Another One Bites The Dust —UT Dallas XCTF eliminated for both genders 3 weeks before school starts

cry to me

the official announcement says, "ongoing budget constraints and a lack of on-campus facilities." since these were legacy sports ongoing, they shouldn't have been shocked by the continuing costs for the same sports, although scholarships would add. so it's the unfunded cost of a track facility.

it's a way late announcement from a fairly strange school that has fewer and fewer sports.

not disagreeing but name a few of these? any D1s?

A boatload of D3 and NAIA programs are "Pay for Play" with enrollments struggling to get to 1,000 students. As for D1s, I do not believe there are any Pay for Plays - and I used to think the same for D2s, but in the past couple of years some D2 models are trending towards Pay for Play.

also at those schools, when you factor in the cost to carry athletics is it really a plus for the school.

At the Pay for Play schools - it absolutely is a money maker. Say a D3 school has 50 on their combined roster and each is paying 20K out of pocket - that brings in $1million to the school. Throw 30K per year to the XC team; 70K to the T&F team for an operating budget of 100K. Hire 3-4 coaches for around 30-50K each (est. 200K) and you've created a 700K profit and can use that to pay professors, support staff, etc...

last question at many of those schools if they switch athletics to club would it really hurt enrollment? where else would these athletes go as opportunities are being reduced.
that probably sounds like i disagree but I am more asking those questions to correct my perception of the direction i see this going (if it needs to be corrected)

At "name" D3 schools I don't think enrollment would suffer, but that's like 10% of the 300+ D3 schools that offer athletics. So for the other roughly 270, yes, it would have a negative impact on enrollment if competitive athletic teams were reduced to club status.

Help Desk... wrote:
not disagreeing but name a few of these? any D1s?

A side note about D1s - This term - D1 - is vague as there are different competitive and funding levels in D1 athletics. Lumping D1s together - as if they are alike - doesn't quite capture the reality that bottom level D1s in terms of athletics and funding is more like a mid-level D2, D3 or NAIA school in terms of athletics and funding.

The landscape of D1 is changing rapidly, but generally schools fall in these tiers when it comes to athletics and funding: This is athletics, not academics

P4s/5s (used to be) (SEC, etc..)

Group of 5s (Upper level Mid-Major); a few without FB (e.g. San Diego St., Texas St.)

Mid-Major (Middle level Mid-Major); some without FB (e.g. NDSU; Gonzaga)

Mid-Major (Lower level Mid-Major); several without FB (e.g. Southeast Miss. St.; AR-Little Rock)

High Tier Low D1 (don't want to name so as to not embarass anyone here)

Mid Tier Low D1 (don't want to name so as to not embarass anyone here)

Low Tier Low D1 (don't want to name so as to not embarass anyone here)

sorry but for a school with 30,000 kids it's like how was that not like some dominant WIAC d3. it's 3x the size of UW lacrosse. should be something like UC San Diego when it was d3. this is a state school with a pretty good STEM setup and SAT average. it's bigger than UTEP or UT Pan American that're d1. and they're d3 going d2 and saying they can't afford teams.

this isn't about small school economics. it's about a bizarre school with good academics that somehow has only local awareness, didn't use to have sports, and despite a massive student body barely has any sports.

and no football in texas.

it's just an odd place.

last, for a 30k kid school i would think a track would be justifiable as a common good like a workout center. this isn't earlham or some tiny SLIAC school, trying to decide whether football is justifiable, and how many teams a 500 kid school can support.

UTD has been growing quite a bit recently, especially as its academic profile has been gaining. It is a great option for those who don't get into or what to go to UT or TAMU for cs, engineering or business.

They have a really good faculty that sometimes get picked apart by the larger schools in the state. They should've remained D3. It was a perfect fit for them.

This is a crappy move for the student-athletes to essentially do it a few weeks before they were going to report.

utdcomets.com

UTD Athletics Announces Agreement with New Balance - University of Texas at Dallas Athletics

@UTDCOMETSPORTS

RICHARDSON, Texas ??? The University of Texas at Dallas Department of Athletics is proud to announce a new apparel partnership with New Balance, naming the global

Open link

particularly absurd sponsor they just inked.

The move to D2 might have carried an expectation to host conference champs in certain sports. Sure, they certainly could rent a HS or other college's track for that. But building an on-campus track facility isn't just an expense, it's also the opportunity cost to use that land for other, more lucrative ventures. Like expanded academic facilities. At any rate, there are more than enough scholarship track/xc opportunities in TX at present. UT-D need not be a scapegoat as we ease past the age of excessive higher athletics largesse.

I am sort of familiar with what is going on with UTD. There was definitely some bad decisions from the higher ups and I think they were not prepared with what would happen if they jump to DII.

