Athletic department cuts six varsity sports
By Michal Tellos
Sports Editor
March 18, 2009
With rumours of cutbacks looming, it has been confirmed that six varsity sports will be cut for financial reasons, and these include men’s rugby, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s curling, and women’s fast pitch.
The action had to be carried through in order to save approximately $50,000 for the second year of a three-year budgetary plan. So far, $110,000 has been saved.
Although last year cuts were made that managed to avoid varsity losses, the trick couldn’t be repeated this year.
“We looked at all kinds of other alternatives to see if we could accomplish our budget cutbacks without touching our varsity teams but in the end it just seemed as though that it was the only way feasible to us,” said Director of Athletics Gord Grace.
“It’s with regret, and we didn’t want to do this. All of these teams are part of our family and I think they’ve worked hard as athletes and I feel bad for the players that this has been taken away from them. Our coaches are trying to find them other playing alternatives,” he added.
Grace also noted the difficulties of the economy in North America and the fact that no one is perfectly safe from trouble. He mentioned that even the NFL has cut jobs.
Although it would have potentially been possible to cut the required amount from the budget without cancelling any sports, Grace argued that a standard has to be maintained for each sport.
“I think in the end most people realized that if you want to have quality programming for your athletes you have to provide some sort of subsidy like everyone else does in Ontario. If you send your team to Toronto you have to give them some meal money. We don’t give them a lot but we give them a subsidy, and that’s the standard with other teams,” he said.
“If you decided to cut that out, it would have had an impact on recruiting and student experience, and we believe that there’s a standard to operate a program at,” he added.
Although coaches may understand the decision, golf coach, Dave Saunders, is upset with the methodology.
“The thing that I am upset about the most is not being able to sit down and plead our case. It was just them offering up these four teams and then voting on it. Hopefully we can sit down with Gord and figure out how to keep it going through self-funding,” he said.
He was also upset with the nature of the board that made the decision.
“I’m not too happy, or at least I don’t understand why you have full-time coaches on that board. I don’t know how fair it is that they get to decide the fate of another team. You would hope that there would be that family. I would never throw another team. I would do what I could to keep every team involved,” he said.
“If it meant cutting four per cent of my budget, then yes, absolutely, you have to make concessions for them. If I had to vote and it was the other way around, with me on the board, I would probably stay and not have a vote in it. I just have too much respect for other teams and other coaches and I know what they go through. So I was kind of disappointed to see that some of the motions were seconded by coaches,” he added, also expressing that he understands the tough position Grace is in.
Saunders also proposed other ideas for saving and making money, which he stressed he was not given an opportunity to express.
“Each student pays a $60 a year fee to participate, and every athlete I’ve talked to would have no qualms paying $100-120. I know some of this money goes toward a banquet at the end of the year. Do we really need to have an elaborate banquet at the end of the year? Probably not. You can probably save another $30,000 right there,” he said.
Some sports may attempt to continue through self-funding, or by playing in other leagues.
“I think women’s fast pitch is going to try to keep playing in the league they were in. They weren’t in the OUA. They’ve been almost on their own and we just partially funded them, so I think they’re going to make a go of it on their own. So hopefully they keep on going,” said Grace.
Golf likewise will attempt to keep afloat. Last year it received $10,000 from the athletics department, but Saunders explained that the team can function on approximately half of that, as the team can uniquely simply choose which tournaments they will participate in.
Both Saunders and Grace expressed their sad feelings about the decisions, and both agreed that the students who played on the teams have suffered the most.
Interestingly, although there were rumours about athletic petitions to save the smaller sports, Grace denies ever seeing anything about it, although he too has heard the rumours.
“I’ve heard the same rumours that there was a petition and I never saw one. I didn’t get a petition on that point, but certainly we looked at it. What it would mean is that the teams that we currently have would take a 10 per cent cut. It’s only four per cent across the whole budget, but 10 per cent on the varsity side of it. It just didn’t seem that in talking to our coaches there was that kind of flexibility,” he said.
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