Another one bites the dust, Delaware Men's Xc and Track cut

What an awful situation. I feel particularly sympathetic toward the athletes on the team who are in-state students. The U of D is the only reputable Division 1 athletic and academic program in the state, and thus, these young Delaware runners who are paying $10k/yr for tuition will need to transfer to an out of state school (if they want to continue competing on the D1 level) where they will likely be paying a much higher tuition. My condolences go out to UDXC/TF and I wish the athletes and coaches the best of luck in the future.

My alma mater cut the indoor and outdoor track programs a few years ago and it has already completely destroyed a cross country team that had been relatively successful in the mid-2000's. Let's hope that the powers that be resolve the Title 9 issue in the near future because my alma mater didn't even have a football team and we still fell victim to Title 9's wrath.

university endowment and athletics funds are separate.

From a guy who went through WVU axing its program: don't bother going and talking to the guy. You won't get anything out of it but more anger and frustration. Figure out if you're going or staying, and then do it. The quicker you put this behind you the better.

A number of great programs have been cut due to Title IX. Title IX was intended to be used in athletics to ensure equal opportunities for both genders, which it provided for females. But now it is doing the opposite; it is denying male athletes that opportunity.

Also, UD hasn't even gotten a complaint from the NCAA saying that they are not in compliance with Title IX. They are doing it to look good to the NCAA and because it's the easy way out, not because it's the only possible solution.

An NFL roster has 53 members. UD's football team has 103 rostered people. Our track roster is 40. Rather than cutting the best team academically and one that has been around for 100 years, you could cut the football roster by 25, and another 15 across a few other sports. Even cut our roster down to 30 if you need.

As a senior member of the team, it doesn't affect my ability to run here, but for so many of my friends and teammates, it ruins their opportunity. UD should be ashamed.

Hey guys I'm so sorry this has happened to you. I run for JMU and our guys team went through this a few years back. I've always been a fan of your teams, especially the men's middle distance runners. Stay strong, JMU supports you!!!

I'm so pissed I blew a 19 point lead. This makes me feel a little better about messing that up so bad. But wow, that was pretty bad. I know how you feel guys, I'm sorry.

They came to me and said, "Hey coach, we're either going to cut them runners, or we can take some of your salary away and use those funds to create new women's sports to comply with Title IX." But I couldn't let them support women's athletics, so I told them to get rid of track and cross country. Why do they need a sport anyway? All they do is run and jump and stuff.

I'm proud to say that I'm the reason the track and cross country teams will no longer exist in a few months.

It's a real shame, I'd say about 90% of my college memories revolve around the team and the people on it. Future students won't be so fortunate for what I can only imagine is a very neglible savings on the bottom line. It's made for a real downer of a day.

Doesn't Keeler make around $350k a year? That would fund the mens XC and TF programs for around 25 years.

I hate to see this happen, what a crock of horse shit. I'd say put this behind you as fast as you can. Transfer right away and never give any money to the school.

Also, advise anyone you know to withhold funds from the school.

If it were a money issue, it would be one thing. This was clearly a PR move.

UD wants more obese football drunks hanging around than fit high-GPA students. What an embarrassment.

Talk to the media. Do it. Loudly.

I hate football wrote:

The greed of football keeps pushing mens sports aside. When UD lost the national championship I was smiling ear to ear. I hope they never win a game again! Horrible for these young men. Good luck guys!

Oddly enough, if they did that the track team might have enough money to remain in existence.

It's a strange paradox of college sports that having a winning football team can be more expensive than having a losing one. Montana's AD let it be known recently that they lost $150,000 a year competing in FCS Championship games.

Here are some facts for those inclined to repeat them:

Delaware competes in the FCS division, where there are a maximum of 63 scholarships to be awarded to no more than 85 players.

Delaware had 105 players on their roster this year. That means 20 walk-ons (maybe more). It seems likely that most of them play little if at all. The men's track and cross country teams had 38 athletes. Making football have a roster limit could fix any Title IX problems.

Walk-on benchwarmers are apparently more important to Delaware than the track/XC team -- which bring in NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Grant-in-Aid funds.

So...... wrote:

Serious question for you guys and girls:

What should I ask Mr. Bernard Muir at practice today?

Many, many moons ago, back when Title IX was still in diapers and I was a freshman, there was serious talk at my school about dropping cross country. The reasons had nothing to do with Title IX but if the sport was gone it was gone for whatever reason. We actually managed to keep it alive and they've done very well since, which is more than I can say for how they did when I was there.

As this was playing out, we had plenty of opportunities to talk with the AD about it. We might as well have saved our breath. I would agree with Musketeer on this. Nothing came of those "discussions."

Your administrators have worked out what they want you to hear and will tell you those things. They won't tell you the things they've decided they don't want to hear and your chances of grilling them and getting one to slip up and spew out some great dirty secret that will show their dirty dealings are next to nonexistent and your chances of saying something that will change their decision aren't even that good. If you think listening to the spiel will help you decide what you are going to do, go, by all means.

Good luck to all you guys. For some reason I always sort of liked UD and its athletics, I don't know why, I have no connection to the school. But that's changed and I'm glad they lost that game to Eastern Washington.

F**k Bernard and his black balls. If I saw him I would powerbomb him because Captain Insano shows no mercy.

How can they tell them they CAN'T talk to the media? What do they think this is, North Korea?

That doesn't even make sense.

yeah ive already talked to the media, i hope they try and suspend me.

bernard muir may be one of the dumbest people that ive ever heard speak.

The press release is ridiculous. Apparently the only two choices were cut tf/xc or reduce the size of the lax or football team rosters. How about eliminating men’s lacrosse and keeping tf/xc. Why the Hell wasn't that an option? Or how about cutting football and concentrating on teams that actually compete in Division I. Football is entertaining to watch on Sunday’s but the fact of the matter is high school and college football are drains on almost all schools and breed inept, fat, barely literate buffoons. I remember when I was visiting schools and UNC Wilmington talked about how much cutting football had improved the strength of every other athletic program on campus. I'm not sure if that was true because I didn't end up going there but it makes total sense. If you cut football you have a huge amount of scholarship which you could use to concentrate on other sports so at the very least you are known for being really good at something rather than occasionally really good at minor league football. For instance why does Duke have a football team? Why not just use the football resources to concentrate on dominating every other sport? Anyway sorry for the rant but this whole thing just pisses me off.

Oh and regardless of what the administration says this cut had nothing to do with title IX.

This meeting was hard to listen to. A lot of vague answers to specific questions. At one point someone asked why they cut our roster size last year if they were just going to cut us all together this year and they said that they didn't cut the roster last year (they cut the roster from 48 to 40 in the past year). Very frustrating.

In my mind the bigger issue in this is that the high school runners of Delaware are the biggest losers, as they have very limited access to instate college xc and track and field. What a shame. Secondly, the fact that Delaware is a state university and receives state funding through taxation should be an issue that some group can push on the legislature. How can a state university summarily cut out sports programs on the men's side that almost every high school in the state of DE sponsors? This is not a private university that can do what it pleases. It'a as if the academic area of the University decided they no longer wanted to teach English and took all English courses out of the curriculum. The state legislature needs to get involved in the decisions that this group of self serving individuals are making. Blaming it on Title IX is nonsense, as there are plenty of ways to abiding by the rules, since over 290 plus other schools have no problem with Title IX. This is a decision by a group of individuals who are determined to build up three sports: football, basketball and baseball. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's awful awful news, and horrible to see this happen to support a "sport" such as Football. I really feel bad for the College athletes who have tried to achive success in Cross and Track and spend so much time and work so hard on their goals. They are now either forced to transfer and focus on their running careers or keep with Academics and do some Road Racing. Some may never experience a great career because of this.

Shame on Deleware for doing this! This really is such a shame..