Clemson axes Mens XC and Track Teams

heps athlete 2002 wrote:

If there’s no good argument to add one, then we should expect most of them to go away.

On a national level, the American sports philosophy was always to emphasize and maximize participation. Conversely, countries like China, Russia, and the other socialist countries aimed to separate natural talent at an early age, and then focus athletic attention exclusively on a very small subset of the population. It's just cheaper that way. As America transitions to a socialist country, I would expect more of the same. So, I think your expectation will prove true. Why should America spend money on luxuries like XC/T&F when we can instead direct funds to addressing social issues? That will be the argument looking forward.

Look. I believe I learned more important life success lessons competing in track and cross country than I did in school. How to fail and still go to work and do your long run the next morning. Be a good teammate. Everyone is the same race. Etc.

But I don’t think spending on a track program is a particularly efficient way to achieve those goals.

To be a bit harsh to all of us on this board....we sound like a bunch of blockbuster or sears executives bemoaning how the rest of society doesn’t value the things we bring to the table. Or when a vegan complains that there’s so few good restaurant for them - uh, you’re a small market and aren’t willing to pay much of a premium.

Seems to me track should rethink its value proposition. And things like shortening meets isn’t enough - track is unlikely to ever be entertaining enough to many people. Find another value which likely will require change.

I would like every university to have a Cross Country and Track and Field program. I just don't understand why practically every high school in the country has them, but then huge Division I schools with 9-figure athletic budgets claim they can't afford it. And furthermore, tuition costs have been going through the roof over the past few decades. Something doesn't add up. Why are these programs so expensive?

One of you young guys should stop complaining and study this. Should be worth a Master's Thesis, I would think. Much of the data is in the public domain.

Bound4Glory wrote:

Boomba wrote:

They utilize student fees to fund sports and/or offer no scholarships for sports. .

Are scholarship fees included in the T&F budget? That would explain some things (and also be ridiculous).

Yes, well at my alma mater they are. The athletic department pays the college the full boat for instate or out of state tuition

Ya. Spending on game rooms, slip and slides, and multi million dollar football coaches is a much more efficient use of money than a track program. I want the sixth string quarterback to have that experience, not a top south carolina state xc runner.

I can agree that track and xc need to find a way to monetize themselves and bring tangible value to the school. Any school with a track or xc course not holding open meets and working to attract local runners to run in those open meets is a fool.

Yup ?

Us former college runners on the whole fail to grok just how we benefitted from a system of largess that attracts funds (and fans) via ball sports. It was essentially a charitable endeavor though not without merit and not without benefit to the university and it's athletic department. Yet the returns clearly became diminishing.

My alma mater cut the communications department while I was there, despite high profile alumni and prompted a teammate to transfer. It was the right decision based on sustained student interest and the health of the school. The t&f/xc program has had good success in the decade or two since my time there, about the same as any other sport and many factors superior to football. Football has basically always been a loser there and yet always has and always will outdraw any home t&f meets. Basketball, too, which has been in the bottom half of their G5 conference most years. It wouldn't surprise me if t&f/xc were dropped now. They could be winning conference titles every year and few outside of the athletes and their parents and some (definitely not all) alumni would really care. That's just where we are now. Honestly, I would have been just as happy if they were club teams and not varsity teams while I was a student there.

Isn't Clemson ranked number one?

What happened in the mid 80's in the program?

Here’s a thought. Not every program needs to be run with million dollar budgets. Maybe instead of putting entire schools’ athletic programs into divisions the divisions could be separated by budget. Sports within a department could compete at different levels.

Division 1 track is minimum $1million overall budget

Division 2 is $500k. Division 3 is $150k and D4 no minimum.

It's time to put a cap on college football and basketball expenditures. Universities are already audited so it wouldn't be that hard, and the savings would pay for the extra oversight a hundred times over.

