Here is a petition to help save UNCW track and field.
The truth behind the numbers:
-UNCW Track and Field sponsors 87 athletes between the men's and women's program. The women's team is the largest female sport on campus by far and ranks 8th in program budget while the men's team ranks 12th.
-UNCW Track and Field makes up 55% of the entire athletic departments African-American population.
-UNCW spends about $4.0 million each year between men's and women's basketball to support just 29 student athletes, while they spend just $4.6 million to support the remaining 325 student athletes on the 13 other sports.
-Financial issues from poor basketball performance. UNCW spent $2.0 million dollars on basketball arena renovations in 2011 only to have their basketball team banned from the NCAA tournament in 2012-2013 for too low of an APR.
-The previous basketball coach was being paid $430,000 a year to coach a team that had not had finished higher than 8th place in the CAA since 2008. they fired him with two years left on his contract and had to still cover the $800,000 left on his contract.
-After cutting women's track and field they will be adding sand volleyball to balance Title IX, a sport that will not have a NCAA championship until 2016. They will not even be hiring a new coach, just using the volleyball coach. Meaning it will probably be a lot like indoor track and the female volleyball athletes will just count twice.