WHEELING — There had been rumors for many years circling that Wheeling Jesuit University had been giving serious consideration to adding a football program.

The rumors became reality Tuesday afternoon.

Wheeling Jesuit President Dr. Debra Townsley made the formal announcement that the university’s Board of Trustees had approved of the addition of football as a varsity sport for the 2019 season during a press conference inside the Alma Grace McDonough Center.

The team will actually begin play — with an exhibition schedule — starting in 2018 and then commence a varsity schedule, including a full Mountain East Conference schedule the following year.

“Our mission is to educate the whole student and that’s through mind, body and spirit,” Townsley said. “Certainly athletics are an integral part of our mission in educating the whole person. We expect that football will continue that.”

In recent years, Jesuit has added wrestling and rugby to its athletic lineup, which now consists of 21 varsity sports.

“It’s an exciting time at Wheeling Jesuit University, especially when you add a sport like football because it brings out the community and everyone’s interested in football,” Athletics Director Kevin Forde said. “Football is the number one sport in the country (in terms of popularity) and when you add a sport like that it’s going to bring excitement to any organization or group. We’re excited to bring that to our campus.”

The NCAA estimated that Division II schools that sponsor football programs the median expense is $5.3 million. Just last month, the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston purchased the university to help with the university’s long-term future. Thus, the cost of adding a football program was certainly discussed.

“It’s an expensive sport and the start-up costs can be high, but when you look at the bottom line and what we do, the student-athlete experience is very important,” Forde said. “Football will be a great addition to Wheeling Jesuit in the long run.”

One of the first jobs Forde was asked to do when he accepted his position was to complete a “report on the feasibility of football.”

“I did the report and we went back and forth on what it would take to do it the right way,” Forde said. “There have been a lot of conversations about what it means to have a football program here. At the end of the day, it got through to the right people in enough conversations that they really felt this was the best thing to do for Wheeling Jesuit.”

With the artificial turf stadium already on campus, the next item of business is hiring a head coach. Forde, who is stepping down from his role as A.D. in the coming weeks, will help with the search process, but not oversee it. He indicated there’s no set timetable for a hiring.

“As soon as we can get the right coach … that’s the time line,” Forde said. “We want to hire someone quickly, but we also don’t want to rush it. We want to find the right person. It’s going to be critical and I want to be sure that the person we find knows that I am not going to be their supervisor.”

Though the stadium, which is also used by Jesuit soccer, rugby and lacrosse as well as Wheeling Central, is completed, infrastructure questions remain. Things like locker room and weight room facilities are two of the key items to be worked out.

“We have plans in place and now we just need to move them forward,” Forde said. “We put some funding into the weightroom, which will help. The field is a great facility. The locker rooms and things will be a juggling match, but there is some space here (in the McDonough Center) that we can work with. We have some time since we’re not going to have a full team until summer of 2019.”

The addition of football also firms up the Cardinals’ membership in the Mountain East Conference. A member since the conference’s formation in the fall of 2013, Jesuit was the only school of the 12 in the conference to not sponsor a football program.

“We’re excited to offer the final sport that the MEC requires,” Townsley said.

According to Forde, the conference didn’t give Jesuit an ultimatum to add football or its membership would be terminated.

“They’ve been good enough to us to give us the one-year waivers to remain in the conference,” Forde said. “They also understand the importance of Wheeling Jesuit to the conference. This is just the last hurdle we had to jump over to be a full member.”