UNC-Wilmington to cut men's and women's track and field and men's cross country. And to add salt to the wound they're adding sand volleyball.
http://www.uncwsports.com/news/2014/12/8/administration_1208144919.aspx?path=administration
UNC-Wilmington to cut men's and women's track and field and men's cross country. And to add salt to the wound they're adding sand volleyball.
http://www.uncwsports.com/news/2014/12/8/administration_1208144919.aspx?path=administration
This is terrible news. Sand volleyball isn't even a real sport. Why do colleges feel they can keep doing this.
Daughter just received her acceptance letter today at lunchtime in the mail after signing for Womens Track and field for next year on a scholarship. She was on cloud 9 to say the least.
Then tonight we see this online!!! No contact from coaches or school! She is heartbroken and I'm pissed! She hasn't even looked at other schools since UNCW has been recruiting her since Sophmore season. What's really sucks is she really wanted to go to UNCW and even had some of her friends apply and some of them made it. She wants to run track at D-1 school now most of the schools have already used all their scholarships up!!!
SoFrustrated wrote:
No contact from coaches or school! She is heartbroken and I'm pissed!
YOU are pissed because the unemployed coaches have not contacted your daughter?
I'd be pissed because your daughter will have a free education and the coaches who gave her the opportunity are now unemployed. Maybe YOU should contact the coaches with your condolences.
This whole thing stinks. But to even mention that you are upset that a coach hasn't called you today about this situation is ridiculous. Maybe after they talk to their families about losing their jobs they can give you a ring.
The coaches found out themselves at 6:30pm tonight. Give them some time to face what just happened to them, their lives, and their families.
... so they are keeping women's cross country?
No, she won't have a free education and no we didn't like finding out about it by her friends asking her what is going on with UNCW cutting track. Def upset about the coaches as well. I can't imagine what they are going through after coaching there for so many years. We really liked both coaches but especially Coach Thomas.
This is sad--decent programs, too. I hate the doublespeak of the athletic director -- "rightsizing" our athletic "portfolio." What B.S. I love it, too, how A.D.'s always blame Title IX when the real reason is a budget decision--as if Title IX is why they are axing women's track to replace it with women's sand volleyball.
One interesting thing is that I've never seen a website that makes more use of an athletic mascot in referring to its students and services--its "Seahawk" this and "Seahawk" that. Will that continue when they "rightsize" their athletics program down to nothing? Actually, that probably would be the right size of the UNCW athletics right now. Only student participants care about their teams, and UNCW obviously doesn't care much about its student participants, although they are happy to offer them "counseling."
It seems the writing is on the wall: collegiate running programs are doomed. My son is on a decent collegiate club team--that might be the way to go. At least runners would be free of the NCAA, which has become a bloated bureaucracy from hell. I don't know if they would be free from short sighted university administrators, though, and they are the real problem.
Well stated!
What the AD and President don't account for is that 70 of the 87 athletes on the roster pay full tuition, bringing in more money to the school than the sport costs. The athletic dept. has been trouble since they brought in a basketball coach from UNC, paid him a $million, then fired him after a couple of years.
It's terrible to see these teams cut, but it must be looked at with a financial goal in mind. These sports may not cost much to operate in comparison to other sports, but how much money do they bring in? Unless the school is a D1 powerhouse or consistently winning conference championships, there is little evidence to say that track teams generate any revenue. The bottom line for track and xc are typically in the red. However, beach volleyball is a sport that can increase cash flow. Like track and xc, it has low operating costs and doesn't need many scholarships. Maintaining a beach volleyball court costs much less than maintaining a track.
For the average student at the school or alumni, how many are going to go watch a track meet? How many are going to watch beach volleyball? To help us understand this decision we can look at the olympics. Track may be the first sport people think of when they hear the world olympics, but it is not their favorite. Outside of letsrun, most people prefer to watch beach volleyball over track. There are half naked women jumping around and playing in the sand. Everyone knows that sex sells and their is more sex appeal in beach volleyball than track. That is bronomics.
Beach volleyball will generate more green than track over the years because bros want to see half naked chicks playing in the sand instead of a couple extra skinny 10 year old boys vomiting after the end of a 5k.
I do not want anyone to ever mention revenue vs. non revenue at a school like UNC-W that does not have a football team or a winning basketball team.
Their track team has about 4.5 scholarships on the men's side and 5.5 on the women's. The tuition has a $624 atheltics fee that every student pays, so the 70 athletes that are getting the boot actually pay $43,000 to the athletic department when the men's and women's budget is only $140,000. The 10 scholarships add up to between $160k and $330k, and the coaches salaries add up to $150k. Which is a grand total of at most $620k a year to give 87 student the experience of being a student-athlete. Compare that to the $530,000 of operation cost of the men's basketball team (that has a total cost of $2.7 million. So you pay $620k to support 87 athletes that regularly win their conference title, or you can pay $2.7 million a year to support 16 athletes that have not won in years and do not come anywhere near generating enough revenue to balance out their spending.
People use the term revenue sport too freely.
If track and field spend $620k a year but makes $0, they cost the school $620k.
But if basketball spends $2.7m a year and makes $1.0m a year, they still cost the school $1.0 million a year to support just 16 athletes.
This cutting is very different than other cuts since it includes the women's team.
Let's think outside the box of title IX and budgets for a second and in light of a lot of other recent controversies in our country take a look at what the removal of women's track does to minority women's sports participation.
