SETON HALL - "THE HALL" cuts MEN'S and WOMEN'S INDOOR AND OUTDOOR TRACK

shut up wrote:

We struggle for equality in sports, and yet we allow runners to continually get screwed in favor of "the greater good"?? Why?

Because WE are powerless and in that role, just like anyone else who is powerless, we have to accept any charity we can get and we have to accept the fact that this charity can be taken away at any time for any reason. That's just the way it is. You don't have to like that, but you're wasting time and energy crying about it here. Welcome to life as a minority.

For most college athletes, they have been doing their particular sport for years, their lives have revolved around it and its what they love. Unless you participate in one of the big-time sports such as football or basketball, the chances of make a living from it is slim at best and for most its over once they leave their school. They do it for the love of the sport and for a lot of the student athletes around the country, their sport is one of their largest deciding factors when choosing a school. I was a member of the JMU xc and track team that was cut. I only missed one year of eligibility but I can still say without a doubt that when the rug gets yanked out from under you, it leaves a void that you don't know how to fill. The worst part is that 20 years from now, what will stand out the most in their memories is being cut, not the good times. And that IS sad because it is supposed to be the best years of your life. Of course we all get over it and move on, there are far greater tragedies in life, but in the running world, this is a tragedy.

Track/XC people have hopefully figured out that nearly every male Track/XC program is on the chopping block. Every year another program gets the axe... I wonder who we'll be welcoming into the club next year?

This is ridiculous that track is always the first to go. By the way how the heck does it cost 1.5 million to run the track programs? I coach at a D-1 and our whole operating budget including travel and scholarships for men's and women's xc, indoor and outdoor is barely a third of that.

Let's take a look since people had asked how much does it cost to run a track and field/xc program. I believe someone before me in this thread already tried to answer this:

Tuition cost (according to Seton Hall's website)

$42,470

If fully funded on both sides, (12.6 and 18)

$535,122 for the men and $764,460 equaling $1,299.582.00

That's just the scholarship part. Now take in everything else.

Hotel room - most likely with a deal since its a team $79.99 x 18 rooms at minimum(two per bed)

$1439.82

Meal money - I am guessing, $30 a day. So depending on were it is and we will assume an over night trip, one night. Thus they will eat breakfast on their own Friday morning. $8 for breakfast, $10 lunch and $12 for dinner. $52 / athlete for meal money. (Since we have 18 rooms, we are taking the bare minimum 14/gender)

$52x14 - $728 - Yes you can cut costs and get those lower, maybe even buy snacks and that works, yet we are assuming the small stuff here.

Entry fee - $250 (avg)

So right now, an over night trip with entry fee, meal money and hotel.

$728 + $1,439.82 + $250 = $2,417.82 and depending on the bus, it may cost another $1,200 for the bus as well. So add that on and we are at a mere $3,417.82 for a simple over night trip and a one day meet. That is not including the actual meal money which $30 is extremly low in the NCAA, when I ran we only got $28. As well the numbers are probably a bit low, but still there ya go. You do that for 14 meets and you easily chrage up $4 mil. I wont include equipment costs because normally Nike, if they sponsor Seton Hall, gives them quiet a deal.

That's simple for just one trip of only taking the NCAA minimum number of athletes to count as a meet.

Obviously the cross-country runners are affected by not having a track program to run for. I don't think Seton Hall cut the track program because they wanted to reduce the number of minorities at the school. It looks like a complete cost cutting move.

That being said, track and field does provide opportunities for many athletes, including many minority athletes. Most schools have stated(or in today's times unstated) goals for diversity in their campus population.

One of Track and Field's biggest selling points to university and athletic administrators is the diversity of the sport. Football is probably the only other sport that rivals the diversity among its participants. Basketball is heavily majority minority, football and track and field are probably 50/50 +/- 10 %, and the other sports are heavily majority oriented.

rojo wrote:

Here is another good article from a local paper on this decision.

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/seton-hall-cuts-mens-and-womens-track-and-field

This is SHOCKING to me. This isn't like this is podunk U cutting track. This is a Big East school that doesn't even have football eating up all of its resources.

Maybe if it had football bringing in revenue, the programs might have been kept.

Haji wrote:This is what I was thinking. Did Seton Hall have problems getting incoming freshman students? Is that why they are hurting financially? If they still have a full freshman class then how is the economy impacting them?

Sorta like my company that just had a big layoff and blamed it on the economy. This was 2 months after they announced that 2009 was their best financial year ever. Makes you think.

