The school first suited up a football team in 1933. From ESPN-
Northeastern University is dropping its football program after 74 years, saying it’s too expensive to maintain.
President Joseph Aoun and the board of trustees endorsed the move Friday after a two-year review of the Boston school’s sports programs by athletic director Peter Roby.
The program’s 87 players and 10 coaches learned of the program’s demise Sunday night at a meeting on campus with Roby, a day after the Football Championship Subdivision team (formerly Division I-AA) won its final game 33-27 at Rhode Island.
The Huskies won their final two games to finish 3-8, their sixth consecutive losing season.
The school will honor team members’ athletic scholarships.
Northeastern, which began playing football in 1933, had an all-time record of 289-364-17.
Arguably the Northeastern player to make the biggest mark in the NFL, was the late Dan Ross who was a tight end mostly for the Cincinnati Bengals and was a star of Super Bowl XVI.
College Athletics aren’t immune from today’s bad economy. Northeastern, who has a quality hockey program, is just using its resources where they will be best suited.
From AP
HAVERHILL, Mass. – Dan Ross, who set the record for most Super Bowl receptions with the Bengals in 1982, has died. He was 49.
The former tight end collapsed at his home in Atkinson, N.H., shortly after returning from a jog Tuesday evening, Northeastern’s sports information department said. He was taken to Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill, where he died.
Ross, who starred for the Huskies and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004, was drafted 30th overall by Cincinnati in 1979 and spent parts of six seasons with the Bengals. His best season came in 1981, when he set career highs with 71 catches for 910 yards and five touchdowns while helping the Bengals to their first AFC championship.
Ross made a Super Bowl-record 11 catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns in the Bengals’ 26-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in 1982. Jerry Rice and Deion Branch have since tied the mark.
Ross had a total of 263 receptions for 3,204 yards and 16 TDs with the Bengals. He also played for the Seattle Seahawks and finished his career in 1986 with the Green Bay Packers. Ross played in the USFL for the New Orleans/Portland Breakers from 1984-85.
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Ross is survived by his wife, Joan, and two children Dan Jr., 22, and Jillian, 23.
I attended that Super Bowl game(the only one I’ve seen in person) along with my father. My father did the payroll for Harness racing driver Ted Taylor. Ted was the brother-in-law of Paul Brown, the former owner of the Bengals. So I remember Ross and the game very well. RIP
