Their many reasons, but here are just a few:

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1. It goes without saying that, football was the heart and soul of university life at UMES for over 30 years. A common complaint among alumni and friends is that homecoming just is not the same without football. This is our opportunity to reclaim our once proud legacy.

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2. An unintended consequence of Title IX, which helped create enhanced opportunities for women to compete in intercollegiate sports, was that many small schools such as UMES were forced to discontinue their football programs.

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3. While it is true that many of our former student-athletes did go on to have very successful careers in the NFL, unfortunately for UMES, most if not all played prior to the era of the multi-million dollar NFL contracts and mega TV endorsement deals.