Calvin’s board of trustees approved football, men’s volleyball, and women’s acrobatics and tumbling as future varsity sports on Oct. 28. 

“Football is an exciting development, but it’s part of a broader Athletic Strategic Plan that includes a number of initiatives from better outdoor athletic facilities, to resourcing coaches more fully, to moving the club sports under athletics and aligning it with our varsity programs, to adding three varsity sports and maybe expanding hockey,” said Provost Noah Toly. 

Administrators hope starting a football team will help to increase and diversify enrollment. “This is really about strategic growth. [Football] is one of the biggest ways that we can grow undergraduate enrollment in a very short period of time,” said Chief Financial Officer Tim Fennema. 

“I think we’re gonna have more people on campus, and I think we’re gonna see a wider diversity of people ––– [diversity] of thought, of size and shape. [T]hat’s the picture that we want at Calvin. It brings a wider diversity of people on campus,” said Director of Athletics James Timmer.  

According to Fennema, wanting to play football is one reason students choose otherwise-comparable schools over Calvin. “If you look at our cross-app schools or the MIAA, where we are losing out to not even students considering Calvin, [football] is one particular area,” said Fennema. 

Toly agreed. “When you look at other schools that launch football programs, they typically end up with .1 to .25 additional students for every football player because of other connections that football helps you make and the interest that non-players have at being at a school with football,” Toly said. 

The football program will roster around 120 students. Although the main objective of adding programs is to increase enrollment, administrators hope that these investments will also be able to help “bolster arts programs” at Calvin. “There’s no good reason to believe that football will equal a less rich experience in the arts,” said Toly. “In fact, we are working with some folks in the arts to see if we can leverage the football investment to bolster our arts programs.”  

“If we do this and we get the enrollment to where we think it needs to be, it allows us to reinvest back to the university and to other programs,” Fennema said.

“We’re taking things we do really well here and we are going to try to make more opportunities for more people and I think it’s going to be a way to unite the university,” said Associate Director of Athletics Amber Warners. 

One of those opportunities is the possibility of a marching band at Calvin. 

“One of the things that sold me on football was the fact that it could also help bring more energy into music on campus. With a marching band, you bring new students, new musicians and you bring a new energy around music as well. [Having a football program] builds sports, music and student spirit,” said President Wiebe Boer. 

The potential of a football program at Calvin has been in the works for decades. “[Football] has been thought about since we joined the MIAA in 1950. There’s moments in time at which you look at it more seriously,” said Timmer. “Football is the biggest and most popular sport in America. [With] an athletic department that doesn’t include that, you’re always asking ‘when is the right time?’ or ‘should Calvin engage in that?’ And the timing was right with leadership and with cultural and societal things.” 

According to Boer, it’s also the right moment in the history of the sport. “The technology in helmets, first of all, is much better now, and secondly the protocols that are in place are very much focused on protecting athletes,” he said.

Administrators believe that adding a football program will also  create excitement and give a rhythm to campus life and activities. “I think students will be excited about the rhythm of football. It’s once a week every weekend and that creates a cadence to the fall semester,” said Toly.  

Warners agreed. “[Football] is going to make student life way more exciting. There’s gonna be more of a buzz … where people are going to be excited to be around for the weekend,” she said. 

“Launching a football program is gonna be a community challenge. It’s going to take everyone on campus and everyone’s encouragement to get that done. But I think it will be a great community builder and school spirit builder,” said Timmer. 

Men’s volleyball and women’s acrobatics and tumbling are on a faster track. “We’re looking to hire coaches within the next six weeks,” said Warners. 

“Our hope is that we have men’s volleyball and acrobatics as soon as next year,” said Timmer. “[Although] the leagues that they will be competing in are still to be determined.” 

Varsity football may not start competing until the fall of 2025. “Three options: We play 2024 varsity, we don’t play 2024 and we start 2025, or we play a JV year in 2024 and a varsity year 2025,” said Timmer. “There are so many factors that go into that: the speed at which we can get the facilities going and hire a football staff and then our outside partner in football, the NCAA and the MIAA, we want to keep the momentum going but we want to make sure that we get the infrastructure right.”