MARYLAND MENS XC AND TRACK CUT

Northeastern's football program began losing money shortly after joining the CAA. They had 2 choices: drop football or spend a shit pile of money on a major facility and training upgrade. Easy choice.

Here is the UMD presidents message with the email address

where comments can be sent:

http://www.umd.edu/UMDnews/pres_message_111411.cfm

email address:

president@umd.edu

check this out:

http://www.flotrack.org/blog/39641-Save-UMD-Mens-XCTrack

Maryland essentially "dropped men's XC and track" years ago when they let Coach Charles Torpey go. Subsequent coaches have contributed heavily to the demise of their own program be filding consistly poor teams. With the exception of throws coach Desonier and Frank Costello, a former head coach who has been a volunteer for the past few years, the coaches have been an iuninspired lot giving little reason to maintain their jobs and their sport.

Towson University - up the road from UMD - cut their men's program not too long ago. This leaves UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) as the powerhouse DI program in Maryland.

Amazing - I'd never thought I'd see the day that the retrievers would be better at (by default) than the terps in track/xc.

By the way - UMBC has no football program and their track team isn't going anywhere. If you are a prospective student athlete looking at Maryland schools I would consider looking into UMBC. They are fiscally responsible and have a great engineering programs.

and another note to prospective student/athletes. Unless you are attending a powerhouse track program, I would pick a school without a football program.

maryland is disappointing wrote:

Every single educational study out there demonstrates that there is a strong correlation between income and educational achievement. It is an incredibly strong correlation. PG County is the 70th most affluent county in the country, yet it has the State's worst school system and indeed ranks very low nationwide. This is just inexcusable. I can't ascribe to anything other than a lack of accumulated social capital and incompetence. And it darn well impacts the culture of a place like College Park. It ought to be discussed openly, because if that does not happen, things will not get better.

What I find so amusing is that so many Maryland graduates agree with me. Again, I think they intuit the opportunities lost.

wait, so now you're saying that college park is a "lousy location" because PG county has the worst school system in the state of maryland?

or have you simply dropped that position and moved on to something about the "culture of a place like college park"?

and what do you mean by "a lack of accumulated social capital"? what does that phrase mean and how does it have anything to do with the quality of a county's school system?

the maryland athletic department is a mess, the university president (recent past and present), current AD and previous ADs bear much or most of the blame for that. and that issue, specifically as it relates to the proposal to cut the men's running teams is what this thread is about.

if you want to talk about the overall quality of the university, beyond your offhand comment about location, you're probably not in the right place for that, and it doesn't seem like you are armed with the facts either.

if instead your purpose is to simply bash PG county, well in that case i, too, will question your racial biases.

Decision discussed towards the end of the podcast. After NCAA XC recap.

Football makes money for about 8 schools, maybe 10. For all others (including Maryland) it loses money.

It's a shame this is happening, sports at the college level isn't about making money. Maybe ALL college sports should be like Division III- get academic money IF you earn it.

It's like what they did recently in NY State- they went from 5 classes in XC to 4. OK, no big deal it made for an unbelievably competitive "B" race for boys.

But, they said it was to save money.

Who's saving money?

The schools pay for the athletes so just the schools who didn't send athletes saved money by NOT paying the bus driver and hotel fee.

Nike sponsors the meet and gave the athletes a shirt to wear and then sold stuff at the meet.

There were 1/5 fewer athletes and spectators at the meet. Meaning 1/5 fewer people to stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, buy Nike stuff etc.

If you've never been to a NY State XC Meet it's pretty big. 3000 cars (actual number from the people parking cars) paid $10.00 each to park on/near the campus.

How did NY save money?

Shoebacca wrote:

It's a bit of a disgrace that the women's basketball team operates at such a net loss. The reason why is obvious: the coaching salaries. The sport loses $1.7 million one year while the coaching salaries account for $700k? Wow. And this is a sport losing $1.7 million just so 10 athletes can play. What about the 166 athletes being cut to free up almost the same amount of money? Incredible!

Excellent post. Why do universities decide to pay women's bball coaches so much money? The investment in football and men's basketball salaries at least offers the potential for greater income. This PC notion that we need to pay women's bball coaches $700k a year when the sport is such a huge drain on an athletic department's budget is ridiculous. I would think a university president has an obligation to look at cutting those costs before he makes a decision to drop numerous sports entirely.

