To grow the Atlanta Football Classic, game officials have gone to the roots of black college football.
The 23rd classic will match Florida A&M and Southern University, one of the oldest and more storied rivalries among historically black colleges and universities. The two schools have signed a two-year agreement and will play Sept. 24 in the Georgia Dome.
The classic, produced by the non-profit 100 Black Men of Atlanta as a fundraiser for a program preparing Atlanta Public Schools students for college, dropped Tennessee State in favor of Southern after a 17-year run with the school. Attendance declined as the Tigers lost 11 of their past 14 classics. FAMU has played in every classic since 1998.
"We keep evolving the game, and we thought that this matchup with these two schools would move us even further ahead," classic chairman Bill Lamar said.
Southern athletic director Greg LaFleur said he had been in discussions with classic officials for almost two years and that talks picked up after the 2010 game, which drew about 54,000. Southern and FAMU first played in 1941, but had to end their rivalry in 2001 because of scheduling conflicts. They had arranged a four-year series starting in 2007, but further scheduling issues limited it to a two-year run.
The two schools' teams, and their marching bands, are entrenched in the history of black college football. Southern coach Arnett Mumford and FAMU coach Jake Gaither were pioneers of black college football, winning 11 black-college national titles in their combined 49 years at their respective schools.
"We both know how important this [game] is to our institutions," FAMU athletic director Derek Horne said.
LaFleur said the Jaguars' fan base could buy as many as 40,000 seats in the dome. Horne said FAMU, which has a large alumni base in Atlanta, buys around 18,000 tickets for the game.
Tennessee State officials said they were kept in the dark about getting dropped by the classic.
"They never even contacted us," athletic department spokesman Wallace Dooley said. "We had several meetings set up with them after the classic to prepare for next year. We never heard anything from them."
Dooley said the school heard rumors in January that they were being replaced by Southern and learned the truth after confronting game officials. John Grant, CEO of 100 Black Men of Atlanta, said his group was clear with both FAMU and Tennessee State after the 2010 classic that it would assess the game. Once the classic decided on FAMU and Southern, it contacted Tennessee State, Grant said.
"If they heard we were speaking to other universities, we were because we were not under contract with anyone at that point, and we were free to just kind of see what was out there, which is the process," Grant said.
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