Jackson State University has announced its intention to sue its SWAC rival, Grambling State University, after the players on the Grambling football team elected to boycott the game with JSU, which was its Homecoming game.
“The cancellation of the football game was disappointing for faculty, staff, students, alumni and supporters,” according to a statement released by Jackson State University. The school went on to credit “the strong spirit of those who refused to let another institution’s challenges dampen JSU’s Homecoming.
“Still, the JSU family was damaged. Our Homecoming game draws tens of thousands of fans. The university intends to use litigation to be made whole for our direct and indirect financial losses.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to Mississippi taxpayers and the JSU community to mitigate our ongoing and substantial losses. Jackson State plans to pursue litigation against Grambling State and others.
“Grambling’s issues are well documented and long standing. Those issues, however, are not JSU’s issues nor are these JSU’s responsibility.
“Grambling repeatedly assured us its team would travel to Jackson. Late Friday afternoon they informed us their student athletes would not travel to Jackson for our scheduled game. We have dealt in good faith with Grambling and the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The actions of both have hurt JSU.
“The SWAC commissioner did not return calls from our director of athletics the entire week. The Clarion-Ledger reported the SWAC commissioner would be meeting with folks at Grambling and JSU. We haven’t seen him, nor has he called.
“Jackson State University’s and the city of Jackson’s losses could be in the millions. It would be irresponsible for JSU to fail to pursue some redress.”
Complicating that attempt to get “redress” may be the fact that Grambling is financially strapped, due to massive budget cuts in Louisiana.
These cuts, in part, led to the situation that sparked the boycott of the Jackson State game. While the student athletes have returned to the playing field, Jackson State hasn’t forgotten the inconvenience.
SWAC commissioner Duer Sharp said a recent press conference that he was hopeful a solution could be found.
“I have been in contact and talking with the leadership at Jackson State,” Sharp said in a teleconference. “I think what’s going to possibly take place is there’s going to be some discussion amongst the two institutions and see if some type of resolution can be made moving forward.”
