Temple

The Temple President Sounds Like He’s Happy With Athletics Forever Being a Stepping Stone

By Kyle Pagan

Published: Sep 19th, 2025 · 3:16 PM EDT

---

Well this is a kick in the gut to anyone who roots for Temple sports. Temple’s President, John Fry, was asked about the future of the athletics program at an alumni event and provided the worst possible answer you could imagine. If you were holding out hope that one day there’s a chance of stringing together some good seasons, and maybe being asked to join a conference that actually means something, don’t hold your breath via Shawn Pastor at 247sports.com:

David Boardman: “A topic we hadn’t necessarily planned on talking about, but I had a couple people ask me about and I thought I’d bring to you, and I know you have thoughts about it: How do you see the role of athletics in Temple’s future?  And I know, you talk about challenges, amateur athletics, college athletics right now is in turmoil.  What’s your vision for athletics?”

(I’ll save you the fluff of Fry’s initial comments about how important it is that the athletic program graduates all of their student athletes and instead give you what you care about.)

John Fry: “So with the teams that we have right now, great coaching, but especially with the commitment of the student-athletes, we’re doing the work that we have to do, which is we’re giving them opportunity, they’re coming, they’re excelling in the classroom, they’re excelling on the playing field, and then they’re graduating and they’re going off and living good lives.  We don’t have 20 percent graduation rates.  We have over 90 percent.  So that’s job number one.

“Now that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be a top four power conference type of thing.  We can’t afford that.  And frankly, if I have to spend my money on research or financial aid or innovation or athletics, I know where I’m going to spend it.  With the recognition that we need to do more, have to do more for athletics.

“I think that my vision for this is that highly competitive programs that understand the core piece of what they’re supposed to do, but are on a regular basis competitive and strong and bring pride to the institution, and also provide a front door for the public to access Temple, because in many ways, that’s the best way to access a University.

“But I don’t want to overdo it.  I think we’ve underdone it more recently and I think we need to fix that.”

Temple athletics is dead in the water. You can’t blame Adam Fisher or any coach for high-tailing it out of here the minute they string together some success after hearing the guy who signs your paychecks basically say we’re good with where we are. If I was working in the athletic office I’d feel so deflated. You’re working your ass off trying to get people to games, trying to find ways to acquire more NIL money, and trying to get Temple back to where it was only a decade ago. If I heard the President say this I’d be scouring the Villanova job board. At least you’ll know you’ll have a purpose. Who wants to work at a place that has no vision for the future? The last thing you can do in college sports today is remain complacent. It’s a death sentence. Sure, students and alumni would love for Temple to get back to being competitive, but we’re still playing teams in Texas and Florida that have no geographical connection. No one’s getting up for Charlotte vs. Temple on a Saturday at the Linc.

We should’ve known this would be John Fry’s play all along. We all passed around that Wall Street Journal story he wrote while at Drexel titled, We’re Glad We Say No to Football. Of course when he agreed to take the Temple gig he mentioned he had no plans to get rid of the program and even called it “a gateway” to the university in one of the first interviews he did. He tried to pull the wool over our eyes, and maybe he tricked us for a little bit. Of course it turns out he was just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You gotta remember this is the same guy who left Drexel, but not before announcing on his last day that they were in the middle of $63 million budget shortfall and people were being laid off. This guy cares about buying and developing more buildings than he cares about who Temple football is playing this week. He probably still needs a GPS to get to the Liacouras Center.

Why would anyone donate a dollar to NIL if the President said he doesn’t give a shit about sports? Why would someone in the NIL office want to fight tooth and nail for recruits? I know I’m being dramatic, but 9/19/25 is the day Temple athletics died. I’ll never understand why the largest college in a top-5 media market with 400k alumni wouldn’t want to try and build a new revenue stream. Maybe the juice isn’t worth the squeeze at this point and college sports are so far gone if you didn’t already have the infrastructure, but I promise you Temple alums aren’t pointing to the new building John Fry just bought to show their school pride. They feel way more pride beating Penn State in football or taking down #1 Houston in basketball. The greatest lie the devil ever told is that sport doesn’t mean anything to people at Temple. Saturday we got our asses WHOOPED and it was still awesome. The lots were full with tailgaters, the basketball team had recruits on the field in a great atmosphere, Temple alumni in the NFL all came back. It was the first time I’d been to a Temple game since Notre Dame in 2015. Now it’s over. Play the fight song…for now.