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By JENN MENENDEZ, Staff Writer Sunday, December 10, 2006

When successive football teams opted out of agreements to play the University of Maine football team this past fall, athletic officials scrambled to fill the schedule. Division II Shaw agreed. Maine won handily. But as the season wound down, that game nearly cost Maine a playoff spot.

Division II wins don't matter to the I-AA football selection committee, and heading into a final game against New Hampshire, Maine, which was 6-4 at the time, had no hope for an at-large berth because it would lack seven Division I wins.

In the end Maine lost that final game. But the situation shed light on a behind-the-scenes problem at the school that extends far beyond football. Every program at Maine struggles to attract non-conference opponents to campus. Maine suffers from its geographic location -- it's a long, expensive trip to Orono. And some sports suffer from the backside of success -- teams are wary of spending significant travel money on a game that's not a sure win.

The issue is far reaching, affecting things like strength of schedule, player wear and tear from being forced to travel, recruiting and team budgets. Coaches are forced to be creative and innovative. Sometimes, they still get burned.

"It's a tough sell," said Maine football coach Jack Cosgrove. "Coaches look at everything. If they're going to make the trip up, they want to think they can win. Let's go to Maine and win is no longer quite as obvious. So it's harder to draw a team to play. They don't like the fact the locker room is in an ice rink. It gets down to that. These things will build up."

FOOTBALL TAKES A HIT

With the football offices bustling before that final game against New Hampshire, Cosgrove spent hours on the phone jockeying for future games with colleagues around the country.

"We hear about it in all sports, folks don't want to come up here. Boy oh boy, it's impacted us this year, amazingly," said Cosgrove that day. "I'm frightened to death about the future. I'm trying to find games for next year and the year after. The frightening thing is having to end up going on the road."

This season, the Black Bears were in a scheduling bind when Morgan State faltered on its side of a home-and-home series. Lock Haven University was penciled in, but no contract was signed and the school chose an opponent that offered a bigger guarantee. Maine had an open home date with no team into the spring before securing Shaw.

The two schools pulled out for different reasons.

Morgan State Athletic Director Floyd Kerr said he plans to honor his school's commitment to return a game to Maine, but it will not likely be for a few years.

"We fully intend to honor our commitment," said Kerr. "For us it's a matter of our schedule. We have some obligations and changes in our scheduling because our conference is expanding."

His school's basketball team traveled to Maine last year, and the expense was not cheap.

"It was a very expensive trip for basketball," said Kerr. "You have not only your flights with the airline, but a long bus ride from (Portland's airport)."

Maine Athletic Director Blake James said the Morgan State contract does not include a buyout, and he hopes to iron out a date that works for both teams.

Lock Haven Associate AD Peter Campbell said his school chose a game that offered a bigger guarantee.

"We were looking for a money game," said Campbell. "There were some discussions with Maine, but we never received the contract. Meanwhile we had another offer from Southern Illinois and we decided to go with them."

Cosgrove said his team's reputation as being tough at home plagues scheduling woes as much as any other factor.

"The most dramatic change is we're a better football program now than we were in the '90s," said Cosgrove. "When teams came here I think they felt they were going to win. It never used to be a problem."

A BUSINESS REALITY

Travel costs escalate because of Maine's distance from any other Division I school. Plus, the facilities for visiting teams are far from luxurious. Teams use a locker room in Alfond Arena and curtain off the concourse.

James Madison Coach Mickey Matthews was so displeased with the facilities for his football team during a trip to Orono in 2004 that he had his team change in the outfield of the baseball field.

For a school with Maine's location, home-and-home series or guarantee games have become a rule. Every team tries to broker a deal that if they travel in one year to face another team, that opponent will return the game the next season or shortly thereafter.

Ted Woodward, the men's basketball coach, will start five contracts on the road this year -- Harvard, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Mount St. Mary, Saint Francis (New York) and whoever Maine plays in ESPN's Bracket Buster. The agreement is that those teams will come back to Maine.

"We want to make sure we have a flow of home games. We figured the best way to do that was to bite the bullet, start five series on the road and have those five games come back to us," said Woodward. "You really have to work hard to get an extensive home schedule. You have to be innovative."

Woodward says from a pure cost standpoint, it's obvious why a Boston or Connecticut school would avoid a costly multi-day trip to Maine rather than play a neighbor.

To counter that reality, he believes his team simply has to travel more than what's ideal, and make deals for home-and-home series. Still, problems are unavoidable even with new contracts that include buyouts.

"It's a difficult place to get teams to come to. It's far away and expensive," said Woodward. "I know teams have pulled out of contracts with us. We're trying to do contracts now that prevent that from happening."

James said Maine offers standard contracts, but he's seen them evolve in recent years to include things like buyouts.

"The contracts we issue for games are very similar to those issued to us," said James. "As college athletics evolve, you maybe see a little more business terminology used. From a legal side, schools are more apt to put protection in place. If the game doesn't happen, what financially does it mean?"

The Youngstown State football team, for example, was originally going to come to Maine, but bought out its contract when an opportunity arose to play I-A Pittsburgh, with a large guarantee. Maine held up its end of the deal when it traveled to Ohio for the first game of its season.

"It was financial. We had scheduled Maine and about a month later ended up with an opportunity to play a significant money game an hour from us," said Youngstown State AD Ron Strollo. "We called Maine and tried to reschedule the game, switch the series, but their preference was to take the money that was in the contract."

SMALLER SPORTS SUFFER TOO

While the situation isn't as high profile as it is for the football team, the lack of a solid schedule is as stressful for Maine's softball and soccer teams.

Stacey Sullivan, entering her second year as the softball coach, lined up just 46 games this year, 10 below the 56 allowed by the NCAA.

"We can't afford to travel and no one wants to come play us," said Sullivan. "We're not on the way to any other school."

She tries to minimize the travel her team has to deal with by hitting non-conference opponents en route to conference games.

Other schools can't do that with Maine because there are no other Division I schools in the state.

"No one else is up here," said Sullivan. "We're in a tough situation, regionally. We've tried to stop going to places in hopes of getting them to commit to us."

Sullivan said she agreed to travel to Dartmouth College, but the Big Green would not commit to returning the game to Maine.

"I said absolutely, as long as you play us in 2008. They said no," said Sullivan. "They couldn't do it. It's the same with Massachusetts-Amherst. We've played down there, but they refuse to make the trip to Orono."

Women's soccer coach Scott Atherley said his team has the same problems attracting non-conference opponents.

"The reality of where we are is that you have to be willing to travel," said Atherley. "When we travel, we get two games in. You can hit New Hampshire on the way down, but you can only play New Hampshire so many times."

His team has also turned to offering cash guarantees or paying for an opponents' lodging. But the cost of that is simply not sustainable to offer more than once or twice a season.

"Travel takes its toll," said Atherley, whose team often plays just 17 regular-season games, three shy of the NCAA allotment. "Some kids will tell you one of the greatest things is the travel, but they'll also tell you it's one of the most challenging things. It takes its toll physically and mentally."

James said it's possible that a trend is building where smaller sports that struggle to attract opponents will be expected to offer guarantees.

"It might be," said James. "I hope scheduling doesn't get that extreme.

"We do provide some guarantees on a smaller level. Those are more significant in terms of dollars for football."

James said he believes that his athletic program simply needs to strike a balance between what has worked in the past and what's needed now.

"What we have to do as a program is understand the challenges and still go out and get a great schedule for our fans," said James. "No matter what the sport, be it soccer, baseball, whatever it is. Finding that balance is key."

Staff Writer Jenn Menendez can be contacted at 791-6426 or at: