(07-07-2019 08:04 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  I used to play D1 tennis, and my recollection is that men's tennis only has a maximum of 4 1/2 scholarships, and the women have 8 (balances out Title IX due to the massive amount of football scholarships). The top 6 players compete, and most squads travel 8 players. For the women, this works out perfectly in terms of full ride scholarships for actual participants. For the men, only the ringers get full rides, and most of the bottom half are on partial scholarship, if any.

So, eliminating men's tennis in place of volleyball has a few issues:

1) Few schools would want to eliminate women's tennis because then they would have to replace it with something else. Once courts are built, tennis is one of the cheaper sports to sponsor.
2) Many schools have a "racquet club" so that alumni and donors can use the facilities when the teams are not practicing or playing. Obviously, tennis is a country club sport where a lot of business goes down, and many schools, especially private, use the tennis facilities for more than sanctioned sports.
3) Tennis teams historically have a high academic performers, and they almost always contribute to a school's overall academic grade point average.

So, if a school has awful tennis facilities and does not have a strong tennis culture among the alumni, then eliminating tennis may make sense. However, if the facilities are established and alumni, especially the deep pocketed ones, utilize them often, then it is probably in the best interest of the school to keep fielding the teams. Again, once you get past the cost of scholarships, tennis is a fairly cheap sport to field.

Men's Volleyball/Beach Volleyball are cheap as well. The indoor courts are there, many schools have built sand volleyball for the students already.

The Beach Volleyball often uses the same women as indoor, so get to add schollies for more players for both.


For NAU - the tennis teams play on the rec courts (fairly nice, open to students when team isn't using) and have access to indoor courts at a country club.