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Panel to explore Rams/URegina partnership, an unusual one that might work elsewhere

The Regina Rams have perhaps the most unusual situation in CIS football; they compete as part of the University of Regina, but the team predates university affiliation and still has a distinct status within the athletic department. That's why they're still known as the Rams, the moniker used in their junior football days, rather than the Cougars, the name used for the rest of the university's teams. The arrangement that saw the Rams join forces with the U of R in 1999 is 15 years old this year, and the university is bringing it up for review. According to what athletics director Dick White toldThe Regina Leader-Post, though, this isn't a situation like UBC's where cutting footballwas briefly discussed. Instead, the university seems quite happy with the arrangement, and is exploring ways to make it better:

White expects the panel will hear a lot of positives about the school's relationship with the Rams, but he also believes there will be suggestions about potential improvements.

"(The relationship) is in a pretty good place," White said.

"But it would be absolutely crazy to not listen to all the stakeholders that are involved in this organization and hear how they think it's going and how we can make it better."

A respected three-person panel, composed of Jim Hopson (the Saskatchewan Roughriders' president, who also played with the Rams while they were still a junior team), Clint Hamilton (the University of Victoria's athletic director) and Jim Weese (a former university employee who's now the dean of health sciences at Western University), will run the review. They're going to meet with stakeholders, including Rams' players, coaches and sponsors, other people in the athletic department, Regina faculty and administrators and representatives from other Regina football programs. Community members' submissions are also being accepted via e-mail to Kinesiology and Health Studies dean Harold Riemer, khs.dean@uregina.ca. It's going to be interesting to see how this review plays out and what changes are made to the Rams-Regina relationship, but evidence from around CIS football suggests that other schools may be watching closely, as the model in place at the U of R could potentially work elsewhere.

While it's unusual to have a football program be so distinct from the rest of a school's teams, there are some notable advantages to it. For one, this can be a great way to get a CIS football program off the ground, bringing in a well-established organization with a solid coaching staff, ties to the rest of the football world and a pre-existing fanbase. Frank McCrystal's been coaching the Rams since their junior days, and he's led them to substantial success over the years. There's been plenty of talk of UBC-Okanagan potentially developing a similar partnership with the local Okanagan Sun junior team, Victoria could possibly follow some day, and the Laval model (which has only led to a decade of dominance) has substantial similarities to Regina's; a program that works within the athletic department, but also has substantial independence. That independence can be particularly useful from a sponsorship perspective, allowing boosters and companies to be more directly connected to the team they care about instead of the whole athletic department. Given the rising costs of running a CIS football program, that could be important. The Regina review will be worth keeping an eye on, but if it goes well, it may motivate other schools to follow a similar pattern.