VANIER WRAP: IF YOU CAN'T BEAT LAVAL, TRY JOINING 'EM

Loads of cash, five full-time coaches, spring camp down in Florida and last but not least, an inside track on one of the deepest talent pools for football in Canada -- Quebec's CEGEP system -- give the Laval Rouge et Or one helluva advantage in Canadian university football.

Is it an unfair advantage for Laval? No.

The unfair part is that no one else in the eastern half of Canada can try it -- most university administrations are four-square against any acknowledgement that football might have a central place in university life.

This has created an uneven playing field, which isn't Laval's fault. Laval has shown the possibilities for a CIS football program, and while it's hard to see another school doing as well, they at least deserve a shot. Otherwise, the credibility of CIS football in the eastern half of Canada -- and thus its long-term health -- will continue to be called into question.

Not every university program has a patron like Quebec City furniture magnate Jacques Tanguay, one of the Rouge et Or's big investors, or an answer to William C. Powers, the former Princeton Tigers punter who just donated $10.5 million US to that Ivy League school's football team. The way things go in Canada, if someone such as Powers tried to donate millions to his old football team, he'd almost certainly be turned away, or told that his gift would have to go to some "general fund." You know academics: Always turning a positive into a negative.

That said, there are several schools in eastern Canada where the Laval model should be tried. Those schools should form what for lack of a more clever term, would be called the Canada East Football Conference.

Granted, what's good for the football team can come in conflict with academic integrity and gender equity for athletes -- both of which are laudable goals. However, the lack of credible football programs, especially in eastern Canada, is a bigger problem than most ivory-tower types appreciate.

Why? Simple. Not enough young guys are going to university nowadays -- especially those from the working class. It's hard to say what impact this will have on Canada in 20, 25 years, but one small step toward heading off that scenario might lie in more Eastern schools offering football.

It's not that far-fetched. Granted, the U.S. has a different attitude about football than Canada does (but not as different as you'd believe), but as the New York Times found last summer, many universities are finding out that adding football does help bring the gender ratio more in balance.

Football as a force for diversity; who knew?

Ideally, the CIS would grow from its current 27 football teams to 32 over the next decade, giving more players an opportunity to participate (and eliminating those annoying three games in 10 days grind that Canada West teams sometimes face).

I can guess what you're thinking: "Five more teams? There's at least that many already -- U of T, York, Bishop's, et cetera -- that are already struggling to stay competitive and relevant. There's others whom it is hard to see ever winning their conference, let alone the Vanier Cup, under the current set-up." Truth be known, that's exactly the way I feel about my Queen's Golden Gaels about half the time.

Back on Oct. 7, after the Gaels had a discouraging loss against the Ottawa Gee-Gees -- so discouraging that it prompted Ed Wood analogies -- my thoughts as I trudged out of Richardson Stadium was that it was time, once for all, for Queen's administration to drop any pretense that it's interested in allowing the football team to try and win, and choose either extreme: Drop the program, or put it in the hands of people who will run it properly and give it a chance to win.

The idea of privatizing Queen's football program is actually mentioned in Merv Daub's 1996 book, Gael Force, so it's not like it hasn't been discussed. The Gaels' time in the sun will come around again one of these autumns, but competing consistently with Laval is a longshot.

This is very, very sketchy, but I keep imagining an eight-team Canada East conference, that instead of being divided by geography, would be divided up by the resources the schools put into the program. No more of Bishop's having to play Laval, when in terms of budget, the Gaiters have more in common with Acadia or Mount Allison in the Maritimes.

On the flip side, instead of Laval playing Bishop's, it could be playing a privately funded Western team coached by Greg Marshall and with former CFL commish Mike Lysko leading its fundraising. Think of the media interest there would be if those kind of matchups were a standard part of the regular season. The Score could certainly crack 100,000 viewers then.

Depending on who could finesse their school administrations, the Canada East loop would consist of Laval, and probably Saint Mary's from out East. Laval's archrival, Montréal, could be involved, along with one of the Carabins' cross-town (and mostly Anglophone) rivals, McGill or Concordia.

From the OUA, depending on who could pull it off, you could take some combo of Queen's, McMaster, Western, Wilfrid Laurier, Ottawa and the University of Toronto Varsity Blues. For the U of T, being run along the lines of Laval is the only way the country's worst football program can ever regain relevance. Also, this Canada East conference will need a presence in Canada's largest city.

Meantime, creating a league for the "big boys" may ease some schools' reticence about establishing football. The rest of the eastern Canada teams would have to be regrouped -- Acadia, Mount A and St. FX would now be in an Atlantic/Quebec league with "small-market" Quebec teams such as Bishop's, Sherbrooke or new programs such as Trois-Rivières or New Brunswick or whoever.

Over in the new OUA, once-proud programs such as Guelph or Waterloo would have a more realistic chance of winning championships again.

From a competitive and marketing standpoint, this works. The Canada East league would showcase the best players (or at least the best from east of Manitoba).

The other two or three divisions would better help ensure that football would continue to be part of campus life at smaller, close-knit schools such as Guelph, Bishop's, or Mount A, each of whom knew their winning moments in the pre-Laval era. The level of play would not be as high, but it would offer more people a chance to keep playing football, and watch football in person.

Bottom line: Guys like to hit each other and watch other guys hit each other, and women like this too (that's why there's women's rugby). Universities shouldn't be in denial over that.

There would still be the same system of bowl games and the Vanier Cup, but each year, there would be a possibility of a NCAA Tournament-style upset like we saw last March when George Mason upset mighty UConn. Who knows -- with a full-fledged conference of programs using Laval's model, you could add a relegation/promotion element like you see in the English Premier League. Tell me what I'm hashing out here won't be a lot more interesting than what we've seen the past few seasons.

Again, this is rushed and kind of vague, but hopefully you see the possibilities.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.