Lehigh Football Nation

Summer blockbuster season is already here, and it's a time for sequels like the new Star Trek and Night at the Museum movies. But here at LFN there's also a sequel about something no college sports fan wants to contemplate: the credit crunch around the Patriot League, which I talked about quite a bit last month . In that blog posting, I had mentioned that Lafayette "seemed to be doing fine" from all outward appearances. But nothing could have been further from the truth, as reported by Michael Duck and Genevieve Marshall of the Morning Call : Lafayette College, Easton's biggest employer, will slash budgets, freeze salaries and cut back on building projects over the next four years because of the economic downturn and a dwindling endowment, college officials announced this week. ''Over the next four fiscal years, the college plans to decrease its operating budget by roughly 10 percent, or approximately $11 million,'' college President Daniel Wei...

Folks looking at whether Lehigh should offer athletic scholarship ought to look at the story of the 6th round draft pick of the Cleveland Browns, Norfolk State CB Don Carey . Why? According to this report , he almost was a Mountain Hawk: “Coming out of high school I really wasn’t highly recruited as far as football. I had a lot of academic scholarships. I had financial aid to Yale, financial aid to Michigan, financial aid to Colgate, Lehigh, all kinds of schools, Patriot and Ivy League schools. I only had one football scholarship and that was Norfolk State. I really couldn’t afford to go to Yale. I’m honored that I received that acceptance letter and whatnot, but Norfolk State gave me the best chance to get a college education and still play football.” Carey was a four-year starter for the Spartans and is planning to major in building construction technology (with a minor in architectural drafting) in May. He was Norfolk State's recipient of the Army Strong Award in 2007, given ...