April 19, 2025
Though Morehouse and the mayor of Montgomery celebrated the transfer, residents of Columbus, Georgia, have been lower than happy in regards to the transfer
The Tuskegee-Morehouse Traditional, among the many oldest HBCU rivalries, can be shifting from Columbus, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama, for its eighty fifth iteration, and though Morehouse and the mayor of Montgomery celebrated the transfer, residents of Columbus have been lower than happy in regards to the transfer and its misplaced income for town.
In response to WVTM, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, a Morehouse alum, mentioned that he needed the soccer recreation in Montgomery so he and his metropolis can supply the sport and its college students and athletic employees greater than they’d been receiving in Columbus and Birmingham, its earlier houses.
“Perceive the backdrop of Montgomery because the birthplace of the Civil Rights Motion. Perceive the kind of academic alternatives it’ll have for the coed athletes in addition to the followers who’re coming,” Reed mentioned. “It was a enterprise determination from the standpoint of what we have been ready to supply to deliver the sport to Montgomery versus what they have been being supplied in different cities particularly Columbus the place they performed final yr.”
Columbus resident Terrance Flowers hinted {that a} potential cause for the sport’s relocation could possibly be an absence of attendance as he instructed the outlet, “I don’t know why they left however I do know it’s one thing that’s going to harm this metropolis. It jogs my memory of a type of issues, when you actually like one thing it’s important to pour into it,” Flowers mentioned.
In response to Al.com, the sport’s historical past in Columbus stretches again to 1936, and each recreation since has been performed there aside from a three-year run from 2020-2023.
Lisa Goodwin, the chairperson for The Traditional, as the sport is thought, mentioned that Harold Ellis, Morehouse Faculty’s athletics director, knowledgeable her that the sport was certainly moved because of monetary issues.
“One of many (causes) he talked about to me was that it was a monetary determination for them,” Goodwin instructed the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer, earlier than persevering with, noting to the outlet that the house staff has the best to resolve the place the sport is performed.
“The sport right here in Columbus has historic significance,” Goodwin mentioned. “And we hope that in the future Morehouse Faculty acknowledges that, as Tuskegee College does.”
Goodwin additionally famous that attendance was down final yr, one thing she attributed to the transfer from Birmingham again to Columbus.
“There must be consistency for folks to (go) all-in and imagine that it’s going to be right here,” she mentioned. “So this yr, in 2025, the truth that they’re leaving once more makes it disappointing for us.”Ellis, in the meantime, is hopeful that Alabama’s capital metropolis will end up for the sport, as he indicated in a information launch on April 18.
“I’ve little question they are going to present up and present out for this Traditional!” Ellis mentioned. “Past the joy on the sphere, that is an unbelievable alternative for our student-athletes, band members, and college students to expertise the wealthy civil rights historical past embedded within the metropolis. Morehouse’s legacy runs deep in Alabama.”
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