UNIVERSITY IF AKRON CUTS XC PROGRAM! Other D1 programs soon to follow?!?!

According to the press release it is 4 million for all the cuts combined. That seems excessive.

Each school will be different, BUT, the xc coach is also on the track staff....so no saving.

The xc athletes wear the same uniform during track season….no saving.

The xc season requires 4 meets, 3 regular season and conference championships. Compare that to the number of games the softball or baseball team or even soccer play.

The savings can come by cutting the scholarships, but cross country HAS NO SCHOLARSHIPS of their own, they are tied to track. So if they are cutting scholarships for saving, it will be bad for track too.

If anything, for cost savings, you CUT TRACK and keep cross country. Cheaper season, fewer athletes/scholarships, fewer coaches and near unlimited tuition paying walk ons.

But the Akron athletic and university admins likely have an overall plan that we don't know about, and likely wouldn't agree about.

I was talking to my AD today, and this virus will cause a "market correction" and "right sizing" of college athletics. No more extravagant anything...….just the basics. Which while painful, has positives too.

It looks like there are only 9 out of 12 men's teams that compete in the Mid-American Conference. I know for one that Toledo competed, and doesn't offer men's scholarships in track. Are there any other schools in the MAC that do this? In a nut shell, this is not a very well represented sport in their conference, like it is in some others. It seems like the AD was looking at it from that perspective.

You are all trying to figure it out. They cut some sports that will save $4m. Those are the facts and they are hard to argue with. I predict that the distance coach will disappear in a year or two and they will shrink the track teams.

joedirt wrote:

At least it will keep everybody safe. There is nothing more important than keeping old and sick people safe.

Because old and sick people deserve to live less than you? What does this even mean?

I'm not understanding how scholarships really cost the school anything. Let's round and say that there are 25,000 students at the University of Akron. The marginal cost of adding student number 25,001 would basically be zero. Isn't the cost of the scholarship basically just equivalent to that marginal cost?

No. It is $30k because when you eliminate that scholarship spot you fill it with a non scholarship kid who pays $30k. Do it for all of these sports and eliminate coaches and travel and it adds up to $4m.

"The move affects 23 male and 9 female student-athletes. The elimination of these sports, along with salary reductions for select coaches, staff position eliminations, scholarship and operating expenditure reductions will total approximately $4.4 million."

The elimination of these sports alone isn't saving $4.4 million but the elimination and reducing other aspects of the athletic department. They carefully worded it to try and get people to see it as the reduction of these three sports is having a $4.4 million impact, but that is not the case.

Classic shady athletic department...

It's in Ohio, it's Akron so who cares? College presidents are gutless, when they sign on for that football tv money they decided academic mission and anything else is up for negotiation. They'd rather say sorry to true students and any other varsity team before they threaten the investment in football. Truth is, majority of D1 xc & track programs are considered charity.

run this way wrote:

No. It is $30k because when you eliminate that scholarship spot you fill it with a non scholarship kid who pays $30k. Do it for all of these sports and eliminate coaches and travel and it adds up to $4m.

What you're saying might be true, but this doesn't represent a cost reduction. You are talking about adding $30K of revenue, which is a different thing than an "operating expenditure reduction," as they call it.

You are incorrect. The athletic department literally pays the college that $30k.

It is not shady in any way. Why do some of you have such a hard time understanding that these cuts save the money and it is their decision to make? The salary cuts are to the track coaches.

Any Akron men's cross country alumnus who is reading this, please email me at

jto6@zips.uakron.edu

.

I am an alumnus of the program and am compiling as much contact information as I can in an attempt to formulate a coherent message to the President of the university.

Thank you.

JT Olson

University of Akron to eliminate men’s golf and cross country, women’s tennis.... Those 3 sports have the highest % of whites at the University.

run this way wrote:

You are incorrect. The athletic department literally pays the college that $30k.

Interesting. I didn't realize this, but it makes sense.

Western Michigan, Northern Illinois and Ball State have no men’s Track or Xc most were cut years ago I believe

MAC football OWNS Tuesday night television nationally, and you know it. No way Akron cuts football.

Tuesday night TV or not, Akron football LOSES over $1 million per year. According to the article linked earlier in this thread they had a paid attendance for one game last year of 54, about the number of a poorly attended middle school track meet.

If it were just a money thing, I'd think you'd want to cut track, not xc. Wasn't it said the other day that with these cuts, akron would have the minimum number of sports they can get away with as a d1 team?

What will happen now is that they'll have the worst distance runners in the conference and will score no points in track above 400. This will cause them to slide down the conference standings in track, until eventually their track team is at or near the bottom (unless they have real good sprint and field coaches). Track is so much more expensive than xc that this decision makes no sense to me. Is track an essential part of their football program or something...