Do you fear that colleges are going to get rid of track and cross country?

Why get rid of anon-revenue sport? Although they don't bring in $$, they also don't cost nearly as much as the revenue sports. Take for instance a college basketball team. How many coaches? Expenses for trips?

The answer can be as simple as competing in invitationals only. travelling to only those meets within a 2 hour drive etc. Be creative. for a baseball or heaven forbid, football team, think of all the equipment required for each trip. How much equipment or how many coaches are needed for a XC team?

hardset nipples wrote:

No. NCAA and conferences still have minimum varsity sport quotas for membership and xc, indoor, & outdoor are probably the least expensive three an athletic department could carry on its annual budget.

That's how I see it. If you were balancing your household budget, going from name brand to store brand detergent and other groceries would be the equivalent of cutting XC and track; some impact but not much.

Cutting a sport with more expensive gear like ice hockey or lacrosse would be like cutting off your cable or even consolidating down to one car; that would contribute a lot more to the household budget than getting generic cereal.

NERunner053 wrote:

I think it's unlikely that teams get the axe entirely. You might see more D1 teams acting like D3 teams tho, which I'm not so sure isn't a good thing. Maybe athletes don't get as much free gear. Maybe east coast schools don't travel to Wisconsin for a meet and take a bus to Boston instead. There's a lot of money that gets wasted on travel that could already get pumped back into academics.

When you look at what has been happening in higher education (admin bloat + salaries, skyrocketing tuition, majority adjunct faculty, major building projects), cutting cross country/T&F probably isn't the first place you need to look for cuts.

I look at this as the best case scenario. At least for a few years track teams won't be jet setting around in search of qualifiers and fast times. So every college sending athletes to Standford in outdoor and Boston indoors. Maybe a return to a focus on pure competition against your local and regional foes isn't a bad thing.

As far as XC goes. It's the cheapest sport so they have that going for it.

truth sayer wrote:

why did they even have teams in the first place?

It's intramurals....they should pay like a $40 fee to participate and be done with it.

I ran DIII XC & Track and I agree with this,I would like for more colleges to cut non-revenue sports and reduce tuition with the savings. We had active Frisbee and rugby teams that got much less support than XC & track did, and they did fine.If Frisbee teams can pay for a part-time coach, travel to meets and reserve pitches, then XC students can figure out how to host meets (call up a local golf course and see if they'll rent you the course for a few hours? Go to a nature preserve at 8 AM on a Saturday?), travel, etc.

Having said that, if my alma mater cut sports, I think they might keep tuition the same and reallocate any saved money into "administrative support" or whatever. So the situation might be hopeless.

One thing to watch next year is if international students still go to American schools at the same rates. Tyler Cowen thinks they might not:

(another economist's notes here:

). That'd be a huge revenue blow for a lot of places, especially the big name schools that make bank on one-year masters (Columbia has a 'masters in human rights', whatever that means) that are, for many international students, the surest way to get a work visa in the US (for 1-2 years):

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Would be upset if college running took this kind of a hit. However, I would like to think that scenario could open up new and better systems for developing and training distance runners. the US is the only country in the world that ties school and sports so closely together.

I'm not so sure...seems like a lot of top international students think that the NCAA training and competition are the best in the world. I can't find the interview right now but I recall a few British athletes saying that (or maybe Irish athletes recruited to Villanova?). Maybe the close ties between school & athletics don't help, but I don't see any reason to think that when looking at how other countries develop runners.

ScottEvil wrote:

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Would be upset if college running took this kind of a hit. However, I would like to think that scenario could open up new and better systems for developing and training distance runners. the US is the only country in the world that ties school and sports so closely together.

I'm not so sure...seems like a lot of top international students think that the NCAA training and competition are the best in the world. I can't find the interview right now but I recall a few British athletes saying that (or maybe Irish athletes recruited to Villanova?). Maybe the close ties between school & athletics don't help, but I don't see any reason to think that when looking at how other countries develop runners.

What are the options. If your a talented 17 year old (say 4:10/14:30 guy), where do you go for competition that is at your level. Maybe you have a club system or your nation is small enough that you can start getting into meets but there is often a gap. The NCAA give you a 4 year period to turn yourself from that talented 17 year old into a mature 21 year.

For track the NCAA do a pretty decent job. Where it breaks down is for the true distance guys. You really want a place where all those sub 14/29 min guys can take 3-4 years and see what they can do over 26.2.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

People here still don't seem to understand - everything will go back to normal very soon. As soon as there is a vaccine, life will be like it was in the last 50 years.

It's not like everybody bought a bunker and tank to prepare for the next war after WW2. We are in a very special situation right now, humans have survived for millions of years without being overly dramatic about "once in a 1000 year" catastrophes so why should that change now.

Humans have been around either 200,000 years, if you believe in scientific facts and evidence, or 5000 years or whatever if you believe in fairy tales.

What is stopping those guys from training for 26.2?

Are those the same scientists who don't believe that there only 2 sexes and that unborn babies can only turn into adult humans?

Check websites. There are a few schools in the northeast that have more females than males on campus, but have more male athletes; At least 1 Div. I in the Patriot League and several in the NE10. It's not only roster size. These schools stay in compliance because they have more female sports, and the roster numbers are only one aspect of compliance. It's not my job to call out these schools. If you are such a big compliance guy, you do the homework.