How much are the coaches for UMD's other nationally competitive programs making? Perhaps those sports don't generate revenue for the athletic department. But they don't lose money the way women's bball does.

Cut women's bball salaries in half, and you've probably saved enough cash to fund the operating costs of two or three teams.

this is a pretty useful link. Maryland has only a $1.5 million profit to fund and operate all the other sports. It can be noted that Penn St. is not included but operates at approx. $43million profit ... soon to disappear b/c of the court costs I assume.

this is a great link, thanks for posting it.

if you look at the detailed graphic for maryland (or for any school) you can see the major components of revenue and expenses. interestingly, for maryland, expenses do not include the large costs for football stadium improvements. there is a category for "guarantees" that is just over $600,000, but the washington post reported that the debt service on the recent stadium improvements was in the range of $2 million per year.

if you put that on the football team's budget, which seems fair to me, then maryland football managed to lose money last year. despite being the beneficiary of a $4.5 million payout from the ACC / BCS.

for a contrast, take a look at the ohio state graphic, which seems to include real costs for facilities. while maryland's total football budget is listed as just under $10 million, ohio state shows $38 million of expenses, including $17 million for "facilities and admin support".

in sum, it sure looks like maryland football is actually losing several hundred thousand dollars per year, if not more, if all of the team's costs are placed on its budget.

Both good posts above, thanks.

Can anyone confirm if Maryland football puts their players and certain staff up in hotel accomodations EVEN FOR HOME GAMES? I know this is common practice at many programs around the country, in order to keep the hormone-ridden athletes in check prior to the weekly game, but I moved out of Md years ago and have no knowledge of current practices. This to me has always been an extreme waste of money, and could have been curtailed in a heart beat to save money. It's not like they are a winning program anyway.

Also, I was looking at the XC schedule, and noticed no home meet. I now live in Kansas, and my son runs at KU in the Rim Rock Farm High School XC Classic, as well as the KU Indoor High School/youth meet, and outdoor track KU Relays. These are huge, very well-attended high school meets that draw athletes from many of the surrounding states, and must raise significant funds for the program.

I know having Rim Rock Farm is an advantage for KU, but I must have run thousands of miles on the UMd golf course across from Denton and Easton Halls. I also went to high school in MD, and ran indoor meets at Ritchie Coliseum, when it was just tile floor, slipping like crazy to the outside, but at least this high school meet was plausibly raising funds for the university track and XC programs.

So now I see the Terrapin Invitational held in Landover, MD for indoor. Is that a college and high school meet? Where is it held in Landover, at the Wizards arena (I have no idea what anything is called anymore, after they got rid of the Capital Centre and retired Cole Field House). Is it worth holding it there to make real money, or is it a boondoggle?

Also, I see the Maryland Invitational outdoor track meet, is this for colege and high school? Is it well-attended by HS teams? Is it on campus?

It's too late now, but it appears MD may have been asleep at the wheel promotig high school invitationals to augment their college home meets. College track and XC don;t necessarily draw fans, unless you are a big-time program with a big-time meet, so high school meets bring in the needed funds. Please fill me in if I am off-base.

when i was in high school, there was an indoor meet at the old reckord armory, more or less across route 1 from ritchie. as part of the construction of the redskins' fedex field, the redskins constructed an indoor facility that includes a track, in landover. and it is substantially better than the slippery armory floor on the maryland campus.

as for cross country and outdoor track, however, if there is no longer a high school meet, i do not know why that is. the DC area continues to be a solid area for youth and high school track and field, so if there is not a meet to act as a fundraiser (and recruiting tool) for maryland, i too wonder why that is.

Vanderbilt doesnt have a mens track team either...horrible for a D1 school to not have it

You're right, sorry, it was the Reckord Armory. It was also where we used to wait in line to register for classes before computers.

kmwefew wrote:

Vanderbilt doesnt have a mens track team either...horrible for a D1 school to not have it

one might rationally believe that football coaches would want a men's track and field program. offensive and defensive linemen might be interested in continuing a field events career, and there are numerous examples of top flight football players who have wanted to continue a sprinting/hurdling/jumping career into and through college.