Hello loyal readers,
Today I thought I'd dip my toe into something that's been stirring around the country. This is not an attempt to get political, but instead to address an issue that was raised in an article discussion sport program cuts at George Washington, and generally the cuts around the country. This will be a highly opinionated post based on my experience as an athlete, and as a coach for DIII and DI schools as well as club programs.
To be clear, I fully understand that Covid has had a tremendous impact on the financial security of the athletic departments across the country, not just at the Division One leve, but at all levels down to NAIA. In addition to this, it's difficult to understand the finances of each university. Most athletic departments operate in the red, not the black. It costs a fair amount of money to support a single team let alone the number of sports required by the NCAA which by my count is at least 14 teams: 7 for men and 7 for women, or 6 for men and 8 for women. Many universities choose to support more. Oregon State for example has 17 sports. Stanford had supported 36. And there are rules to the minimum amount of support a university was required to provide each varsity sport.
That being said, cutting a sports program is an option that is difficult to understand and cope with. The impact goes far beyond the athletes and coaches who are currently on the roster. And that's where this article on GW's decision to cut some athletic programs gets to. The alumni of the school and the programs.
Now, I cannot comment on the specific GW decision, so instead I will go to my own experience. I played soccer throughout high school, fall and spring. Like many athletes, I harbored dreams of one day playing at the collegiate level. I didn't know which level - I assumed it would not be D1 - but I felt certain that I would continue through college. By my junior year, I knew that if I was going to pursue athletics in college, it would not be in soccer. The injuries that I'd sustained were piling up, and I'd done a number on both ankles that would have required something more serious than R.I.C.E. I began searching for another sport, and it just so happened that my sophomore year saw me introduced to rowing. I do not know what program it was that pulled into the Fred Meyer in my hometown, but I was driving by and saw these long white things on a trailer. I pulled over and introduced myself to the persons standing there and asked, "What the hell are those?" From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to give this "rowing thing" a try and narrowed my search for schools down to universities that had varsity programs. I settled on three: Puget Sound, Santa Clara, and Willamette, ultimately choosing Willamette.
The rest as they say is history. I made the team, left the team due to poor academics fall freshmen year, returned to the team as a sophomore, was put into the coxswain seat, could not get out of the coxswain seat, and spent 3.5 years in college having a career far more successful than I likely had the right to have. Along the way, I'd heard all the rumors about the program, specifically the promised new boathouse that would be located on the waterfront park that marked the end of our home race course. By the time I'd graduated in 2004, that boathouse was still a vague rumor with accusations being made by both university and city as to whom was responsible for the project not getting off the ground. In the meantime, the current boathouse was rapidly deteriorating.
In 2011, I returned to my alma mater as a jack of all trades for the rowing program. My responsibilities were as follows:
- Men's varsity coach
- Men's novice coach
- Women's novice coach
- Women's varsity assistant
- Program recruiter
- Program alumni relations coordinator
- Social Media coordinator
- Travel logistics coordinator
Many roles. In my hiring interview, I was told by the powers that be that a brand new boathouse was in the works, as they recycles the same tired story that I'd heard in 2000. I let them know in the interview that I'd already heard the stories, I knew the boathouse was in trouble, and that I knew the fight was between the city and the university.
I also knew that for as long as I'd been at the university, there were those in the department that wanted to see the program shuttered. There was never a good reason why given how incredibly successful the program had been from the start. 22 conference championships, an NCAA appearance, WIRA banners, a PCRC banner (back when PCRCs meant something), racing at the SDCC, along with the academic achievements of the program. A program that relied on walkons, outdated equipment, a ramshackle erg room in an old squash court, a tiny trailer, and a single coach with some volunteers.
I'm getting away from myself here. The end all be all was that the university final got its way and shuttered the program a few years ago. They cited a bunch of nonsensical reasons for doing so including the boathouse issue, and a program with 20+ years of highly successful experience was suddenly gone. To look at the program, it ranked second on the women's side in terms of athletics success behind women's soccer, and third on the men's side behind football, and basketball, and was rapidly climbing given the fall from grace both those programs had seen. It was also the only athletics program at the school that regularly faced off against full scholarship Division One programs, holding its own against them.
The decision to shutter the program was not met with much enthusiasm from the small but vocal group of alumni, myself included. Since the cut, I have refused to support the university financially including sending back all letters requesting donations with, "No longer at this address" across the front, and pulled my information from the alumni database. I refuse to be associated with my alma mater, and now refer to the University of Washington where I earned my masters degree as the alma mater.
And that at long last, is what is outlined in the article on GW's decision to cut programs, and something that schools that have cut sports will now face. And frankly, rightly so. I understand the financial ramifications that Covid has presented to the schools, and that there are times difficult decisions must be made.
Where I struggle to understand their decision is when you look at the expenses required to support those programs in comparison to other sports, and especially in light of what the university might be saving. When you cut under funded or minimally funded sports which rowing, especially on the men's side typically is, you're not saving more than a drop in the bucket. I won't go into the exact breakdown of Willamette, but it was well under $125,000 a year to cover both the men's and women's team total expenses and the salary of three coaches, two without benefits. A DIII school to be sure, but a school with significant resources.
The bottom line for me is this: Cutting sports is not an easy decision, regardless of what anyone might think, myself included. I am still harsh on Willamette for doing so but at the end of the day, rowing is an expensive sport to support. It requires a facility that cannot be shared by anyone else, and equipment that is costly to purchase, costly to transport, costly to repair.
But when you discuss cuts and the financial ramifications of keeping the sport vs. cutting the sport, I believe that the attitude adopted by the administration is one of, "We can do whatever because people are dumb." It is well and good to carefully craft a well worded letter discussing the heartbreaking choices that are made, but when the cost of the programs is added up, when salaries of the highest paid administration and faculty are sought out, it begins to ring hollow.
If you're going to cite finances as a reason that programs must be cut, I would expect that everyone in the department to have taken a significant salary reduction. Those making six figures should take at least a 30 percent cut, with no raises for two years. Those under six figures but over 50,000 should take a 20 percent cut. Under 50k a year should take a 10 percent cut. All sports should be required to operate on a shoestring budget, cutting 25 percent from their operating budgets.
Basically, all options should be laid on the table, and those options should be made transparent.
At that point if the finances are still not in a good place, and likely they won't be, then we can discuss cutting programs, or perhaps even furloughing programs for the time being.
What I gather from friends who were at programs that were waxed, and from reading articles like the one from GW, no one is unaware of the situation that schools now face. And the cuts might be understood, even if they are disappointing. What they are searching for is clarity in the decision. They want to see the efforts that were made to save as many sports as possible, to not cut any program unless it had become a life/death struggle to survive.
Some administration would argue that we are currently in a life and death situation. I would push back and say that when you are truly facing life and death, you have exhausted every single option in order to survive, and you've presented every option to those who support you and asked for assistance.
In a time of attempting to save money to save programs, cutting a program or two alienates a portion of your current student population, and the alumni of those programs. The athletic experience does not define the student, or the alumnus, but it does make up a significant part of their college experience.
And by cutting those programs, you've taken that away. Do not be surprised when, in your hour of need, they choose to do the same to you.
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