JT and your point is? The decision has been made.
JT and your point is? The decision has been made.
I would guess a Bronze medal in the 2016 Olympic 800 means more for the University than saving the xc team.
lirunner21 wrote:
JT and your point is? The decision has been made.
Not necessarily. The recommendation has been made. The final budget approval for fiscal year 2020-2021 will not happen for another month or thereabouts.
Why don't you guys get together and donate a few million $ and they will probably save it.
I predict a surge in the number of club teams. If the students can keep their scholarships this will be ideal. You don't need to run on an NCAA team to develop as a runner. So many pathways to greatness.
CoachO wrote:
lirunner21 wrote:
JT and your point is? The decision has been made.
Not necessarily. The recommendation has been made. The final budget approval for fiscal year 2020-2021 will not happen for another month or thereabouts.
The problem is that the AD and the President already know this is not going to save any money. It has nothing to do with the money. It has everything to do with the perception that they are cutting costs and sports.
The school has been forced to cut 23% of their operating expenses across the board. That amounted to about a $4.4 million cost cutting effort for the Athletic Department. In the world of academia, the first question people start asking, when there are cuts to academic programs, is "...will you be making cuts to Athletics?" Not everyone in the higher education community sees the value in athletics.
When the President of Akron announced the merger of seven of their colleges due to cost, the big question that emerged was, "...are you going to cut Athletics?" The President, of course, has to go on the record as saying that they would absolutely cut back athletics. In making that statement, he also reassured the athletics fans that they will remain NCAA Division I.
So, to give the perception that the Athletic Department is joining the academic community in their cost-cutting measures, they needed to cut sports. By simply announcing a plan to cut costs is not going to be enough. They needed to cut sports because that is something that they can tangibly point to in order to make their efforts seem genuine.
Look at the sports that were cut and it is obvious they took the path of least resistance. They cut three lilly-white sports so they can look good. They cut three sports that are the three least-likely sports to create an issue with their sports fans. They cut the three sports that have the least number of athletes and, just to make sure they make everyone happy: they made a women's sport one of the cuts.
The cutting of cross country is for show. They know that they are only saving about $6500. However, they can claim it saves so much more than that. Men's golf is also for show. Most college men's golf programs bring in enough alumni donations to fund the sport each year. Women's tennis was the sacrificial lamb on that side. These are also the three easiest sports to bring back in a few years (in their mind). However, once schools make moves like this it is rare for them to reverse course.
Akron could have EASILY cut baseball and women's lacrosse. They had just added those sports.
Just some thoughts.
College women's tennis has no one to protect it from cuts. No one will fight to save college tennis. And here's why. I already knew the roster make up, even before I knew the roster make up.
https://gozips.com/sports/womens-tennis/roster
Hell, even the girl from Evert Academy is foreign.
Kevin, where do you see college sports 5 years from now. Kevin, I said college sports, not Power 5 (a completely different animal). Feel free to pontificate all you want. Actually, I encourage it.
Thanks in advance.
port all wrote:
You guys are surprised but there is probably next to zero alumni support of financial contribution. No fans. No exposure. If you're a president and need to chop some men's numbers for Title IX reasons you'd probably go with the least visible program that would cause the least backlash.
No complaining about xc or track programs getting cut unless you were a vocal alum or fan BEFORE the cuts come.
sad but true-the low-hanging fruit will always get cut....even though MAC football is trash, there would be a huge clamour if that team was put on the block....
Higher ed is a business that doesn't put students first. Across the country we've seen workers laid off & very few administrators willing to take pay cuts. I will be shocked if football doesn't happen. Profits over player safety is the NCAA way. They're gonna have to admit they really don't care about the players come the fall.
In this instance, the sports cut do not generate revenue BUT very few of the athletes are on anything close to a full scholarship. It depends on how schools budget. Some schools claim athletic budgets are their own pool of money just made up of revenue and expenses. So football and basketball basically pay for every other program. You still can't convince me that the budgets can't mix & that some of those tuition dollars can't keep a cross country team afloat.
