U-Maryland may lose XC and Track

STFU

Actually track and field and xc had some very good years at Maryland. Track and Field under Jim Kehoe was a perennial IC-4A contender when that meet was the best on the east coast (this was back in the late 60's and early 70's. When Perkins became the AD, he cut the program to the bone and track and field has struggled since then. Similar cuts were made at Virginia at one time, but then funding was brought back to where they can, today, be considered a fairly strong program. So, a lot of this stuff depends on who is in charge and what their goals for the Athletic Department are. Track and Field is not high on the priority list at too many schools. Some XC programs continue to exist as they are an easy count towards the 8 sports needed for NCAA Div 1. Sort of like women's bowling, few numbers, small cost, but a counting sport.

Seton Hall just went through a similar experience of getting cut back and they don't even have football. So one can see how these different schools work. Usually track and field, swimming and wresting are used as scapegoats to transfer funds to other, more desirable (in the eyes of the administration) sports. For example men's lacrosse has a huge following in well to do upscale areas of the east coast, thus they are more likely to draw "paying customers" and contributors to the athletic department. Track and field alums have a history of not being large donors with the exception of a few Ivy League Schools and some of the national caliber programs.

This trend is very difficult to fight and track and field will almost always come out on the losing end of things unless a large following of alums and supporters provide enough donations to have a noticeable impact within the athletic department.

That is correct. It is up to the alums and supporters.

We can make all the logical arguments we want. Football isn't going away. It would be nice if the NCAA and the courts lumped football into a separate category because there is no female equivalent and because BCS revenues do not support other college sports.

UMD Grad - oh how reality hurts. My wife spent a semester at UMD before transferring to a top 10 USNWR rated school. Maryland was every bit the mediocre disappointment that she never expected it to be.

Yes, it has some good programs. But don't kid yourself - it is far from the first choice of high performing students in Montgomery County and Baltimore County areas. I am from the Chicago suburbs, and great students flocked to University of Illinois. They still do. Nothing could be further from this with UMD - as I said - a study in blown opportunities. They lose students to UMBC - which looks like an office park, for God's sake. Their endowment says it all - there is very little alumni loyalty, and very little passion towards the school. Argue all you want, but there is a reason the endowment is 1/10 that of Michigan's. And the areas surrounding CP are indeed barrios - not because Latinos live there, but rather because occupancy rules are disregarded, leaving the neighborhoods less than desirable and the presence of so many illegal immigrants makes it difficult for the population to be productive and mainstreamed in term of education and the like. This is just the unfortunate fact. The local businesses reflect this reality.

And your mention of Univ. of Chicago, Penn, and the like is inapposite. Those schools are near significant urban centers where the positives outweigh the negatives. College Park sits in PG County (with so many negatives one runs out of space to describe them - more cars are stolen in PG alone each year than in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, for example) and the school is not culturally connected to the vibrant parts of DC. It is not Georgetown or American, that is for sure.

And don't think it doesn't matter to athletic recruiting in the minor sports. Maryland is a really hard school to get excited over. The state legislatures can thank themselves for it - all of the money sent to Baltimore over the years must have been worth it.

Good catch on my rant. I mixed up the roster (which i saw as 55 and was 49 last year) and scholarships because I was on a roll and switching between lax and football randomly. It is still absurd from a title IX standpoint- which i believe is why it stuck in my mind from last year. How many 4th string middies do you need?

Im going to reign myself in on talking about lax because that will really start the blabber. Here's one fun fact though- Maryland is as someone else said basically the lax capital of the world(a good reason to move obv) but they dont even have enough high schools that do it to have 4 classes- only 3- IN maryland for it. Kind of comical. Although i guess the private schools steal a lot of them obv but still. ok i will stop now.

maryland is disappointing wrote:

UMD Grad - oh how reality hurts. My wife spent a semester at UMD before transferring to a top 10 USNWR rated school. Maryland was every bit the mediocre disappointment that she never expected it to be.

