Unfortunately so. The police department had been trying to make us stop using it for years now and wanted us to take out a huge insurance policy on it, which we could not afford. The athletics department wanted to take over the operation of it, and we told them no since it was our thing. On top of that, around the same time all of these negotiations were going on, a now former member, who was a student at the time and not on cannon crew for this game, got a hold of a field pass after a game and used it to get into football operations areas and was caught. That pretty much ended the athletic department's trust in the undergrads operating it.
I had the chance to talk to Jamie Pollard two years ago about it and proposed allowing fraternity alumni to operate it during games. He told me that he liked the idea but it was not his call on it. That was before I found out about the whole insurance policy thing.
The cannon still exists, I actually helped pick it up from a University PD storage facility last week and it's now stored at another alum's farm. I even got to fire it off again, which is always really fun!
