Brown University, with a $4.2 billion endowment, cancels men's track and field and men's cross country

They get rid of men’s track/XC teams and add women’s sailing for varsity? God, what a POS school, I don’t know who would want to go to that oatmeal haven in Rhode Island anyway. Like what kind of strange person would want to go there over say NYU (which most Brown admits could probably get into). We should just expel them from the Ivy League, most people honestly probably don’t know they’re a member anyway. Do they even have professional schools? I know Princeton doesn’t but they’re Princeton so who cares, we shouldn’t make the same accommodations for freaking Brown. Has anyone of any relevance ever graduated from there? I’ve met a few Brown grads but they were mostly living in artsy studios way out in Brooklyn...who wants to deal with that creaky D train every day, not me that’s why I stay on the island.

I am not sure people are being ignorant about how endowments work- I believe many are aware of this. The endowment is simply being used as a proxy for the financial health of the institution.

If you think about the marginal cost of maintaining a men's team, while a women's team already exists, it is rather insignificant. Tim Springfield was the men's XC coach before taking on the women's job once Mitchell Baker left a couple years ago. All the other event coaches coach both genders. The school already has the facilities for track and travel for the Brown team is very simple with many meets in the Northeast. Most of the time, our chartered buses were not full on these trips.

What bothers me the most is the suddenness of this. Current student-athletes found out moments before the public and coaches were completely in the dark. It is unfair to the recruits coming in to have to decide whether or not to pursue D1 running at another institution or to make a call on their running careers by matriculating to Brown for the education solely. I am sure many of the current athletes will continue to train because they love the sport and I know if this happened during my time there we would make the most of it, but hopefully some constructive recourse will occur by current and former athletes.

Brown is a private institution. They made a decision that NO ONE HERE has the right to regulate. Don't like it? CRY SOMEWHERE ELSE, SNOWFLAKES!!!

Question: why is it an issue NOW for Title IX? The Brown male/females athlete numbers have been like this for 10+ years? What has changed?

Observation: about saving money from aid — isn’t ‘blind need’ based on trying to get a diverse student body at the ivies, not just prep school rich folk?

Not one male track athlete should stay there. They have some very good athletes on the team, it would be insane for them to run club. They had a 4:05 miler this year, and a sophomore at 8:15 in the 3000. There are a lot of opportunities for them.

Women should transfer too. This is a clear indicator they the administration doesn't care about them either.

Cut the football team. Problem solved.

The whole school GPA will go up. There will be less sexual assault on campus. And people won't have to watch a bunch of mediocre talents run around on the field and play at a high school level.

Luv2Run wrote:

People are really ignorant about how endowments work.

This is not a pot of money that the university can just draw from. Most of it is earmarked for specific things. So a donor gives $10 million to a university but says it and any interest made from it can only be used to study cow farts, then that is how the money has to be used.

There are legal ways around that, but it is really, really hard.

I know if I competed in one of the cut sports, I would not donate a red cent to brown any longer whether to study cow farts or anything else.

I'd bet another Ivy School will do the same soon. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

malmo wrote:

Detrie wrote:

Is it? I've NEVER seen sailing on TV. Track gets a few weekends a year.

Sailing is a family sport , it has dedicated Sailing TV Channels . More kids look to parents to take them sailing then drive them to the track . 2020 , Track is so unpopular the Governing World Athletics is trying to get rid of events . They concede , it is all boring , but lets drop the most boring . I would also bet 99% of mainstream American Sports journalist , don't even know 5K is dropped from D League .

"With 1,006,013 participants, 11-player football remains the No. 1 participatory sport for boys in high school by a large margin. Outdoor track and field is No. 2 with 605,354 participants, followed by basketball (540,769), baseball (482,740), soccer (459,077), cross country (269,295), wrestling (247,441), tennis (159,314), golf (143,200) and swimming/diving (136,638).

Outdoor track and field continues to lead the way for girls with 488,267 participants, followed by volleyball (452,808), basketball (399,067), soccer (394,105), fast-pitch softball (362,038), cross country (219,345), tennis (189,436), swimming/diving (173,088), competitive spirit (161,358) and lacrosse (99,750)."

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It's crazy that colleges and universities can justify cutting a sport that virtually every high school offers. We have high school track teams in Colorado that don't even have a dirt track to practice on and they do just fine. Track has long been the sport of both inner cities and poor rural areas. There can't be what, more than a few thousand kids in the entire country that compete in sailing?

I believe the head coaching positions is an endowed position.

One of these sports is not like the others wrote:

Also seems crazy that all these schools are doubling down on football, a costly, dying sport (ever here of CTE?) that makes it near-impossible to comply with Title IX. The best thing Northeastern and Boston University ever did was get rid of their football teams.

Yeah I don't get the favoring for football at a non Power 5 school.

ex hepper wrote:

Question: why is it an issue NOW for Title IX? The Brown male/females athlete numbers have been like this for 10+ years? What has changed?

Observation: about saving money from aid — isn’t ‘blind need’ based on trying to get a diverse student body at the ivies, not just prep school rich folk?

Someone should take a look at the numbers from the other teams being cut, but there are a couple of women's only teams on there. My guess is that they wanted to make those other cuts for competitiveness reasons, but they would be so far out of compliance with Title IX that it would be risky. So cutting men's XC/track is a great way to re-balance since guys count 2-3X.

agip wrote:

LRCisTerrible wrote:

Maybe this is an early hiss of air coming from the massive balloon that is university education in the US. Universities have become fat cats in American society and arguably take more than they provide.

Most college sports should be on some level between intramural and club level. The Ivy League focuses on mind and body? Great, have at it on a club or intramural team kiddos. Time to trim the fat.

While they're at it, it's far past time to cut administrative budgets, quality of life perks for college kids, and make college a far more utilitarian and egalitarian venture for the betterment of our society.

+1

at some point the idea of college athletes in non-revenue sports flying around the country to compete will be a thing of the past. And that will be ok.

As it should be.

BOHICA wrote:

agip wrote:

+1

at some point the idea of college athletes in non-revenue sports flying around the country to compete will be a thing of the past. And that will be ok.

As it should be.

This is such an awful take. You should see the mens track locker room at brown. Cramped, dingy room with nasty carpet. I think a lighting outlet sparked a fire once.

None of us asked for special treatment from the school. We ran because we wanted to. And nearly every guy on the XC team made a positive impact to the community separate from their track career. Duriel Hardy, probably the most decorated brown runner of the last decade, was also a decorated/honors student who went on to be a pediatric neurologist.

As if athletics are the only "frivolous" spending at brown, or other colleges, that can be curtailed?

This decision is horrendous. Every argument the administration makes can be refuted with facts and statistics. This will impact the women's team as well, Brown as a whole, and the Ivy League at large.

The alums are rallying to get the team reinstated. Sign the petition here:

https://www.change.org/p/brown-university-department-of-athletics-retain-brown-men-s-track-field-s-varsity-status?signed=true

rare wrote:

Yikes, "club coed sailing and club women’s sailing each will transition to varsity status" feels like a slap in the face to men's track and cross country.

It is actually very important to know that the Brown sailing team didn't want this. The way college sailing works, clubs can compete with varsity teams and even win. Brown's women's team won nationals last year even though they were a club. Many teams in the country are club (although the best teams like Stanford, Georgetown and Charleston are varsity).

Additionally, Brown sailing has all the money they need without varsity funding. Ted Turner (billionaire founder of CNN and TBS) basically bankrolls the whole team and built them their boathouse. I have a friend who is an alum of the sailing team that claims the team was offered varsity status for several years and turned it down every time because they don't want to comply with annoying restrictions that come with being varsity.

My friend says the sailing team didn't know this announcement was coming until yesterday either - they were just as surprised as the track team. Now the administration has painted them like villains in their ridiculous quest to try and make the school look like it has better sports. I'll be signing the petition the alumni have started because this is a preposterous idea.

interesting. So the decision was based partly on university greed, in an attempt to look better than other ivies. Club championships aren't as braggable as ncaa championships.

Emily Swatsom wrote:

Brown is a private institution. They made a decision that NO ONE HERE has the right to regulate. Don't like it? CRY SOMEWHERE ELSE, SNOWFLAKES!!!

I agree! If they don't like it they can start their own university.

very interesting.