My dad was hired from VMI to lead the Clemson program in the spring of 1985 following the death of Stijn Jaspers, which resulted in the firing of the school president, athletics director and coaching staff. The circumstances of his death were covered up until his brother traveled over from Holland and demanded a full autopsy. The state law enforcement investigation uncovered a massive steroid ring between a doctor in Nashville and the Clemson strength staff and several track coaches. After my dad took over he had to clear out a lot of foreign athletes who were abusing steroids, and most of them had their own coaches. He prioritized the recruitment of American athletes and he coached every single event with the support of two grad assistants. Despite the challenges they won 3 conference championships over his three years and that was without a track to train on, as the athletics department tore it out after his first year and didn’t replace until a year after he left in the summer of 1988. His XC teams won the conference and finished 10th (in 1987) and 4th (1988) at nationals. The 88 team was his guys but coached by Marty Flynn. If Terrence Herrington had not gotten hurt they likely would have won nationals in 88 and certainly been in contention. After they ripped out the track and cut his budget, he walked into the AD’s office on 6/30 and handed his resignation. He went back to VA and taught/coached at the high school level until retirement. Continued to train Terrence and a few other guys. Clemson has always been a cult of personality, the only thing the entire school cares about is it’s football program.

XC and track take up about 125 roster spots that must be equalized with women. The savings aren't necessarily in men's sports but in the combined men's and women's cuts.

Bound4Glory wrote:

Boomba wrote:

That's the difference between DI and DII, NAIA, DIII. At smaller schools, athletics isn't about revenue, its about enrolling students and providing good experiences. So smaller schools are more likely to value the athletes and the sport.

So how come the smaller DII, NAIA, and DIII schools can afford XC/T&F, but the big schools can't? I'd like to see the XC/T&F budgets at the smaller schools and compare them to the equivalent budgets at the big DI schools.

At smaller colleges, athletics isn't about revenue, its about enrolling students. At Large universities, 100 track athletes doesn't mean much, they can get 100 non-athletes to take their place. At a college with 2000 students, 100 track athletes is a significant tuition block.

It's all about how important you are, large university they don't know who you are, at smaller colleges they not only know who you are, but if you are a commuter or live in the dorms, and if you are an athlete or not. Many administrators and faculty will even know what sport you participate.

Lies Lies and Damn Lies wrote:

Someone in the media needs to cover this. Talk about disenfranchising kids, this takes the cake. Talk about inequity, this takes the cake. Sickening.

"Disenfranchise," "equity" - Universities are not and should not be expected to be branches of the welfare state. Clemson does not have to hold a track team, their team was not good to begin with so I don't know why people are suddenly so upset that they're gone. Clemson didn't put in any money or effort into the team while they were there, so why should they have kept them? If this was Houston or Florida or Texas A&M I would have been pretty upset, but Clemson??

Let it Rupp wrote:

Lies Lies and Damn Lies wrote:

Someone in the media needs to cover this. Talk about disenfranchising kids, this takes the cake. Talk about inequity, this takes the cake. Sickening.

"Disenfranchise," "equity" - Universities are not and should not be expected to be branches of the welfare state. Clemson does not have to hold a track team, their team was not good to begin with so I don't know why people are suddenly so upset that they're gone. Clemson didn't put in any money or effort into the team while they were there, so why should they have kept them? If this was Houston or Florida or Texas A&M I would have been pretty upset, but Clemson??

Was not always that way, but certainly in the last 10-15 years.

I can't believe the people on this site (who I thought were runners) writing this off like it is no big deal. This is a school with one of the biggest athletics budgets in the country just declaring track and field is not worth it and you are saying people are whining too much, socialism is to blame, track provides no value, etc. And this is not a program with no success either. Many athletes competing in the national championships on a yearly basis. Already have an indoor track facility, one of just a few in the south.

$9.3M football coach, $55M football facility with a minigolf course and giant slide, highest paid AD now offering the minimum D1 sports. Pathetic.

And the posters defending this decision are just as pathetic as Clemson.

Joe cares about hard working people and will bring it back to Clemson. Just watch.

Look, the sport has become too watered down since the '80s. Some contraction and concentration of talent to programs that actually have full support should help.

Jake Scrum wrote:

My dad was hired from VMI to lead the Clemson program in the spring of 1985...

It was a little before your dad's time, but steroids may not have been their only issue. In the early 1980s, I was at another southern D1 university and roomed with the captain of our fencing team. He said it was common knowledge in fencing circles that Clemson paid its fencers. This was a year or two after the football team had been put on probation for some sort of pretty serious wrongdoing, and around that time the basketball team was penalized for having paid Tree Rollins $50,000 to play for them in the 1970s, so it wouldn't surprise me if they had paid their track & XC people too.