The more I think about the way the Brown sports decision went down, the more OUTRAGED I become

I don't follow this stuff really closely but I agree it is shameful for cross country/track programs to be cut.

What is wrong with a cross country team? nothing, it is fun.

Maybe students will boycott Brown univeristy in the future.

Why not just say eff it and compete anyway? Forget their administration. Just do it themselves. Show up to meets, run as a club. And then just show up to the Ivy League championships anyway. What are they going to do, call the police and tell them they can’t run? Put on your jersey, get to the line, and tell your administration to shove it. Heck, bring a can of field paint and paint your own box. I guarantee the other athletes won’t mind and I hope the coaches would respect it. What’s it going to hurt? And yeah... I get it, no coaches, no travel funding, etc. It sucks. But just do it. Train your butt off and tell your AD where he can shove it.

It's true. The Ivy League could choose to just allow Brown's club team to run.

Without admin support I can't imagine they'd be very competitive after a season or two, though.

this is super f*cked up. Brown admins should be stripped of their jobs permanently at a minimum.

The axing of the Brown XC and T&F program was the topic of discussion as far away as Canberra Australia on this morning run with my athletes one of which runs for an IVY League School. I can still remember the recruiting letter that I got from Brown in 1984. A real shame for all the runner's that go there. Signed the petition not sure what else we can do. Things for getting fired up about it Robert.

There is only 1 type of protest that will have any impact. If all of the women on the XC/Track team quit. This would mess up the schools Title XI argument and show solidarity with the sport. If you really want to support our sport, Brown University women need to stand up and do something and quitting the program is the ONLY thing that will have any impact. petitions, letters, lack of alumni donations won't do anything, only changing the Title XI calculation would help.

Have you not been paying attention at all until now?

Go get a first-class education and, if they were recruited, thank their lucky stars that they probably got a boost in admissions and can still run on a fine club? It's hard to imagine that many people would choose Brown *just* for its XC or track team.

(Caveat that Brown is a good place for a motivated student but also somewhere where you could easily get lost and do nothing for 4 years -- I would not have liked it much I think)

My man, there's a pandemic going on. Attention was elsewhere. Imagine the administration at Brown actually going through with your proposal, and how much it would look like they have no sense of priorities. It's more understandable that *you* lack that sense because you run a running website.

Yep, agree with this. If you're going to do something painful, no point delaying it.

No idea what to make of the sailing stuff. That sounds like some internal politics that we don't have the details about.

Yes we have issues in this country. Lack of empathy and true patriotism which believes in and cares for all Americans.

AND this is a total BS on Brown's part. They f'ed up and it's right to be mad about it.

Ignore these trolls trying to make it some kind of political statement.

The transfer portal doesn’t close. There are many Brown track athletes in It as we speak. A brown athlete could enter the transfer portal on August 1 and still be able to transfer for the fall semester

It would be tough because application deadlines have past. They would help a scholarship type athlete but Brown has few of those and schools have committed scholarships by now.

men's club track and xc teams should be able to compete in all meets and at conference, regionals, and nats. This would go a long way to solving the problem.

I have no idea what they mean by the transfer portal is closed. It’s not. And there are in fact a number of athletes from Brown in there.

It’s not that students chose brown just for running but almost all of these student athletes had other opportunities. These are people with good enough grades to go to top schools and good enough runners to compete, they want to do both. They probably wouldn’t have chosen brown had they known about this. I can definitely see how this is frustrating for these students, it’s not that they won’t take advantage of the education, I’m sure many still hold that as the #1 priority but that doesn’t mean they should be ok with losing the experience and opportunity. I went to a top school and was a student athlete, the opportunity to compete on a varsity team with a budget is a great experience that I wouldn’t want to trade and wouldn’t want to have forced on me like this (I also had many opportunities for schools). At the end of the day I wanted to do both.

I understand there are many things to be thankful for and we are in a global pandemic, but that is not an excuse for institutions to make poor decisions and for them to disregard the opportunities for their students.

Those two things are separate, I’m sure all these students are dealing with the pandemic and are glad to be safe (if they are) and are looking forward to continuing their lives. And they can be frustrated that a decision like this is being made with the timing and lack of thoughtfulness that is required with these big decisions. Don’t conflate the two and don’t allow the pandemic to be an excuse for lack of accountability.

doitanyway wrote:

Why not just say eff it and compete anyway? Forget their administration. Just do it themselves. Show up to meets, run as a club. And then just show up to the Ivy League championships anyway. What are they going to do, call the police and tell them they can’t run? Put on your jersey, get to the line, and tell your administration to shove it. Heck, bring a can of field paint and paint your own box. I guarantee the other athletes won’t mind and I hope the coaches would respect it. What’s it going to hurt? And yeah... I get it, no coaches, no travel funding, etc. It sucks. But just do it. Train your butt off and tell your AD where he can shove it.

Amazing idea. Love it .

runfasta wrote:

There is only 1 type of protest that will have any impact. If all of the women on the XC/Track team quit. This would mess up the schools Title XI argument and show solidarity with the sport. If you really want to support our sport, Brown University women need to stand up and do something and quitting the program is the ONLY thing that will have any impact. petitions, letters, lack of alumni donations won't do anything, only changing the Title XI calculation would help.

Another amazing idea.

Maybe schools are coming to the realization that maybe collegiate sports are not as important as the athletes think they are.

Why spend millions on 19 sports some of which are only noticed by the participants when that money could be put into academics. Why should parents have to pay another $2500 per semester to support collegiate sports of which their kids might not participate or attend.

With college athletes being allowed to make their own marketing deals in the next year or two , college athletics is not what they used to be. All these one and done athletes are not even part of the university system since most of them never show up for class. In the next few years college sports could be gone altogether.

So why not get rid of them now.

It will make more business opportunities for professional coaches and clubs regardless of the sport.

Maybe you should burn down some buildings...

rojo wrote:

runfasta wrote:

There is only 1 type of protest that will have any impact. If all of the women on the XC/Track team quit. This would mess up the schools Title XI argument and show solidarity with the sport. If you really want to support our sport, Brown University women need to stand up and do something and quitting the program is the ONLY thing that will have any impact. petitions, letters, lack of alumni donations won't do anything, only changing the Title XI calculation would help.

Another amazing idea.

It's a horrible idea to suggest the women should quit. They shouldn't be obligated to sacrifice their own athletic careers.

What all the women can do, however, is ask to have their names put on the transfer portal. They can still compete for Brown and it doesn't mean they have to transfer. It will scare the administration and send a clear message that you can't just take our sport for granted.