UC Berkley could cut track and cross country if anti-sports radicals up here get there way

not a good sign; esp. in this area of No. Cal. where there is always an undercurrent of anti-athletics from the far left.

06 PST BERKELEY -- Few subjects evoke more passion than intercollegiate athletics, so the question of whether cash-strapped Cal should continue paying millions of dollars to help float that program will be the hot topic at tonight's Faculty Senate meeting on the UC Berkeley campus.

UC Berkeley faculty endorse cut in athletic aid 11.06.09
Cal faculty to debate support of sports teams 11.05.09

Hundreds are expected to attend, debate the issue, and try to agree on a formal recommendation to the university.

Cal is facing a $150 million deficit this year. Faculty pay has been cut, instructors have been laid off, and courses have been reduced.

At the same time, Cal says it will pay $7.7 million this year, and $6 million next year to help its money-losing but prized Department of Intercollegiate Athletics make ends meet. The money comes from student registration fees and from income generated by self-supporting professional degree programs, said Cal spokesman Dan Mogulof.

In addition, Cal will lend the athletics department $5.8 million this year, and $6.4 million next year from a fund that the university has used in part to support departments in financial difficulty. Although the money is supposed to be paid back, the university has forgiven the debt in recent years.

"With dozens and dozens of cuts to its academic programs, is it not obvious that UC Berkeley must cease putting millions into a program which isn't part of the core academic mission and is supposed to be self-supporting? It's just a matter of priorities," said Brian Barsky, a computer science professor who has been leading the "Academics First" camp.

He's among eight professors who will present a resolution tonight urging Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to stop campus subsidies immediately, or as soon as contractually possible.

A substitute resolution from seven other professors will recommend that the subsidies be allowed to continue for now, with a plan "to set a shortened, realistic time frame for achieving the self-sufficiency of Intercollegiate Athletics."

"Our counter-proposal is to try to find a common ground - which is that the (Department of Intercollegiate Athletics) should be self-sufficient," said Gary Firestone, a biology professor.

Neither resolution is binding.

If tonight's debate lacks the tension of the big Cal-Stanford football game, it won't be for lack of trying.

Firestone said the original resolution has "almost an anti-athletic bias."

Mechanical engineering Professor Alice Agogino labeled the counter-proposal "the status quo" and a "know-nothing resolution that won't change anything."

Meanwhile, in a letter to be published in today's Daily Cal, Athletics Director Sandy Barbour and Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom address only the first resolution, and say that immediately stopping the campus subsidies "is unrealistic and would cause grievous harm to the program, while undermining its campus-wide benefits."

They say they support figuring out what would be "appropriate and sustainable" levels of support while working toward "our shared goal of a self-supporting program."

Mogulof said campus officials are not familiar with the counter-proposal.

The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics has an annual operating budget of $65 million, and supports numerous teams. Only men's football and basketball make money.

E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle