W&M Cuts Men's Track & Field - WARNING All NCAA Track/XC Programs Now at Risk

This fiscal argument doesn't actually make a ton of sense when you consider that W&M (and many other schools) have wait lists for students. The athletes academic slots will easily be filled by other students. It's not as if a school is so desperate for students that they have to bribe them to come with the promise of have a sports team. Point being, the cost of having a team is going to be more for most schools than not having a team.

Don't get me wrong, it is sad (and likely wrong and a bad move for schools), but to say that it doesn't make sense financially is not a good argument.

You forgot the O.G., my uncle Jimmy Johnson.

You forgot the O.G., my uncle Jimmy Johnson

Tribe wrote:

As a former WM runner, this is incredibly sad. We had a great tradition - runners like Paul Vendergrift, Bryan Hyde, Steve Swift, Matt Lane, Anders Christiansen, Jacob Frey, Sean Graham...All Americans and all went on to pro careers. Several represented the US. Hyde ran in the 96 Olympics and was the American Collegiate record holder in the 1500. I think Lane was the NCAA athlete of the year. Just really sad to hear

"Their women lost to Elon:

Since when did Musk identify as female?

So with or without track W&M will continue to be a 3rd choice school of Ivy league applicants. It's not like they've been luring great running talent away from UVA and VT the past decade or two.

From what I know of geography in Oz, unless you're in Perth the population is heavily near the coast in the east and south, i.e, not all that spread out despite the size of the place. Similarly, the club system in the British Isles is concentrated into a fairly compact area. That makes the travel to races fairly economical compared to what can happen here.

Imagine there would be a club near William and Mary and runners who would have run for their teams now run for that club. Now imagine the club gets a half dozen runners close to having qualifying times for nationals and that there is no local competition where they're likely to get dragged along to those times, as could be the case too if the school still had a team. In the second case, the school might very well stick those athletes on a plane to Palo Alto where they might get the times at one of the Stanford meets. Six plane tickets are basically pocket change for a university athletic department but they're a significant expense for most running clubs and I don't know that a local Williamsburg running club would be able to afford such a thing and if it could it would be an exceptional situation.

If university athletics disappears eventually something will come along and replace it but it's hard to see that thing having the resources and facilities that universities can offer. If I wanted to become a steeplechaser right now I can think of only one facility that has barriers. I'd need to drive to use it and I don't know if I'd be allowed to anyway. If I was a college athlete there would probably be barriers and a water jump at my track. The fast indoor times that we get in the winter in New England are mostly run at the tracks at Boston U or Harvard. What becomes of those meets if neither school has a track team?

Keep in mind the money that many college track programs spend on travel like that comes from a combination of student fees and money brought in by football and basketball. It kind of exposes how unsustainable these college track programs are. There are a handful of clubs around that can afford to sponsor elite athletes and they do it with a combination of the following sources of revenue: Club membership dues from large numbers of youth athletes Corporate sponsorships Hosting events: large road races and other competitions can bring in a lot of money

I know that travel money for athletics at our universities is not generated by the sport. But where ever it comes from there are loads more of it than there'd be at all but a handful of clubs. When people say that both the sport and universities would be better off if universities stopped sponsoring the sports and clubs took over I wonder how much they know about the structure of the sport here and have thought this through.

Essentially all of our international level runners have gone through our university system. And we have over 1,000 universities that sponsor cross country and track. Could a club system be extensive enough to provide training and racing opportunities for that number of college aged athletes? Could it have the resources and facilities to develop people to international levels?

Maybe. But it's a big job and far from certain and who's going to start those clubs and keep them functioning? What facilities would they use? Losing our university system would leave a huge hole in US athletics.

I don't know how this thread got hijacked by a bunch of morons who hate the NCAA because they were too slow to run in it. The NCAA system isn't going anywhere. We should be figuring out how to protect teams, not about burning the system down and starting over.

It's clear the coaches at William and Mary did not put the program in position to survive budget cuts. Other sports with worse records survived. The AD deserves a lot of blame, but so do the coaches.

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

I don't know how this thread got hijacked by a bunch of morons who hate the NCAA because they were too slow to run in it. The NCAA system isn't going anywhere. We should be figuring out how to protect teams, not about burning the system down and starting over.

It's clear the coaches at William and Mary did not put the program in position to survive budget cuts. Other sports with worse records survived. The AD deserves a lot of blame, but so do the coaches.

So we would need to figure out why track was one of the cut sports and soccer and tennis survived. The rationale in their open letter didn’t give a great picture as to how track didn’t meet the criteria of sports they wished to keep. I assume it came down to two things...

1. The Title IX numbers game - eliminating men’s indoor and outdoor track allowed them to remove men who counted twice instead of having to cut even more men’s sports to stay in compliance.

2. Administration knew the xc team was successful so they could keep that branch and maintain their level of success there. Administrators don’t know that cutting track cripples your xc team. It was clear they never talked to coaches about these cuts beforehand to have gained this information. This is also a major problem with how we run our sport(s).

Do mid major track and xc programs need to come up with a new system so this doesn’t happen more?

Swimming actually is the sport that is seeing the most consistent cuts this year. What does swimming have in common with track that we need to learn from?

What do ADs value and how do we need to change to match that view?

leadership not leading wrote:

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

I don't know how this thread got hijacked by a bunch of morons who hate the NCAA because they were too slow to run in it. The NCAA system isn't going anywhere. We should be figuring out how to protect teams, not about burning the system down and starting over.

It's clear the coaches at William and Mary did not put the program in position to survive budget cuts. Other sports with worse records survived. The AD deserves a lot of blame, but so do the coaches.

What do ADs value and how do we need to change to match that view?

Ads value football and basketball. We stop watching those sports to bring ad's views inline with ours.

This would never have happened under John Randolph's watch.

Of course they knew the likely result. The real question is: why should it matter?

Was the track team in and of itself or the xc team's success bringing the school better applicants than the general student population? Better grads with a propensity to donate back to the school beyond the T&F program? Was there better payoff in what the school itself got out of a team qualifying for xc nationals?

Could they, instead, take what was spent on track team athletes, coaches, travel, facilities upkeep and put that into a better game day experience for wealthy alumni donors at football and basketball games? Steaks over cold cuts and Yuenling over Budweiser wins the day!

Don't include me with those who want to see the NCAA system torn down, we would wind up developing domestic athletes more along the lines of the UK, Holland, or Germany, in proportional terms. We do not get Japan's model in our lifetimes, if ever. In that scenario, T&F in the US would finally be taken off life support and left to whither and decay, like boxing.

not zachary levet wrote:

also why only men's track and field?

Title 9.

Football takes up all the men's spots.

Time to wake up wrote:

Funding...

Just like any other club. You create the funding by being a member of the club. Why are track & field, running, etc. people so cheap and want everything for free? People pay to play all other sports, rec sports, club team sports, etc. The club members pay the coach, they pay for gear, etc. Some have corporate sponsors like Japanese teams. Look up the European Athletic Association, they have all levels of championships of track, xc and road, nothing to do with schools.

Then if I go to your school, I expect that "funding" to be removed from my tuition.

No one expects anything to be free, but the way things are structured, a portion of tuition is going to sports programs. Therefore, just by attending school a student is paying for these services. That's why as an athlete, it is expected to be "free" or in other words at no additional cost.

Braden has already produced two All-Americans on the track since he arrived in 2017. He arguably could've had another one this year if covid didn't cancel the outdoor season (JP Trojan, ran 13:48 and 8:03 indoors). Considering W&M men's last All-American track runner was in 2011, I'd say he's done a good job with the men's squad.

There were 2 guys that got lucky and qualified for NCAA's with weak times. They placed 22nd. There were NOT All-American. They were honorable mention.

Miles Owen, one of those you alluded to, hated Braden and so he transferred to Oregon after his sophomore year. Not exactly a good example of Braden being a good coach.....

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

There were 2 guys that got lucky and qualified for NCAA's with weak times. They placed 22nd. There were NOT All-American. They were honorable mention.

Miles Owen, one of those you alluded to, hated Braden and so he transferred to Oregon after his sophomore year. Not exactly a good example of Braden being a good coach.....

Additionally, the other you alluded to was Ryan McGorty. His brother Sean was an NCAA champ. Best genetics in the nation and Braden can only get him to 22nd.

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

There were 2 guys that got lucky and qualified for NCAA's with weak times. They placed 22nd. There were NOT All-American. They were honorable mention.

Miles Owen, one of those you alluded to, hated Braden and so he transferred to Oregon after his sophomore year. Not exactly a good example of Braden being a good coach.....

Wow! Hello Miles Owen! How is Oregon? By the way, what is there to hate about a guy like Braden? He's doesn't seem to be the abusive type, just runs a consistent, solid, long term style program. You seem to be a real insider, so I am sure you know, but please enlighten us as to Braden's "issues" that make him a bad coach...