From the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Since 1999, Mid-American Conference colleges have dropped 26 sports as a way to balance the budget or comply with gender equity:
Miami (1999): Wrestling, men's tennis, men's indoor track, men's soccer.
Eastern Michigan (2000): Men's tennis, men's soccer.
Northern Illinois (2001): Men's and women's swimming.
Bowling Green (2002): Men's swimming and diving, men's tennis, men's indoor and outdoor track.
Toledo (2003): Men's indoor and outdoor track, men's swimming and diving.
Ball State (2004): Men's cross country, men's indoor and outdoor track.
Western Michigan (2004): Men's cross country, men's indoor and outdoor track, women's synchronized swimming.
Ohio (2007): Men's swimming and diving, men's indoor and outdoor track, women's lacrosse.
23 men's sports (88%)
3 women's (12%)
I hate when this happens, because there will never be a balance between male and female student athletes. There is no women's sport that has the same number of athletes as football.
http://www.sportswebnews.com
Why don't you add more women sports to balance it out?
:sigh:
For saying OSU has high academic requirements, you must not have graduated from there.
It's because the MAC does not receive billions of dollars from the BCS.
White_Goodman Wrote:Why don't you add more women sports to balance it out?
They do. Actually though, it's usually not as feasible to add a women's sport as it is to drop a men's sport.
NIU has 7 men's sports and 10 women's sports. Still though, many 'minor' men's sports get screwed because of Title IX and budgeting.
There needs to be a football exemption for the Title IX BS.
didnt toledo have wrestling at one point?
RocketBandMan Wrote:didnt toledo have wrestling at one point?
Yes, but the list here is for sports cut since 1999 and wrestling was cut at Toledo back in the 80's.
rocketfootball Wrote:Northern Illinois (2001): Men's and women's swimming.
Was NIU good at Men's and Women's Swimming when we had it? I came to NIU two years after it was cut, so i have never heard anything whether they were good or not.
epasnoopy Wrote:rocketfootball Wrote:Northern Illinois (2001): Men's and women's swimming.
Was NIU good at Men's and Women's Swimming when we had it? I came to NIU two years after it was cut, so i have never heard anything whether they were good or not.
Well this speaks close to my heart, cause I swam for Northern from 95-99 and was a men's team captain, MAC qualifier and point scorer....
We were never class of the MAC, but we had a number of standout swimmers and conference champions and were truly a (yes cliched) team on the rise. We couldn't compete with the depth of swimmers EMU, Toledo and Miami had to beat them in a dual meet, but our top swimmers were good and often better.
NCAA D-1 swimming at the elite level is world class competitive, and my relay team was this close in 98 in making NCAA's. The NCAA D-1 Men's Swimming and Diving Championship is the most competitive swim meet on earth - it is harder to make the Men's NCAA's than it is to make the Olympics. EMU, Miami and Toledo regularly sent swimmers to the NCAA's, and EMU and Miami still do. So the men's and women's teams were right there, student-athletes with high GPA's just about to break through to the elite MAC swimming schools of EMU, Toledo and Miami when the rug was pulled out under us - no meetings, no ability to raise funds etc.....
Dee Abrahamson (NIU Associate AD for non-revenue sports) called me after I the team meeting to tell me about the dropping of the team - claiming that during a home meet against Toledo, one of the Toledo divers hit their head on the bottom of Anderson Pool - and Toledo said they would never come back to NIU to swim unless we made a number of improvements to the aquatic facilites, including deepening the diving well, adding lanes and an improved timing system. FYI Anderson Pool was significantly smaller and worse than my HS pool, so the improvements were needed, yes and other teams had made the same grumblings. Those facility improvements were claimed too expensive - so the teams were cut. 45+ student athletes, 4 coaches and 2 GAs. Scholarships were honored and releases given, but NIU is where we all wanted to be.
Oh well. Jim Phillips (NIU AD) has never had the courtesy to respond to a couple notes I've sent to him in this regard. It is a lost
Thanks for the story LS. Sucks that this is the way it is for the MAC these days.
THe $ crunch is affected BCS conferences as well. Several Big 12 programs offer only 6 men's sports.
Iowa State in the last 3 years has dropped Baseball and Men's Tennis.
Only Iowa St, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M offer Men's Swimming & Diving.
All Big 12 South programs offer Men's Tennis, Nebraska is the only North Division team that does.
Only OK St, OK, Nebraska, Iowa St & MO offer Wrestling.
Colorado & ISU don't have baseball.
Unless "minor" sports can develop a revenue stream by fundraising, admission fees or increased student activity fees (unlikely); these sports are going to have a tough time
White_Goodman Wrote:Why don't you add more women sports to balance it out?
Eastern has done that. When men's soccer was dropped, women's crew was added. This helped with EMU's Title IX problems but didn't solve them.
But doing that doesn't reduce budget.
In a perfect world, in order to comply with Title 9, you would add women's sports, not have to subtract men's sports.