Florida International football can't afford a marching band and cheerleaders?

Let's see if we have this straight.

Florida International, with a football program that got a $700,000 guaranee from Iowa to play the Hawkeyes at Kinnick Stadium last September, can't afford the $45,000 a year for a cheerleading squad.

So it says in this Miami Herald story.

FIU had already decided to do away with its marching band.

Wow, that will be some atmosphere at the Miami school's second-year $50 million stadium this fall.

'This economy has forced us to make some very tough choices,'' FIU Athletics Director Pete Garcia said in a written statement. "Unfortunately, FIU athletics is neither immune to the current economic conditions nor to the fact that the university, in general, has had to cut prominent programs across the board.''

The Hlog knows how this could have been avoided. FIU could have paid a new head basketball coach half of what it's paying Isiah Thomas. And, it would have had a coach that's twice as good. Whoever it was.

"I know he is a good person,"  Garcia said in April when he hired Thomas. "Isiah is going to give our fans and alumni a lot of reasons to be excited."

No, he won't. Not unless he can be a one-man marching band at home football games.