Cal may cut Men's Track and Field

Big Man On Campus wrote:

What's up with this? Isn't Cal one of those "loaded" rich-boy schools? 🤔

It's the flagship university of a public system. Which means the administrators are the rich boys (and women).

The Angel of Death wrote:

Whenever I hear that Power 5 schools might cut track to plug a budget hole, I always wonder why they don't stop putting their footplayers in hotel rooms for HOME games.

So they can keep tabs on some of the players that need extra monitoring.

It's silly to have to be done but it needs to be done in-order-to make sure the 'student' athletes are focused on the game at hand and not the party at hand.

Harambe wrote:

4 million seems pretty easy tbh.

It's simple. Have every track and field athlete claim that they are transgendered. Now it's a racist and sexist and trans-phobic decision made by UC leadership.

Watch the money flow into the program. Problem solved.

In order to be part of the Pac 12, those schools should have to have equal number of men's sports to that of girls sports. Funding may not be equal as in lesser number of scholarships for men. To keep cutting men's sports is despicable. For a major school like Cal is and within the Pac 12 to cut men's sports is ridiculous.

Title IX... Football should never have been included in calculations

The land that this stadium sits on is very valuable, men's sports are expendable, men's everything especially in Berkeley is expendable. Student housing is like printing money at universities.

Cut some of the multiple levels of school administrators.

The Big meet (longest standing track & field duel meet in the NCAA) between Stanford and Cal will be down to just women running or cancelled. Sad for our sport, sad for men's sports and it seems the way our country is going.

The UC school system has plenty of money. Budget deficit, not likely. They got caught hiding tens of millions of dollars from auditors a few months ago. It was essentially a slush fund to be used at the direction of the UC President, Janet Napalitano. At the same time they cried they were broke and needed a tuition hike. They overpay their administrators, and waste so much money it's ridiculous.

Berkley Budget Cuts wrote:

Cal is faced with cutting its budget deficit by over $4million per year between now and 2020, which may lead to the cutting of sports including Men's Track and Field

https://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2017/8/16/16152370/cal-may-relocate-cut-soccer-track-and-field-to-build-residential-housing-at-edwards-stadium-yikes

How about digging into that illegal stash of cash under Janet Neo's desk??? Such a bullshit move by a money hungry school!!!!

Cal SUCKS!!!!

Agree with this post,

The land that this stadium sits on is very valuable, men's sports are expendable, men's everything especially in Berkeley is expendable. Student housing is like printing money at universities.

This has happened elsewhere including places like Georgetown that had a track on the roof of a parking garage. Parking also is sparse as available land to build is both scarce and valuable on urban campuses.

Karl Hungus wrote:

Harambe wrote:

4 million seems pretty easy tbh.

It's simple. Have every track and field athlete claim that they are transgendered. Now it's a racist and sexist and trans-phobic decision made by UC leadership.

Watch the money flow into the program. Problem solved.

Ha I actually think this would work.

Thanks a lot Title 9! A big program and track with a lot of history is about to vanish altogether. Now I can see why Cal didn't get rid of Sandoval...they knew this was coming so figured "just let him enjoy coaching a couple more years".

And yes, that land is indeed very valuable. Rent in Berkeley is very high. Rent in the new dorms will be even higher. Cha-ching!

Awash in perks wrote:

John utah wrote:

Wait. I thought the deep blue areas of the USA were awash in money? What?

They are awash in money but they have to give it all to the administrators. Cal in particular is corrupt when it comes to giving administrators homes to live in, new cars, expense accounts and other perks. Bain did a study of UC Berkeley and found massive amounts of "overlapping responsibility" by campus managers - Cal's proposed solution was to terminate 37 janitors to offset the calculated cost of the excess low-level managers. I use to respect Cal until I spent time there and got to know the mentality of the place. Truly a cesspool.

So, to sum up, the libs at Cal are total hypocrites. Shocking.

