Roster Limits for Men's College Cross Country and Track

UMass-Amherst men's track team has a roster limit that I believe is imposed by the school for Title IX reasons. Only 30 guys allowed on the roster, a good 2/3 of them are distance runners who are also on the XC team. The team also gets minimal scholarship money too, resulting in the coach splitting up the scholarships so he can keep as many guys as he can on the team (I don't know of any guy on the team who has a full track scholarship but I know of a number who have half or quarter scholarships).

The mens indoor track team was originally cut in 2002 because of budget cuts (at the same time, the football team had a bad 2001 season and lost over $2 million). The team was reinstated for the 2004 indoor season after some undergrads brought it up with the student council. The main condition of the team being reinstated was that the team needed to be self-sufficent and rely on monies from their alumni.

"Several sports were allowed to continue on the condition that they would attain a self-sufficient status. Funding for men’s and women’s skiing will be eliminated, but they are expected to maintain self-sufficiency through NCAA sports sponsorship allocations and private funding.

Men’s indoor track was also reinstated on the condition of self-sufficiency. The Athletic Department indicated in the release that the previous elimination of the indoor program had negative consequences on the outdoor program that could be remedied with the recreation of the indoor team on a self-sufficient level." - Daily Collegian school newspaper, 9/3/03

http://dailycollegian.com/2003/09/03/umass-slashed-18-percent/

This tells you all you need to know: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/jeff_pearlman/01/20/delaware.cross.country/index.html

At WVU the roster limit for guys is zero.

Reason: $ and Title IX.

JMU has a -0- roster limit for men also. Program cut a few years ago.

This is an interesting topic. At the last place I coached at before I got out of the biz to actually make some sensible money to support my family, I was the cross country coach and track coach in charge of distances.

When I started there, I had a limit of 8-9 distance runners that would carry over and have a "safe spot" waiting for them on the track roster. Any runners over that number, i.e. the 10-lets say through 18 spots, would be told that they could have a training outline for indoor & outdoor track, and that they could run in home meets unattached. They would also be allowed to try out for cross team the next year.

The reason that we did this was that we had a roster limit for males imposed by the AD for the TRACK team. We did not have a roster limit for the women, and in fact were encouraged to get to 100 females if possible. When you factor in sprints, jumps, throwers, multis, and distance, and if every coach gets a similar number of athletes, then you limit out at about 50 male athletes.

Over my time there we were allowed to stretch the track roster to 60 and I was able to scrap & scrape up to 14 full time year round distance runners, which at a mid-major, all things considered, was a manageable number considering I was also the women's coach and I had no assistant or G.A.

So to answer your question, my own distance team had limits imposed by my head coach, who had limits imposed by the AD, who had overall limits imposed by our Title IX number that we had to hit, i.e. proportion of male to female participation with regard to our student body ratio. Hope that helps.

I'm all for trying to provide women's athletes with opportunities but at one point do you say that sports is more of a men's thing than a women's thing and allow more flexibility with the Title IX requirements?

I competed for a major Division 1 university about 15-20 years ago and back then the disparity from the best females to the mediocre females was astounding. I'm sure you've got kids today that are running 5:00-5:05 for the 1600 and getting full rides. You basically have to run 4:08-4:12 on the guys side for the same deal. I'm not knocking the girls who are taking advantage of the situation. If my daughter ends up being a decent runner, I'll be stoked given the scholarship possibilities.

I look at women's basketball and think "Why are top twenty-five teams getting blown out by 35 points by UCONN".

I know the analysis of Title IX participation and results should be taken after a number of years. I'm just not convinced that at the end of the day you're not rewarding some scholarship recipients for very mediocre competitive abilities.

Again, I'm not knocking the idea of giving women opportunities for athletic scholarships. I just think we need a broader view about interest in athletics. Women are more interested in going to college (the stats bear this out) but men are more interested in university athletic participation.

I run at Quinnipiac University. We had a few men's programs cut two years ago (Title IX/Budget issues), including indoor and outdoor. Our roster size is now limited to 13, while our women have 24.

We have nobody on a full ride, and lost a lot of scholarship athletes to transfers after we lost track. To get a scholarship you'd have to come in with somewhere around a very low/sub 16 5k

This is true even when scholarships are not in the equation.

