In the fight over football's future at San Jose State University, James Brent is an unlikely general leading the heretics of the academy against all the Spartan Army holds dear.

Among this former academic senate president's weapons are research papers, an intimate knowledge of parliamentary procedure and a good head for strategy.

Brent is the force behind Spartans4Sanity, a loose confederation that contends spending taxpayer dollars on Division I-A athletics is a luxury when the university is cutting classes, closing labs and squeezing the library budget.

``I'm a professor, and professors devote themselves to the pursuit of truth,'' Brent said. ``And every fact I look at tells me that Division I-A football doesn't make sense at San Jose State University.''

Brent's group says getting out of Division I-A would save the university more than $3 million a year that would be better spent on academics. Athletics officials counter that Division I-A football more or less pays its own way.

Spartans4Sanity celebrated a victory last month when the academic senate, a governing body of faculty, students, staff members and administrators, voted 22-11 for sharply limiting university funding for sports teams and dropping out of Division I-A athletics and the Western Athletic Conference altogether. That vote followed months of Brent's behind-the-scenes groundwork.

Now that he's gone public, Brent is pulling down both scorn and praise.

Those who oppose the Spartans4Sanity resolution that was approved in the senate say it gives ``an incomplete, simplistic and unsubstantiated view'' of the relationship between university spending on athletics and Division I-A status. Results of an advisory referendum by the entire faculty could be announced as soon as today.

Die-hard football fans, grousing about Brent on a Spartan athletics message board, go straight for invective, calling him everything from a ``bloated, bombastic blowhard'' and know-it-all to a ``liberal looney.'' But in the latest skirmish, one person acknowledged, ``the moderates and pro-football forces were outflanked.''

Campaign's roots

A onetime Ohio State Buckeyes fan whose passions now run to pro tennis and an extensive collection of disco-funk music from the 1970s and '80s, Brent says a confluence of events are responsible for his crusade.

It started in 2001 when the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced rule changes for Division I-A schools, which he suspected would boost the cost of athletics. This year, 58 percent of the $11.8 million athletics budget is paid for by the university general fund, up from 50 percent three years ago.

Next came the death of his mentor, political science Professor Roy Young, a provocateur and former academic senate chairman who was at the center of many debates over athletics spending. At Young's funeral, Brent found himself wondering who would carry the banner.

The capper came in the fall of 2002 when athletics officials announced they would count the people who came to a Latino-themed pregame festival as game attendees. They hoped 2,000 people would visit the festival. About half that number showed up, leaving the university shy once again of the NCAA's 15,000 minimum home-game attendance requirement for Division I-A eligibility.

``That set something off in my mind,'' Brent said. ``It showed they were desperate. They tried trickery, and even that didn't work.''

First open meeting

But Brent was in an awkward position at that time. As then-chairman of the academic senate, he wanted to remain officially neutral on football. But the day after his last senate meeting as chairman, he said, he convened the first open meeting of Spartans4Sanity.

Brent, who produced a 30-page ``white paper'' laying out his case on the Spartans4Sanity Web site, is an idealist who believes deeply in democratic principles, said history Professor Jonathan Roth, a friend and colleague. ``He's built a very powerful argument, and there really was no response to it,'' Roth said.

Brent said he understands the important role athletics can play at a university. As a graduate student at Ohio State University, Brent was a regular at Buckeyes games, and followed the team on television after graduation.

He points to the university's changing demographics, competing interests and losing teams to explain why the Spartans struggle to attract 10,000 people to most home games.

``I am not against football,'' Brent said. ``I would not be against a successful football program. But we don't have a successful program, we haven't for at least a dozen years and we have almost no hope of having a successful program in the future.''