According to Ball State track & field senior Brian Runyon, the Cardinals will eliminate men's indoor and outdoor track, men's volleyball, men's swimming, women's field hockey and women's gymnastics after the 2003-04 seasons.
More information is being updated at Trackshark.com
BSU fans will have to help us here but this is pretty shocking if true.........BSU men's volleyball has been a perienniel top 20 program and has made it to the final four, and I think that their women's field hockey program is top-notch as well.
Wow, track and field appears to be a dying men's sport at the collegiate level. It seems that everyone is dropping it.
More information out of The Star Press is below:
<a href='http://www.thestarpress.com/tsp/news/local/03/jun/0605BallStatesportscuts.php' target='_blank'>http://www.thestarpress.com/tsp/news/local...esportscuts.php</a>
Terrible decision. I love college football and basketball, but at the MAC level, the costs associated with the presentation of a competitive football / basketball team is too much for these non-revenue sports to bear. To all those athletes whose sports will be cut at BSU - I hope they find options and continue their sports at other schools.
When NIU cut the sport I was a 4 year letter winner and team captain for, I wrote a letter to the Athletic Director and the President of the University telling them that I would never send another penny to the institutiion until they re-instated my sport. Until then, I give my annual $1000.00 to my high school athletic department. At least the money at the HS level seems to make a difference and allows athletes to compete and improve. All my money to NIU over the years apparently went for naught. My dad, who was also a 4 year letter winner and team captain at the University of Illinois, also had his sport cut. He doesn't give a penny to UofI anymore, and he used to give A LOT.
And I bet most if not all of the BSU athletes who sports were cut will feel the same. So in the course of trying to save money, BSU alienates a potential windfall of donations as those athletes want nothing to do with BSU in the future. Cut off your nose to "save" your face.
The Flash Wrote:Wow, track and field appears to be a dying men's sport at the collegiate level. It seems that everyone is dropping it.
Yes, in the MAC at least. No other conference has seen so many cuts over the past couple of years than the MAC. That marks Miami indoors, Bowling Green, Toledo, Marshall and now Ball State.
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I think that all of this reduction in sposnored sports by MAC schools leads to the obvious question: How many sports will the MAC be sponsoring in 5 years?
From a review of the "Olympic" sports lineups on the MAC site, several sports only have four or five teams now and include affiliates like UL, Kentucky, and IUPFW. My guess is that M swimming, field hockey, M track/CC, M tennis, and others may soon be gone as "MAC sponsored" sports. Any thoughts?
And we have Title IX and budget cuts by the states to blaim for all of this.
The Flash Wrote:I think that all of this reduction in sposnored sports by MAC schools leads to the obvious question: How many sports will the MAC be sponsoring in 5 years?
I would bet a lot of money that there will be no MAC schools with Men's Swimming in 3 years. Perhaps Buffalo will keep a men's swimming team, as they have a most impressive facility and a lot of close compitition, but that is what I would of said of Toledo's combination of great swimmers and a great facility just a year ago.
I suppose this means Ball State's players will have to take a pay cut now...
From my viewpoint, its bad for the University. That's losing a lot of kids if you think about it. Sports is a good reason why kids go to college....and if they don't have it there...the kids go elsewhere.
I, personally, don't usually follow swimming, or tennis, or track and field.
Nice try, Nick Danger, but my school isn't the one on NCAA probation for illegally paying players... yours is. Learn to deal with it.
For the record, these are committee recommendations. They still have to go through two or three more steps of approval to be finalized, and things can change during that time. The potential outcomes range from full acceptance of the recommendations, to partial acceptance (with the potential that some sports not on the list may be the ones cut instead of those named), to rejection of them.
Word on the BSU boards says that efforts are already underway to spare men's volleyball (12 Final Four appearances) and field hockey (a perennial Top 10 program throughout the 80s and 90s). I wouldn't be surprised at all if these two sports are kept on board after further review, particularly men's volleyball, since it has the smallest budget of the six sports listed.
Too easy..... I knew you would bite!
But not much of a sense of humor.
This is a terrible trend in intercollegiate athletics.
The MAC is burdened by the requirements of Title IX and the carrying of far too many football scholarships. I don't see any reason why the NCAA should not reduce the max number of FB scholarships to a reasonable level. I would have loved to have seen Title IX tossed out the window when the opportunity was there.
I certainly hope, from a purely personal POV, that the MAC continues to sponsor men's swimming and track and field, etc....as EMU cleans up in these sports.
#1) What does football scholarships have to do with this?
#2) It's the same scholarship amount as any other University in D-1.
It's simple AO...the MAC is obviously not on the same revenue level as the B10, etc... and has a greater burden in funding these scholarships due to a greatly inferior revenue stream coming from football. But, schools don't want to sacrifice football due to the potentialy for high visibility with any success. So, the losses have to be made up in some way don' they? Hence, goodbye track, goodbye volleyball, etc...
I believe every school in the MAC but one or two are running a deficit in the athletic department. The greatest cost? Football. Now, I am not arguing for elimination of football, just a more reasonable scholarship limit which I think would ease a portion of the financial burden and allow MAC schools to continue to compete at the 1A level.
Also, if we could rid ourselves of Title IX....but we know that will never happen.
There is absolutely no way you will ever make a convincing argument that football needs 85 scholarships. 60 is probably adequate, 70 is more than enough (considering the NFL gets by with 53-man rosters).
Reducing the number of football scholarships to a reasonable level would go a long way toward stopping the sports-reduction trend. Title IX has little, if anything, to do with it, IMO...
Ok, ok....thanks HuronDave.
Personally, since I don't follow the "smaller-known" athletics around Akron like some others might, it wouldn't be any skin off of my back if they rid us of some of them.
I can't stand it when Akron plays bigboys, but has to share the money with EVERY program. I mean, if it's almost a guaranteed loss (not always, but you know what I'm saying) why make the football team suffer both financially AND in the standings?
For instance: Zips football last year played 5 Top 25 teams and 4 Bowl teams. Now most people who know little about sports (you all here know better) would say, "hey...thats a money-maker".
Not really. We have to share with the men's CRICKET team, and the women's TENNIS team...RIFLE...etc, etc...and THAT pisses me off.
I bet those sports draw TONS of people to come watch :rolleyes:
AkronObsessed Wrote:#1) What does football scholarships have to do with this?
#2) It's the same scholarship amount as any other University in D-1.
football scholly's eat up budget money that could otherwise be put into other sports where the maximum scholarship #s are much lower.
if 1-A were to go to 65 or 60 scholly's, a pretty good number of other sports programs would not face elimination. also, cut a football assistant and you could pay for 1 or even 2 other coaches.
a lot of people like to point a finger at title IX, but a lot of blame should fall on football.