Apparently you've never heard the word 'endowment.' It's this thing, that, like, colleges use to finance their activities, but, like, it's largely tied up in the stock market so, like, DJIA tanks and your funds for your college tank. Or, alternatively, if you're a state school, tax revenues decrease, and the legislature decreases your budget. There are almost NO schools in the U.S. which rely solely on tuition for their operating budget. Honestly, if cutting the track program saves SHU a million bucks that they can use to shore up their financial aid or scholarship program, that's what they should be doing. It's a shame for the athletes who are there right now, and came expecting to be able to compete for four years, but it would be more of a shame to spend a million on their competitiveness but to shrink the fin-aid or faculty budge by a million to compensate. While the athletes in question aren't just at school for school, the school is a school, and it has to protect its academic capacity to educate before anything else.

ray wrote:

Someone would have to show me how much revenue is generated by Seton Hall Basketball. I am not an insider, but I am aware that Jim Calhoun also brags about the revenue he brings into UCONN. Turns out it's not anywhere near what he claims. Not when you look at salaries, equipment, travel, everything associated with running their basketball complex, rental of HCC, scholarships, etc So if Seton Hall basketball is not nearly the program that the other Big East schools are, how much revenue is actually coming into the athletic department and used by other sports.

Revenue and expenditures of different. He could be right about the revenue the program generates when you consider the TV contract, ticket sales, alumni donations needed to buy tickets and other revenue streams. Now profit is the revenue minus expenditures.

depends... wrote:

Chaka wrote:

The way this was handled was horribly incompetent. So incompetent that pink slips should be issued.

And I can't help but notice that the department kept the predominately white cross country program and shed the rest. They just dramatically reduced opportunities for minority athletes and added golf?

Pathetic.

There cross country program was not predominately white..

And also, don't even bring up racism when it comes to this track team, the less you know.. the better.

Haha so true. Seton Hall's track program was infamously biased the other way. Don't you worry, whitey won't keep you down. Black coaches look great for affirmative action, so the coaches will get jobs soon. The sprint coach has already been at Pitt for an interview.

Predominately means "for the most part." The Seton Hall cross country teams are about 75 percent white. That is predominately. Buy a dictionary.

To the person earlier talking about the "solid" programs at American, Iona, Providence, etc...yes those are very solid middle and long distance programs.

That is not the only measure of success in track and field. Seton Hall even within the last 5-7 years has produced excellent long sprinters and excellent relays. These events have just as much value as the long distance programs mentioned above.

Don't think about this from a distance runner's perspective, when was the last time Iona had a 46 second 400m runner?

Seton Hall was a very solid sprint program. ANd it is a really bad lose for us as track and field fans to lose any program, much less one with the history and prestige that Seton Hall has possessed.

Let's hope that the big east does not become the CAA or the MAC where so many teams have been lost in the last few years (JMU, TOwson, Delaware, to many MAC schools to name).

Does anyone have a list of all the schools that have cut track and or XC in the past couple years?

Are they keeping all Acorn related activities fully funded?

I attended Seton Hall as a Graduate Student. I was only there two years. I was not member of the track and field team, nor did I have any other involvment in athletic matters other than running a few strides on their indoor track.

However, during my time there dealing with administrative people in the president's office, the business office, and other academic offices. I really came to feel that the whole school has a terrible business/corproate culture. he administrative atmosphere that seemed to cut across all of campus deprtments and offices was one of compelte cluelessness. It seemed that the president and budget offices wouldn't communicate with academic departments. It took months to get simple inter-offices business done. I wittnessed this personally and heard many stories from other students about the ineptitude of administration. It seemed to me that everyone in a position of power merely looked out for themselves and desired to simple save face. rather than running the schoo lin a successful manner. The few times I met President Monsignor Sheehan he left me with the impression of being very insincere and fake, concerned only with his imagine as President rather than what's best for the student body.

To hear that they made the decision to simple cut men's and women's track with no conversation with Coach Moon or any of the athletes DOES NOT SHOCK ME IN THE SLIGHTEST. To think they made no effort to cut the budget or find a compromise seems all too typical of Seton Hall University to me.

I'm gonna guess you only spent two years as a grad student there because you were incapable of writing complete sentences?

oh yeah, my bad. lets just go back to debating what is truly 'sad' at the core of our hearts and how little seton hall affects worldwide suffering

also, midwesterner here, no east coast narcissism. youre a better ethicist than you are prognosticator of regions

Then you're just ignorant, it seemed better given the choice between that and narcissistic to presume the latter.