There is a real argument to be made for a more D3 looking model for sports like running. I went to a small d1 school on the east coast. We sent both teams all around the country for meets. One team was better than the other. Multiple times during the season, the school paid for travel + expenses for someone to run for 20:00-30:00. You could take that money & put it into so many different places. Get all of the regional schools together for local meets early & mid-season. Then travel to conference champs, regionals, NCAAs.
Kevin Hadsell wrote:
Akron could have EASILY cut baseball and women's lacrosse. They had just added those sports.
I don't know about the rationale for keeping the W Lax program. They're brand new and 0-7 through the first part of the season.
The baseball team is funded entirely though donations (one large benefactor in particular). The men's cross team could theoretically do the same, no? Come back self-funded through generous alumni support and some fundraising?
It's got to be really hard to be a MAC football fan. It's a revolving door of coaching changes at each of the schools. Of course, it would only take one good hire a few years for the Akron football team to be competitive (e.g., the Buffalo's of the conference), but it's gotta be an unjustifiably expensive process.
Any possible fundraising ideas that can keep this program going. Petition or anything I'd be willing to help anyway I can.
Interstinginfo wrote:
Any possible fundraising ideas that can keep this program going. Petition or anything I'd be willing to help anyway I can.
Email me if you're interested:
jto6@zips.uakron.eduI can fill you in on what we have going so far.
Thanks!
JT
I agree with everything you said here, the athletic cuts are all for show. Any school that isn't taking the elephant out of the room, football at any program that isn't a perennial big bowl (not the #40 vs #25 team bowl) contender or making money off football is only ever cutting sports for show. At least xc is relatively easy to compete in at a club level in nirca for athletes who must go to Akron (aka people who only get into their safety).
So Akron paid to have foreign girls to come play tennis for them? From Germany and Israel? Makes total sense to do that. Next thing is that you’ll tell me Alabama pays Kenyans to run XC for them? No way.
from my understanding to be classified division 1 a school has to sponsor 16 sports.
Akron had 19 - cut 3.
agree with some comments - it seems to me that XC/track seem to give you pretty good value when compared to other non-revenue generating sports
mens/ womens XC/track count as 4 sports
they have limited scholarships
a scholarship for XC also counts for track
you can have the same coaching staff coach both mens and womens
at a smaller school you could have 3-5 coaches for 4 teams
I will say that although the Akron football team is terrible they can get paid once or twice a year to be sacrificial lambs to the big programs with ~ million dollar payouts just for showing up
Don't forget that very, very few AD's and athletic administrators aspire to head up places like Akron University. They want to make their mark and move on, preferrably to a power 5, just like most coaches. They will not get job offers for cutting football. However, cutting sports if needed and freeing up more $ for football & basketball in the process just might. There are probably few or none on search committees who give a rats a$$ about XC, golf, or tennis. Unlike the football proponents, although Akron appears to have few, XC people will sit on the their hands and take it like they always do. In fact dropping XC might be a positive for the AD showing he/she can make tough decisions.
ohio guy wrote:
Don't forget that very, very few AD's and athletic administrators aspire to head up places like Akron University. They want to make their mark and move on, preferrably to a power 5, just like most coaches. They will not get job offers for cutting football. However, cutting sports if needed and freeing up more $ for football & basketball in the process just might. There are probably few or none on search committees who give a rats a$$ about XC, golf, or tennis. Unlike the football proponents, although Akron appears to have few, XC people will sit on the their hands and take it like they always do. In fact dropping XC might be a positive for the AD showing he/she can make tough decisions.
I completely agree with you. That really explains the And at the same time, I think it is just too bad that people tend not to be able to make decisions for themselves because of this type of structure. Basically, I wish leaders would care more about their moral conscience, and make choices in line with what they personally think is right. But too many so-called leaders make decisions based on what others would do, or what is required for them to achieve a specific outcome. That's not true leadership. It's a personal sacrifice sometimes, but I wish more people would sign up for that when they take the helm of an organization. These people affect so many others' lives.
Liberals are ruining this country.
I'm no Trump supporter, but this is exactly the type of thing that will get him reelected in November.
MAGAKAG