Chrebet 'Shocked' as Hofstra Cuts Football

Hofstra has decided to drop football after 69 seasons, a move that former NFL receiver Wayne Chrebet, one of the school's most famous football alums, did not see coming.

University officials informed coaches Thursday morning that the school was dropping the sport for, most prominently, financial reasons.

"I'm kinda shocked," said Chrebet, who spoke with FanHouse on the phone from Toronto, where his former NFL team, the New York Jets, will take on the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night. "They had a good thing going over there, being known across the states for some of the players they produce."

Chrebet, of course, was one of Hofstra's most successful players, carving out an unlikely career with the Jets from 1995-2005 after going undrafted.

Twelve players have been drafted into the NFL from Hofstra since 1955, including New Orleans Saints wide receiver Marques Colston and Pittsburgh Steelers tackle Willie Colon.

"I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to the university, my coaches and my former teammates and I am sure they share in my disappointment," Colston said in a statement on Bloomberg.com. "I grew as both a student-athlete and as a man at Hofstra and I feel like the school helped me prepare for the challenges I currently face as a professional football player."

According to Chrebet, however, that tradition matters little when finances are involved.

"It's all about the money when it comes down to it," said Chrebet, who, coincidentally, knows a thing or two about those matters as a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley in Red Bank, N.J. "They wanted to use that money for education, and you can't really blame them."

Those sentiments were echoed by university president by Stuart Rabinowitz, who said in a statement on the school's web site that the choice was not "a budget reduction, but rather a strategically driven reallocation of resources."

The following portion of the statement told most of the story:

At the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-AA) level, football could not attain significant national recognition, and it has had low student, community and media interest, attendance and financial support. In addition, the football program, the largest of the athletic programs, is by far the most expensive. In the end, we could not continue to justify the expense of football compared to the benefits it brought to the University.

Hofstra was a member of the Football Championship Subdivision, better known as the Division I-AA, and the Colonial Athletic Association. It was the second school from the conference to cancel its football program after Northeastern University did so on Nov. 23.

Chrebet spoke glowingly of his time with the Pride, remembering the program's ascension.

"We were Division III when I got there and ended up I-AA," Chrebet said. "I thought the (football program) would be here to stay."

Hofstra, located in Hempstead, N.Y. on Long Island, has about 12,400 students but does not have the financial wherewithal to support football, a sport dominated by schools with large student bodies and even bigger endowments.

Chrebet, for his part, believes it's difficult for smaller schools to survive, answering "apparently not," when asked if programs like Hofstra have any chance of building from the ground up in the future.

"Even Rutgers struggled for a while until some of the players in New Jersey stopped always going down south or out west," he said. "Hofstra is known as a lacrosse school on Long Island, so I guess we could have seen (elimination of football) coming."

A Garfield, N.J. native, Chrebet was one of the most prolific receivers in school history, catching 150 passes for 2,297 yards and 31 touchdowns in 35 career games . He also became the Pride's first 1,000-yard receiver in 1994, his senior season -- a year during which he had 57 catches for 1,200 yards and 16 TDs.