them, evidence and logic are of little use when attempting to disprove something that is 100% fabricated. Until today it is when our new favorite Richmond faculty member, Mr. Rick Mayes, emailed his fellow faculty members to inform them that “after three years of watching and studying sports up close, I believe UR’s long-term academic interests lie with D3-level sports and football being phased out over time.” Well there you go.

I have no idea what motivated Hayes, Richmond’s appointed faculty athletic representative who serves as a liaison between the school and its athletic department, to compose and send this email. I like to imagine that he had some sort of Jerry Maguire-esque moment of inspiration, awaking suddenly in the dead of night and pounding away on his keyboard until daybreak, pausing only to laugh maniacally and twist his handlebar mustache. Actually I’m quite certain that is exactly how it happened. The result was one of the most beautiful examples of trolling we’ve ever witnessed. The prudent thing for Richmond fans to do here would be to ignore Hayes and instead focus on the fact that the president of the university has already essentially dismissed his email as nonsense. It’s safe to say that at least a few of the more zealous Spider fans are missing that and going apoplectic anyway. Which is somewhat comical honestly.

Regarding football, Hayes theorizes that concussion related lawsuits will eventually make the sport cost prohibitive for schools like Richmond so they should cut their losses and phase out the program now. The crux of his argument for dropping down to D III is essentially that athletics distracts Richmond from its primary focus on academics. The former point is thought provoking and there are countless examples of schools where the latter is true. Now that ODU and Mason have left the CAA, I have a surplus of hatred to direct Richmond’s way. So it pains me to say this, but Richmond strikes me as an institution that has found the proper balance between academics and athletics.

Objectively speaking, the Richmond athletic program suits the school perfectly. I’m sure there are plenty of fans want the hoops team to jump to a bigger conference. There is no denying the fact that the Spiders have a solid program that competes with some like minded basketball first schools in the A10. Even with the loss of a few schools, it’s a multi-bid league with a well deserved strong reputation. And while we constantly poke fun of the fact that Richmond plays in the “best high school stadium in college football”, the truth is that it’s a nice facility that works well for the relatively small private university that Richmond is. FCS football is better off having schools like Richmond amongst its membership. And Richmond is better off playing FCS football than D III football (or not playing at all). If the same can be said for JMU is still up for debate of course. We reserve the right to redact all of this objective crap and just jump on the Hayes led Richmond to D III bandwagon at a later date though. Because that would be really fun.