Central Michigan cuts men’s track

I ran track 4 years for a D1 school that is one of the 20-30 schools that makes money off of sports; it is easy to see the bad economics involved. One, the NCAA minor sports scholarship restriction really bit into the track team since we were so good at other sports. The department handed in scholarships in proportion to past success and although were decent, we could never get good enough fast enough to do better than our other minor sports-thus, our scholarship limit was way below the NCAA limit for the sport. Two, the school is 61%/39% female to male and the imbalance is getting worse every year as females show themselves to be increasingly competent students relative to males (note: we did not have engineering). Not only did we have to make up 85 football scholarships, but men’s minor sports also reflect the gender imbalance at the school.

The AD and our coach were very open about the economics and reminded us that we only were able to do our sport and fly all around because of 30-40 very talented football and basketball players that bought in almost all the revenue and profits. We were also aware that almost none of the players belonged in school and that most didn’t finish because the although the University has since developed passable but dubious majors, they didn’t have them at the time. We were told to keep our mouths shut about this open secret.

The new easy majors became a source of one of the college’s worst academic scandals and stains recruiting today.

This all occurs at one of the richest athletic schools, not a mid-major. and it stinks. It also has substantial racial overtones.

We would better off with a club system for Olympic Sports rather than tying it all to colleges. The system degrades colleges and exploits a few talented athletes in the major sports. This story reflects the nobility in the NCAA. How bad is it at schools with lesser economics?

There’s never been a better time to transfer - or take a gap year. Starve the beast. How many Deans Of Diversity have been axed?

UNC.

Take a look at the AD, he looks like he wears a white hood at night,

With CMU dropping both indoor and outdoor, will the MAC no longer have an indoor championship for the men due to <50% of the teams in the conference having a men's indoor program? I know that there are many conferences that have a similar rule about %age of team having representation to justify having or not having a conference championship meet.

Any MAC connected people have any idea? Anyone seen anything in the various articles written?

This is just a plain old bad situation.

Why cut on revenue sports? That saves how much?

PoisonIvy wrote:

With CMU dropping both indoor and outdoor, will the MAC no longer have an indoor championship for the men due to <50% of the teams in the conference having a men's indoor program? I know that there are many conferences that have a similar rule about %age of team having representation to justify having or not having a conference championship meet.

Any MAC connected people have any idea? Anyone seen anything in the various articles written?

This is just a plain old bad situation.

The MAC can still have their men’s indoor championship. The NCAA Division I has a rule that you must have at least 6 teams to hold a championship in which you advance the winner to the NCAA Tournament. However, obviously, in track we do not qualify on to the NCAA from the conference so the rule is not applicable.

I know that MAC swimming and wrestling have affiliate members. Might be worth considering some sort of merger or bringing in affiliate members.

I would encourage those that feel strongly to please contact the AD and president. It may not change anything, but it is important to let them know that this does not happen without negatively impacting a large and loyal alumni base.

athleticdirector@cmich.edu

president@cmich.edu

A few more small school programs will be cut, but most will just have a budget reduction for couple years. Things will be fine by then. Let’s stop this scare tactic crap and get back to work.

Here's a fun piece looking at the MAC, pretty doom and gloom... but whatcha gonna do https://link.medium.com/HsgXzjf8D6

Eric Arthur Blair wrote:

How many Deans Of Diversity have been axed?

How many deans of diversity have been axed what?

To justify savings in order to cut men's Olympic program is beyond me and those who competed for MAC. A savings between $300, 000 to $600, 000 isn't even close to the money football spends on food and let alone the hotel bill football expenses during a home football events.

There's a lot of talk about grass roots and marketing, how do we increase exposure? Gambling is the reason many Olympic sports are more popular day to day.

IAAF & USATF need to get over their holier than thou attitude and allow gambling at the track.

OldD1Coach wrote:

A few more small school programs will be cut, but most will just have a budget reduction for couple years. Things will be fine by then. Let’s stop this scare tactic crap and get back to work.

I don’t see anything being fine for coach to lose their job and many living with low pay for ‘couple years’.

Thoughts like that would make it easier for the ADs to make these kind of decisions.

I think I heard 13:29

PoisonIvy wrote:

With CMU dropping both indoor and outdoor, will the MAC no longer have an indoor championship for the men due to <50% of the teams in the conference having a men's indoor program? I know that there are many conferences that have a similar rule about %age of team having representation to justify having or not having a conference championship meet.

Any MAC connected people have any idea? Anyone seen anything in the various articles written?

This is just a plain old bad situation.

I don't see why they would axe a Men's championship. The CAA only has 3 Men's programs, but still has an Outdoor championship. It's been that way for a while.

product of diversity wrote:

Eric Arthur Blair wrote:

How many Deans Of Diversity have been axed?

How many deans of diversity have been axed what?

Axed if y'all seen Hee Haw this week.

NWRun wrote:

There's a lot of talk about grass roots and marketing, how do we increase exposure? Gambling is the reason many Olympic sports are more popular day to day.

IAAF & USATF need to get over their holier than thou attitude and allow gambling at the track.

I was referring to NCAA coaches and their programs. Just off the top of my head: Organizing an alumni assoc. specific to XC/track then begin endowments toward the program including scholarships. Get the community, boosters,....attention . Speak at Kiwanis and other service organizations and take a few athletes along. Make connections with newspaper, podcasts, student body. Gimmicks at home meets such as student cookouts, campus division races, etc. Send results everywhere and follow up with calls to university hierarchy cconcerning results, recruits, where the program is and headed. Especially tout how many minority students are involved and recruited to campus. Make teams as big as permitted so that any future cuts could include many paying students. There is much, much more but you get the idea. Market, market, market. Make the program indespensable.

All that sounds great, it really does. But there is a reality to be faced that many coaching staffs do not have the time, resources, or skillsets to do all of the things mentioned. It seems like every year I'm in the profession coaches are expected to do more and more with less and less. It's already silly that we are the only sport where it's expected that you coach both genders. If our men's soccer coach had to work with the women's soccer team for even one week those girls would just riot.

"Put on more events to draw attention to your program!" Many facilties and event management staff do nothing to aid track coaches. At my last school the one home meet we put on, everything was done by the coaches, there wasn't a single athletic department or university employee to aid us.

"Market yourself!" Yep, got a facebook page, twitter, and team instagram. Let me figure out how to make a newsletter. Let's open up the adobe suite and teach myself how to edit videos. We'll just ignore the section of our department that's supposed to be doing this.

"Community Engagement!" Much harder than it sounds. At best you link up with one or two groups that share interest or could use your help. The local race director won't be dropping a six figure check to save your program if the ax falls. The Habitat for Humanity organization you volunteer with makes a nice social media post but won't stop the AD from taking your scholarship money.

I have so many colleagues that are kill themselves chasing "being indispensable" for YEARS with nothing tangible to show for it. Honestly, the best strategy I've seen is to network your butt off, learn to recognize when you've got a job at a stable university, and STAY THERE. If the AD is good, tuition is reasonable, you're 70% funded or higher, and you like the staff, that's the promised land. When these programs get cut it's easy to put ideas out there about what could have been done differently to save the program when the reality is coaches aren't doing anything to kill their program to begin with.