From the UNCW track and field roster there are approximately 20 minority females on the team. The rest of the athletic department appears to only have 11 minority females remaining (10 basketball and 1 softball).
This department thinks it is ok to reduce minority women's athletic opportunities by 2 thirds?
Do you think they have even realized this?
UNCW tried to cut the swim teams a couple years back. Loyal alumni, current players, and the coach (Dave Allen) fought back and created an endowment to guarantee the life of the program going forward. Saved their own soul.
bronomics wrote:
It's terrible to see these teams cut, but it must be looked at with a financial goal in mind. These sports may not cost much to operate in comparison to other sports, but how much money do they bring in? Unless the school is a D1 powerhouse or consistently winning conference championships, there is little evidence to say that track teams generate any revenue. The bottom line for track and xc are typically in the red. However, beach volleyball is a sport that can increase cash flow. Like track and xc, it has low operating costs and doesn't need many scholarships. Maintaining a beach volleyball court costs much less than maintaining a track.
For the average student at the school or alumni, how many are going to go watch a track meet? How many are going to watch beach volleyball? To help us understand this decision we can look at the olympics. Track may be the first sport people think of when they hear the world olympics, but it is not their favorite. Outside of letsrun, most people prefer to watch beach volleyball over track. There are half naked women jumping around and playing in the sand. Everyone knows that sex sells and their is more sex appeal in beach volleyball than track. That is bronomics.
Yes, "bronomics," let's look at it with the financial goal in mind.
As one other astute poster mentioned, this and only this fact matters when discussing whether small to zero revenue teams are cut (especially those with large rosters like swimming, rowing, and track):
coachkritter wrote:
What the AD and President don't account for is that 70 of the 87 athletes on the roster pay full tuition, bringing in WAY more money to the school than the sport costs.
(1) Most of these athletes are not getting more than 10% aid (any combination of athletic, academic, need-based). Secondly (2), and equally important, most of these athletes would not attend the school they're at if their sport wasn't sponsored. Cutting the sport leads to less enrollment which obviously decreases the university's revenue or it leads to lower enrollment standards, which no self-respecting university would choose to do.
I am sorry to hear about UNC-W is cutting their XC/track and field program. The university has attempted to cut these athletic programs before. I told an athlete from my son's high school not to go there for this exact reason. He didn't listen and he no longer has a team.
May 15, 2013 article on UNC-W cutting sports
http://www.wwaytv3.com/2013/05/15/committee-recommends-cutting-five-uncw-sports-programs
Here is the petition from last year
You shouldn't be shocked by this decision. Your daughter still has time to find the right school because many colleges in NC sign track athletes. What stinks is the current athletes have to find a new team and transfer.
Good luck and always investigate the school's athlete program before making a commitment. Many of the NC state universities are in the same situation as UNC-W.
Facts of the Case wrote:
(1) Most of these athletes are not getting more than 10% aid (any combination of athletic, academic, need-based). Secondly (2), and equally important, most of these athletes would not attend the school they're at if their sport wasn't sponsored. Cutting the sport leads to less enrollment which obviously decreases the university's revenue or it leads to lower enrollment standards, which no self-respecting university would choose to do.
I have thought of this approach before and I don't think in the end it truly holds up at a Div 1 institution. This may be the case for D3 schools who use programs like track to recruit students to the institution and boost enrollment (we've all heard the stories of coaches being asked/required to have rosters approaching 100). However, at the D1 level those enrollment spots taken up by track and field athletes would be filled by other applicants.
In fact those other applicants may even be superior students. How many institutions are letting track athletes in who have GPAs and Test Scores below the average enrollee? If they eliminate track and replace those 10 to 20 students per year with better applicants (probably not hard to do) then the institution still comes out ahead and we the track community have no argument again.
(1) I work at a Div. 1 institution. (2) I work closely with admissions. (3) This is not the first Div. 1 school I've worked at.
A sport like track is held to the same standard as the remainder of the student body regarding test scores and GPA. There are rare exceptions when a coach is given a "blue chip." This is truly rare. I've only seen it once in Track/XC.
Stating that garnering better students is "probably not hard to do" has no basis and is simply incorrect. Admissions employees at a college of any level, in my experience, will tell you that is extraordinarily hard to do.
Colleges obvious want to have students who are involved in extracurriculars. By having coaches fill these enrollment spots with students who are actively involved on campus, it (1) assists Admissions in recruiting and (2) provides tuition-paying individuals who are contributing something valuable to campus.
It's a good discussion to have, and I see your perspective, but I can assure you that, especially the smaller the school, large roster sports are financially valuable to an institution.
Thats simply wrong.
I coach at a private D-1 school who is having trouble with enrollment (filling that last 5-10% each year is becoming more difficult as costs rise and students eventually choose public, 2year, trade and other educational routes. But simply accepting more students and watering down the educational culture is not an answer), like many many private schools across the nation. Our enrollment director directly approached our AD and asked how he can help boost enrollment, citing how additional roster spots allow for larger enrollments. He cited the 13 spots we may be able to add in T&F as a potential ~$250k increase in college revenue (after they apply a standard discount rate as well as an additional student athlete discount rate to factor in typical scholarship levels).
Athletics is the most aggressive recruiting tool there is on a college campus. Sports programs can make up 10-30% of a student body, which makes or breaks a school. Which is why it has classically been used as an enrollment driver for smaller schools. And it will be one of the reasons "non-revenue" sports wil stick around much longer than people are saying.