You guys do realize this comes up in Berkeley every few years right? It's always the same...new Chancellor or AD shows up & says "everything is on the table" and is stupid enough to name a few programs which kills recruiting for a few years. Then they find out what a political nightmare it's going to be to raze a designated historical landmark (Edwards Track Stadium), alienate a massive, wealthy alumni base, get rid of one of the largest minority (black) populations on campus when they're always trying to find a way to raise those numbers, and then that admin backs down. This will blow over & then start again in another 4 - 6 years.

We'll see...

http://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/Cal-A-D-Williams-stepping-down-11821962.php

I played on the golf team at Berkeley many years ago. Golf became unfunded and lots of Old Bears put up tons of money and funded the golf team. Very active group with lots of money. Still an NCAA Division 1 sport but funded privately. Still - When I get solicitations many times a year to donate to the golf program I think about what charities deserve my donations and I think Cal Golf is at the very bottom behind other worthy charities Should I fund recruited wealthy private school and overseas golfers to spend 4 years at CAL playing golf when there are so many other charities that help people more in need. Just a pet peeve. BUT....if old Blues want Track and Field to stay then someone has to suggest and organize a private fundraising campaign.

Title IX strikes again. They gotta keep field hockey and girls water polo to even the numbers for football.

This plan doesn't really make sense to me.

First of all, there are zero residential dorms on campus at Berkeley within the rectangle created by Oxford/Bancroft/Hearts/Gayley+Piedmont. So this would be the very first.

Second, it's weird to me that they seem to have spent around a billion dollars for new laboratory buildings in the past few years (they cost hundreds of millions of dollars each), if they're so desperate for $5 million in cash that they want to eliminate the track at Berkeley to build a new dorm. Not just the T&F program, but the track itself. Which is used by many different clubs and groups and classes at the university.

Third, I don't really get why T&F is being targeted at all. It's a cheap sport with fairly high visibility, right? I guess the scholarship spots cost money (20 scholarships could go to 20 overseas students who pay the full $50k tuition or whatever, 20x$50k = $1 million), but not as much as other sports'...

I'm not a fan of the University administrators :/

The Angel of Death wrote:

Whenever I hear that Power 5 schools might cut track to plug a budget hole, I always wonder why they don't stop putting their footplayers in hotel rooms for HOME games.

I have seen the host school for the NCAA Outdoor T&F Championships put their team into the nicest hotel on Franklin Blvd. during the 4-day meet. Maybe UO does this so as not to have a HOME advantage--they're in a strange hotel like every other team.

Two of the Pac-12 schools have no men's track at present, and their women's programs are at the bottom of the conference, too. But I would be surprised if Cal drops track, even men's track.

Monterey Fan wrote:

I played on the golf team at Berkeley many years ago. Golf became unfunded and lots of Old Bears put up tons of money and funded the golf team. Very active group with lots of money. Still an NCAA Division 1 sport but funded privately. Still - When I get solicitations many times a year to donate to the golf program I think about what charities deserve my donations and I think Cal Golf is at the very bottom behind other worthy charities Should I fund recruited wealthy private school and overseas golfers to spend 4 years at CAL playing golf when there are so many other charities that help people more in need. Just a pet peeve. BUT....if old Blues want Track and Field to stay then someone has to suggest and organize a private fundraising campaign.

One or more T&F programs have been saved via private donors.

But for an old sport like T&F to be cut by a school as big and prestigious as Berkeley would be, or should be, embarrassing.

Cal still has a track team? Had no idea.

That's not very nice

different perspective wrote:

Gotta pay for the repairs to all the buildings on campus that get vandalized every time there is a protest. Cutting men's track must be the way to do it. Using new housing as the excuse is just a cover for the real reasons, ha ha.

Yeah it's crazy how it happens like every other day. You would know right? Where do you work on campus?

trtstrj wrote:

Trying to remember, but isn't that stadium right on the fault line? Wouldn't that be a rawther dangerous place to house students?

That's the football stadium...the one they just renovated to put them $445 million in debt.