Yes, it has some good programs. But don't kid yourself - it is far from the first choice of high performing students in Montgomery County and Baltimore County areas. I am from the Chicago suburbs, and great students flocked to University of Illinois. They still do. Nothing could be further from this with UMD - as I said - a study in blown opportunities. They lose students to UMBC - which looks like an office park, for God's sake.

People who sit online and hate on other people's universities are losers. case in point: "before transferring to a top 10 USNWR school" Congrats! That is really neat.

UMD is not losing students to UMBC. No, hearing about a couple students who decided to live in Baltimore County instead of going to College Park doesn't count as evidence. Don't be an idiot.

It is far from the first choice of many "top performing" students. Most top performing students, I'm sure. It's not, nor does it try to be, an elitist university getting students who would be headed to a top 20 school. It is a solid 2nd tier university that will give anyone a fine education who is willing to make something of it. That may steer away people who go online to brag about their top 10 USNWR universities, but it never stopped anyone with half a brain from getting a good education.

Anyway, anyone who doesn't feel like reading "maryland is disappointing"'s post, I'll summarize:

I don't like the school because it's surrounding areas have lots of minorities (but this is only bad because "there are so many illegals it's hard to be productive). My wife is so smart she got a degree from a top 10 USNWR. I also don't like Baltimore (see point one).

maryland is disappointing wrote:

My wife spent a semester at UMD before transferring to a top 10 USNWR rated school.

It is not Georgetown or American, that is for sure.

If you are such an expert on USNWR, you would have known that the latest National Colleges list has GU #22, GW #50, UMd #55, and AU #82.

American University is not a desirable institution to attend. It has nothing, neither great academics like GU or even GW, nor any athletics to speak of. I grew up in DC, and you would hardly know it exists if you did happen upon it in its mundane, residential NW DC neighborhood. Moreover, Howard, Catholic U, and even Gallaudet have more interesting national reputations in their niches than American.

I have heard differently about Maryland Track and XC programs.

Last I heard the women were fully funded but the men's program is not, they only have around 4 scholarships. I have heard that the Track and XC programs will not be cut and could gain more scholarships with the removal of other programs.

There is no way the track team would see any money considering they are struggling to meet the deficit.

So very sad. But in our world of Title IX, schools that sponsor multiple men's sports and football, XC and track are gone. If you have 15 XC runners and they run indoor and outdoor they count as 45 male participants

per the NCAA. It's also why women,s XC track are untouchable.

Is bad publicity for a university better than no publicity? This is barely division 1 level(i think) on national tv. Thankfully they scheduled towson.

maryland is disappointing - Before you start bashing other schools, I think you would be able to come to the realization that college is what you make of it. Barring the academic bottom feeders of the nation, you can find success anywhere, despite what the almighty Newsweek has to say. I'm a recent UMD grad and I, along with the vast majority of my friends, are gainfully employed. Some of them are making bank and getting hefty signing bonuses for companies in big cities.

UMD mediocre? Sounds like you have an ax to grind.

As far as the athletic budget, check this out:

http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/expense_stat/show?school_id=134

I'm currently looking for detailed fiscal reports from within the department, but look at this! UMD is spending nearly twice as much on recruiting for football as they are on al "other sports" excluding men's and women's basketball.

I know they have a higher volume of recruits for football, but come on. I ran track at UMD and I can attest that we never took our recruits to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner.

WHY SO EXPENSIVE?

I don't know alot about big time college athletics so I don't know if this is a UMD thing only, but their athletic dept. is self funded. The only money they get is via the university is student fees.

That being said if UMD cuts track/xc or even just the men it will be a sad state in Md. Towson cut their mens program a while back, so as far as scholarship opportunities it would be UMBC only for Md kids.

I'm a member of the team. In a meeting with the athletic director today, we were told that men's xc/indoor/outdoor are on the chopping block. No longer a rumor, it's reality. If anybody wants to help in any way please email me.

What a joke. Let's cut every sport to the bone so our incredibly awful football team can continue to bleed money! Six straight losses now, will they win more than 2 games this season?