CAL (UC Berkeley) cuts 5 intercollegiate teams
 

Sad. I heard this on the news this morning.
Mens and women's Gymnastics
Rugby
Lacrosse
Mens baseball

Huffington Post
Cal to Cut Five Intercollegiate Teams
http://www.dailycal.org/article/1105...llegiate_teams

San Jose Mercurey News
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula...nclick_check=1


SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNL21FKPBF.DTL


google results
http://news.google.com/news/story?pz...cApvuSSKuBiDoM

I'm not a huge fan of baseball, but wow. I can't think of a "major school" (for lack of a better term) cutting that sport.

Well, due to Title IX, they have to cut men's sports much more quickly than women's. I'm not surprised they cut 80% men's. It's becoming a HUGE collegiate problem.

"Radical Homosexual Agenda"

Now that's a new one.

^^^ Wrong thread?

LOL

Lane Swwwweeeeervvvveee

***Holding on hard to the wheel***

Wow. You know times are tough when a D1 school is cutting sports programs.

Title IX requires equal opportunity. Odds are they had more men's sports than women's.

And how is this 80%?

Out of 5 teams cut, 4 are men's. 4/5 = 80/100 = 80%.

Women's lacrosse was cut, not men's.

Numbers wise it was about 72% men, however the rugby team is now a club team, it wasn't removed altogether so those 61 men are still around just out of the Title IX count. (It's privately funded.)

Yes, I understand that the state of California is undergoing financial difficulties. My state certainly is and all but a handful of states are in the same situation.

However, I suspect that the endowment of the University of California at Berkeley is large enough to pay the bills for all five teams as well as to help lower tuition, increase staff salaries, etc.

My point is that colleges and universities are constantly raising money. Most often, it seems that the funds raised are earmarked to enlarge endowments. Colleges and universities are engaged in a contest of "my endowment is larger than your endowment." Some university endowments are bigger than the gross national product of a small first world nation.

I would love to see a college or university dip into the endowment -- yes, even the principal/principle --to keep tuition rates low, to pay staff members a decent salary, to improve student services, etc.

Unfortunately, Title IX doesn't necessarily mean the number of sports. It means the number of PARTICIPANTS in sports. And the football team, with a hundred players, skews the numbers significantly. Since there is no women's sport that has THAT many people on the team, schools usually need to cut men's teams to make sure that they don't disobey Title IX.

If football was not counted, it wouldn't be an issue, but it is.

Here's a little article for more info:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4326021

I'm aware of how it works, they shuffled rugby to club sports and then cut two women's sports and two men's sports entirely and about an equal number of male and female athletes. The shuffling was more about Title IX and the others were about money.

And I really have little sympathy for schools who complain about Title IX. I get that football's the money maker, but schools also do fine without it if it's such a "burden." If they'd been funding women's sports in the first place it wouldn't have been an issue. Fielding a women's rugby or even *gasp* football team would honestly solve a lot of their problems and a school that advertised for it might even succeed if they didn't fall into the "make it sexy" trap.

Ultimately college should be about the academics.

I go to Cal. This is quite sad, but to be honest, it's 'bout time they did this.

Sure, there's an endowment, but because of Cal's status as a public school, it's extermely difficult to just shift around those funds. Then, as an academic institution, it begs the question: why should money even be spent on intercollegiate athletics at all?

Now, I'd be really surprised if they went as far as cutting football, but if they did do that, I'd honestly have to say: yeah, it sucks, but priorities are important.