In my division 3 conference, the number of femals and male qualifiers to the conference meet had to be the same. There were guys who were some of the better runners on the team, trained seriously year round, and were less than a minute off of the best 5K times in the conference, but did not qualify. Meanwhile, you have a 4+ minute range from 1st to last girl qualifier and some of the team members who don't run seriously and just do some jogging with the group Monday through Thursday qualify for the meet.

This is an example of what I'm talking about. Lack of competitiveness equals lack of real participation. Women make up 60% of college students so any school looking to comply with Title IX will end up giving a substantial number of resources to women's college athletics. Perhaps far greater than what the true, competitive participation would dictate.

Male athletes in the non-revenue sports (mostly any sport outside of football and basketball) need to support any attempt by the NCAA for member schools to make more money from football and basketball. Yes, many athletes in football and basketball are good students, but for the most part they are hired guns. The more money that rolls in the better off the non-revenue sports are.

If you're a track/cc alumni donate to your school's athletic booster club (or track booster club). Harass your former teammates until they donate as well. Make sure you show up for meets and make it known to the administrators that you're still alive. Say Hi to the A.D. if you see him and remind him of your name and former sport. Every little bit helps.

Don't count on a letter and e-mail campaign to keep your sport alive when it just got cut.

Sad facts of the current system.

Yes, track/xc alumni need to suck it up and donate to their schools if they expect the sport to survive in the NCAA. Doesn't have to be a ton, although that would make a big difference if it was.

C/M Runner

"UMass-Amherst men's track team has a roster limit that I believe is imposed by the school for Title IX reasons. Only 30 guys allowed on the roster, a good 2/3 of them are distance runners who are also on the XC team. The team also gets minimal scholarship money too, resulting in the coach splitting up the scholarships so he can keep as many guys as he can on the team (I don't know of any guy on the team who has a full track scholarship but I know of a number who have half or quarter scholarships). "

C/M Runner, bit off on your figures/roster size is larger than 30 and clearly NOT dominated by Dis/X-C guys

1/15 First meet back from 4 week intersession, self limited travel squad, 21 track /3 distance from x-c squad(Duncan rs x-c)

Metawampi wrote:

C/M Runner, bit off on your figures/roster size is larger than 30 and clearly NOT dominated by Dis/X-C guys

1/15 First meet back from 4 week intersession, self limited travel squad, 21 track /3 distance from x-c squad(Duncan rs x-c)

Sorry: when I was there a few years ago, this was the case. The team is a bit more balanced now.

C/M Runner wrote:

Metawampi wrote:

C/M Runner, bit off on your figures/roster size is larger than 30 and clearly NOT dominated by Dis/X-C guys

1/15 First meet back from 4 week intersession, self limited travel squad, 21 track /3 distance from x-c squad(Duncan rs x-c)

Sorry: when I was there a few years ago, this was the case. The team is a bit more balanced now.

When the results of Title IX come out, they are going to report participation numbers per gender. What will be left out, of course, is the number of male athletes who were interested in competing but weren't allowed because of roster limits. Again, no knock on the women athletes who are taking advantage of these opportunities. As Mark Twain said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics"

My teams are limited to 12-14 for xc and 28 for track, the womens team is encouraged to have as many athletes as possible for both xc and track.

talahatseed wrote:

My teams are limited to 12-14 for xc and 28 for track, the womens team is encouraged to have as many athletes as possible for both xc and track.

You guys need to write down your current experiences for historical record (and perhaps send them into the NCAA after you graduate so that these colleges can't conveniently forget about these roster limitations on men's sports).

I am always astounded by the immorality of title 9 self-enforcement - that men are cut because they can't find a corresponding female should be criminal.

This is classic totalitarian stuff. We need someone in congress or somewhere to alter this.

Whoever voted for title 9 did not intend to shrink mens athletics but that is the unintended consequence.

Anyone know who has the power to change this?

While Title IX on its own is pretty bad, the complete lack of respect from AD's for track and other "minor" sports is appalling.

It's not as if these schools have no options. Schools have cut their track/xc teams while maintaining upwards of a hundred guys on the football team, most of whom will never touch the ball in a game. This is the same at schools with losing football teams, too - and I don't buy the line that the teams are cash cows. The football teams at most schools bleed money.

For example, Rutgers has a mediocre to bad football team, yet they have 99 guys on their roster with something like 60+ scholarships. Their coach is very well paid.

Meanwhile, the school cut several elite teams in minor sports a couple of years back and the XC team is limited to 14 guys. IIRC the fencing team was cut despite having produced several olympians. All to support losing football and basketball squads.