UTD has grown so very fast the last several years. They should not be DIII as it was a uneven playing field when they were. In-state schools, in particular UTD, has cheap tuition plus many of those type of schools might have in state tuition with neighboring Arkansas and Louisiana (Texas A&M Texarkana and East Texas A&M follow this practice). Sort of like many of the University of Wisconsin schools have in state tuition with Illinois which has a large population base out of Chicago. Head coach at UTD was a good coach and recruiting was easy. All she had to do was walk in the classrooms and grab kids to join since there were 21,333 undergraduates at UTD (many DIII schools in the area and Texas have more then 3,000 average....some with less then 2,000). Not sure if she did it that way or not, but I am sure many of the 21,333 has a cross country/track background and joined without knowing UTD had a xc/track team. The UTD head coach was solid and structured. I hope she finds a new coaching job soon, but she does have a family.
I also think DII has rules regarding facilities and since UTD didn't want to build a track then maybe this probably created some issues with the conference and DII.

Bottom line - UTD should go DII. It does make entire sense. But mismanagement from the higher ups regarding the budget created some issues.

the help desk guy asked for names of D1 schools who use athletics for enrollment and would close without sports. he didn't ask for your person D1 categories

D1s are D1s. that breakdown is your opinion and has little to nothing to do with the guy's question.

no, that's not really true. in running, mcmurry with 2500 kids in abilene (or even smaller ETBU) were usually beating UTD's 30k kid theoretical behemoth. that doesn't make any sense in terms of location, prestige, or normal order. my whole point is it should have been the opposite, should have been like a WIAC or SUNYAC among liberal arts schools, or how UCSD once was.

like take UW Lacrosse and put them in with the midwest conference or NACC. it should be a string of conference championships.

re "ending largesse," their modest schedule and regional travel -- and tepid results -- hardly suggest they were dumping a ton of money in the program.

UT tyler is 1/3 the size in a smaller town just down the road, same conference UTD is headed to. they have XC and TF.

and i don't see a track on their facilities list either.

I did answer the question in the original response "...As for D1s, I do not believe there are any Pay for Plays..."

Help Desk's contention as I understood it, which is reasonable, is that schools will continue shutting down programs AND that they don't make money for the schools anyway. I then answered his questions with examples of how Pay for Play schools actually make money for the schools.

Then in a separate follow up post I provided what many college coaches already know - that there are tiers of D1 schools - the post to which you are referring.

I did so because we often lump all schools into categories (D1, D2, D3) and over generalize. There are tiers of D2s and D3s as well.

And I believe that is an important distinction to know when attempting to understand the complex tapestry of collegiate athletics.

Exactly, they were not. That is why they did not build any track facility, despite their income from such a large enrollment. They could have made it a small student fee for 20 years if they wanted. At any rate, we certainly are coming out of a long-standing climate of overspending on athletics in higher Ed. Europeans puzzle why we charge other students to fund facilities and travel in sports that nobody on campus cares to go see. Too many youth sports parents and mediocre athletes have been pushing for scholarship opportunities and roster spots. That is part of what this current correction addresses. UT-D did not add football, which would certainly require largesse, which is good.

Agree. Also a kinda pathetic program.

The UT system is very odd. Kids who are in the top 10% of their class in a public HS in Texas get automatically admitted to UT Austin. The remaining in state spots are extremely competitive. My son is going to a private school. The kids who are trying to get into UT have schools like Rice, Emory, UVA and Georgetown as their fall back schools. They are told as freshman that they need to be in majority AP classes from sophomore year on and have to have an A average. For out of state admissions to UT, the acceptance rate is 3%.

But, if you go to a UT system school for two years and transfer, the admissions rate is 30-40%. So, the UT system has seen rapid growth, especially in the big metro areas where kids can commute and live at home to save money. Also, the UT system schools (San Antonio, Arlington, Dallas, etc.) have very high acceptance rates and cheap in state tuition. In state tuition is around $10k. So, these schools end up as the default state school for many TX students. And as Texas has grown rapidly, the demand for spots at these schools has also grown.

The UT system schools are all huge. But there is a lot of variation depending on whether the school is more of a commuter school or is one where kids come from all across TX. UTEP has always been more of a traditional college with a lot of students living on campus. That has allowed them to have Div I teams. UT SA and UT Arlington have followed along, but are more like a commuter school. UT Dallas has only been a four year college since 1990 and has grown very rapidly since then. So, the school is primarily a commuter school and does not have the support for sports that the other schools have. That may change over time as more and more TX students are opting for the non-Austin UT schools and the Dallas area has seen massive growth over the past two decades. But for now, UT Dallas is just not a school that is going to do much with athletics.

You might want to read the post again.