D1 Coaches: What are you being required to do?

I'd be glad if schools stopped flying to california all track season. Its legal to run fast times not on the west coast. Simply have your distance events under the lights - and not at 4 in the afternoon and you'll see.

5% cut as it currently stands. Lost all Director of Operations positions across all sports. Only two weight coaches for all sports are left. My team of over 100 (men + women’s track) now has only one athletic trainer. A lot of our marketing, ticketing, social media, and facilities staff got laid off as well.

All scholarship was preserved, as was most of our equipment/travel budgets. Still, we aren’t allowed to spend right now in case more cuts come.

I completed my recruiting before all this happened and my team is motivated enough to know what to do in the classroom and with running. However, I could see this time as being incredibly stressful if you were relying on recruiting through the spring. A lot of schools are going to feel the impact of that.

Honestly, I don’t do much. One zoom meeting with staff and the team a week. Not talking about much at all. Just staying in touch. Also, we aren’t allowed on campus as employees to do anything. I basically just sit at home all day. Haven’t had this much freedom since before pre-school and will most likely never have it again until retirement. It feels like one big summer.

My school is still deciding what to do, we had a virtual meeting, where we talked about possible outcomes. They will either cut from the budgets to make up the difference (reduced or eliminated GA positions, reduced or eliminated part time staff, reduced operating budgets etc) or they will reduce salaries across the board by 3-5%, with AD and Football/Basketball taking a bigger cut. The final option on the table is a 1 week furlough, that should leave everything else untouched.

They are also encouraging minor sports to increase enrollment as best they can, to possibly avoid any more cuts coming to athletics.

Everyone still has their positions, but 10% across the board cut in all areas started recently. Beyond that, Admin has taken a wait and see approach regarding future financials.

Have been told the Big 10 track/XC isn’t allowed to travel out of state during September, 10% reduction to pay and Operations.

Yep, the amount of travel some of the schools do is ridiculous....hotels, food , airfare and time adds up quick.

Untrue. And think about how dumb that sounds. One team can travel 300 miles while another can only travel 100?

Why does it bother so many former D3 guys that D1 programs are loaded and can afford to spoil their runners? It is their money, not yours.

It's not "their" money it's the earning from football and basketball. D1 running programs just drain the budget and don't provide any revenue.

go go run wrote:

Why does it bother so many former D3 guys that D1 programs are loaded and can afford to spoil their runners? It is their money, not yours.

Why does it matter to someone who ran neither?

Running sports bring in less revenue than some Minnesota curling clubs do so despite pontificating otherwise, runners at either should be happy they even have a sport to compete in at all right now.

Well they didn't steal the money. The AD gave it to them so it us their money.

T&F and CC are about to become club sports at most schools in the country, which is as it should be. Hard times call for prioritization and universities are going to take blasters to any sports that don't generate very significant revenue.

You can also count on major challenges and/or extreme skirting of Title IX by many schools. Take it to the bank.

Should be? Like there is some type of immoral aspect to having track and cross country? The US has the best system in the world but too many of you former D3 guys seem jealous of the scholarships and gear and travel that P5 grograms have. It is a great thing and we as fans should all be doing whatever we can to keep it going.

Universities are going to be forced to focus on the primary mission, which is to educate students and do it (in the new paradigm) for much less money than before. The air is coming out of the balloon. Spending money on coaching salaries, logistical support, amenities and facilities, these are going to be chopped by many schools.

Mid-major schools are actively discussing dropping their 'major' programs to DII or DIII status as I write this. If universities are aggressively eye-balling their supposed 'revenue' sports, which at almost all schools don't actually generate revenue at all, you can bet your bottom dollar that the smaller sports don't stand a chance at most schools in the US.

This is permanent structural change coming. Get ready for many club level and intramural programs and many, many fewer scholarships to be doled out.

Also for the coaches on here, don't forget that at most of your schools, students pay significant fees to subsidize the "institutional support" that keeps your programs afloat. That's something that has become completely untenable in the COVID era.

Students taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans, with some amount of that directly supporting sports programs, is a terrible look in this coming paradigm, even more than it already was. Most universities are going to cut these expenses, like right now this Summer. Assume it will happen to you and make a plan to adjust.

Would it be the worst thing ever if all non-revenue sports ended up competing in geographically-aligned conferences, with divisions within each conference sorted by size, and only rarely (if ever) competed out of conference (maybe only if they won the conference and subsequently went to a national championship meet)? This would reduce travel substantially, and in the case of T&F make winning the conference championship meaningful by tying it to national championship qualifying (like it is in most other NCAA sports), because why have a regional meet when it would basically just be a rehash of the conference meet (I’m assuming we would do away with track’s two regional prelim meets under this system, for travel purposes).

There’s also a world in which if teams had to compete in 4 assigned in-conference multi-team dual meets (earning a win for every team they beat and a loss for every team they lose to) and were allowed one non-conference meet scored the same way (which will be used, in addition to in-conference results, to determine at-large bids to nationals), and those regular season results are added to the conference championship meet scores to determine the conference’s season champion (who gets the at-large bid), we would be getting something positive out of this change—regular season meets in which team score matters.

I'm sorry to say that posters are not up to facing reality about how painful changes are going to be to the entire systems of education in the US. The link below is but one of many that can be found out there. The tenor of the comments from university presidents in these stories and the measures being taken right now are stark.

If university presidents at major research universities are taking substantial pay cuts, and if they are chopping jobs and forcing reductions across the board, and are using terms like "student focused" as they chop, they are going to take axes to athletic budgets in coming weeks.

Universities are in major deficit right now. Prepare for it and don't be caught flat footed.

https://www.cleveland.com/education/2020/04/kent-state-to-make-deep-cuts-due-to-coronavirus-crisis.html

Our university has taken a stance of preserving positions over operating budgets which has been a relief. Very few personnel will be affected outside a short furlough

There are some bigger trends in the college business which are in play here. There is a demographic "cliff" coming in the mid-20's with fewer kids graduating from high school, and recently the rules were changed to allow colleges to "recruit" students who committed to other universities and to solicit potential transfer students, both things that were previously frowned upon.

Coupled with Covid, all of this spells real trouble for the enrollments and as result survivability of many schools, especially expensive private schools. Cross Country and track are cheap teams to run which can have large rosters, so many schools may decide to "recruit" more athletes to get full pay (minus a small scholarship) butts in seats. I wouldn't be surprised to see bigger T&F/CC teams in the next decade, not smaller ones.