inside: Carolyn Lamour ... - Floridawise Magazine
inside: Carolyn Lamour ... - Floridawise Magazine
inside: Carolyn Lamour ... - Floridawise Magazine
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SportsWise<br />
FAU Owls Football –<br />
On the Path to Success<br />
By Rob Chiavetta<br />
When you think about major<br />
college football in Florida, then you<br />
think of Miami, Florida, Florida State<br />
and perhaps even Central Florida, but<br />
Florida Atlantic? Not likely. What’s<br />
even more unlikely is when you see a<br />
schedule that includes Clemson, Kansas<br />
State, Oklahoma State and the Steve<br />
Spurrier led South Carolina<br />
Gamecocks; you figure it can’t be part<br />
of FAU’s schedule. However, you would<br />
be mistaken.<br />
As a member of the Sun Belt<br />
Conference, to see a nonconference<br />
schedule of the aforementioned is<br />
suicidal, but not for Head Coach<br />
Howard Schnellenberger.<br />
Schnellenberger enters his seventh<br />
28 October 2006<br />
season as The Owls first and only head coach to date,<br />
and he continues to push the program to compete at<br />
college football’s highest level. While the program is still<br />
in its infant stages, Schnellenberger believes that in order<br />
to be the best, you must compete against and beat the<br />
best.<br />
Howard Schnellenberger has always been known as<br />
the man to call when it comes time to rebuild a college<br />
football team. He started by resurrecting the Miami<br />
Hurricanes, a team which was on the verge of college<br />
football extinction, and led them to a National<br />
Championship in 1983. Schnellenberger then moved on<br />
FAU Head Coach Howard Schnellenberger<br />
to Louisville and eventually turned the Cardinals into a<br />
10-1-1 team in his sixth year at the school. So, what was<br />
the master-architect of college football thinking when he decided to<br />
return to coaching in 1998, not to just rebuild a program but to<br />
build one from the ground up?<br />
Although Schnellenberger is a bit “longer in the tooth” now than<br />
he was back at Miami and Louisville, it became clear right away<br />
that he hadn’t lost his touch. He started by attaching his name to the<br />
school and helped raise $15 million to get the program off the<br />
ground. Then, he got busy recruiting. His initial class came together<br />
and became a tough football team from the get-go. Despite a quick<br />
jump to Division I-A, the Owls won 11 games in 2003 and followed<br />
that with nine more wins in 2004. The 2004 season included wins<br />
over Hawaii, North Texas and Middle Tennessee, but it also marked<br />
the end of the road for Schnellenberger’s first recruiting class.<br />
When the Owls settled in as full-fledged members of the<br />
Division-I Sun Belt Conference last year, they did so with one of the<br />
most inexperienced teams in the conference. The result was a 2-win<br />
season, matching Schnellenberger’s worst year since arriving in<br />
Boca Raton. So with the challenge of now competing regularly on<br />
the Division-I level, the coach, who has built his reputation on<br />
rebuilding football programs, is now busy rebuilding the program he<br />
initially built. While several young starters took their lumps in 2005,<br />
15 return in 2006 with some experience. Add to that what may be<br />
the best recruiting class in school history, and the future is once<br />
again looking bright.<br />
With the brutal 2006 schedule, the overall record may not look<br />
favorable, but rest assured the program is headed in the right<br />
direction. So let the rest of the schools in the Sun Belt be forewarned<br />
– if you want to beat Florida Atlantic, you’d better do it this year,<br />
because the master rebuilder is once again on his path to success.<br />
— Come out and support the Owls, Palm Beach County’s very own major<br />
college football program. Visit http://fausports.cstv.com/ for ticket info. ❂