Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/L. William Caine

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Userfy. 17:47, 10 May 2010 Paulmcdonald (talk | contribs) moved L. William Caine to User:Paulmcdonald/L. William Caine ‎ (Userfy to build up article sources to better level) (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

L. William Caine

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This coach of a defunct college football team is not notable per the guidelines for amateur sports people. The references are not specific, and any biographical data that might be obtained does not look like it will go beyond repeating statistics. Depending on the consensus for deletion, all the coaches in the Texas–Arlington Mavericks football coaches category may not be notable and should be deleted along with the navbox. Maybe the names of the coaches could be added to the UT Arlington Mavericks football article. EMBaero (talk) 13:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - per nom. Fails WP:ANYBIO as article does not get reliable sources and he made no lasting contributions to his coaching record. --Morenooso (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ you guys are kidding, right? Very first head coach of a program at the highest level of American football at its time. The NCAA didn't have divisions until 1955, the NFL wasn't formed until the next year (and even then it was considered a "bush league" for quite some time), and the NAIA didn't form until 1937. I'm sure that we could do better for sources, but most would be offline for something from the 1920's. And where the program is now is of no concern. The notability of the individual is as clear-cut as can be.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:49, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually I thought about this for a while. Before attaining a four-year college status, the University of Texas at Arlington football program was at a junior college level until 1959. This is clearly not the highest level of American football at the time since, for instance, the NFL started in 1920 and the Big Ten Conference already had football championships involving teams from different states. Consequently, I do not see how L. William Caine is the least bit notable using the Wikipedia biography standards. Coaches Duval, Edens, Moore, Lambert, Holmes, Milch, and Zapalac should also be deleted in my opinion, but I'll wait to see what the consensus is here before nominating the articles. Most of those coaches don't even have first names as the pages stand today. I think they would have been deleted earlier if not for the professional-looking info boxes and generic references. I see you have created many football-related articles of high quality, but I think this article has no chance of getting past a couple sentences. I would rather see a list of the early coaches in the Mavericks football article with a few quality references. EMBaero (talk) 03:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It does require thought, I'll give you that. I would 1) lean back to the precedence set up by Boise State and other programs that have been "junior college" levels that became top level, and 2) find out if "junior college" or "two year college" existed as an athletic classification in 1919 (the NJCAA didn't start until 1937 or 1938, depeding on what your definiition of "start" is) so it is very likely that although the program only had "freshmen and sophomores" on the squad, that they competed against other 4-year colleges and thus were at the "highest level of the sport" by default.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. —Paul McDonald (talk) 03:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mike Cline (talk) 12:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete An article about Grubbs Vocational College would probably be kept without a doubt. UT-Arlington has an interesting history as Arlington College, Carlisle Military Academy, Arlington Training School, Arlington Military Academy, Grubbs Vocational College, North Texas Agricultural College, Arlington State College, and, since 1967, UTA. The school had a football program from 1919 until 1985, and UT Arlington Mavericks football is also something that would be kept beyond a doubt (it needs expansion beyond its current list of 1959-1985). I won't suggest a merge, because we have some admins who twist that around as an excuse to keep. However, there's nothing here that merits a separate page. The entire article is built around a statistic (a combined record of 2-7-0 in the 1919 and 1920 seasons). Having been the head coach of a college football team is not, by itself, automatically notable. Mandsford (talk) 14:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This article has two external links used as sources. However, the College Football Data Warehouse has incomplete data on UT-Arlington and doesn't mention that Caine was the coach during the years at issue. The other link is to the front page of UT-Arlington's main athletics web site. If Caine is mentioned somewhere on that site, I can't find his name. I also tried looking him up in the Google News Archive but could not find anything relevant. Unless some source is found to confirm this information, I don't see how we can keep the article on Wikipedia. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy the more I look at this myself, the more I believe that better sources are needed. I'm encountering several "busted links" through my research from when I originally put the article up. I am going to userfy thie article to User:Paulmcdonald/L. William Caine and any objection can be on that talk page. Can an admin or someone else please close this out properly?--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will head over to the UT Arlington library sometime soon and look through their archives for good sources. I'll get together an early history section for the UT Arlington Mavericks football article. EMBaero (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.