College Programs Will Feel Pinch

College sports will look--and sound--quite a bit different next season, thanks in large part to the recession.

University administrators, tightening their budgets because of hard times, are cutting programs from baseball to pep bands.

Not even the cheerleaders are exempt.

“It’s a difficult time for college athletics and colleges in general,” Miami assistant athletic director Larry Wahl said.

“Finances obviously are a major concern of colleges and universities,” Jim Marchiony, director of communications for the NCAA, said. “They are looking for ways to balance the books. You can understand why the schools are doing it. But on the other hand, a lot of young people are being affected.”

According to the NCAA, about 70 percent of its Division I athletic programs lost money last year. The future does not appear much rosier.

“We may be on the cutting edge of a national trend,” Wisconsin spokeswoman Susan Trebach said after announcing that the school was dropping baseball, men’s and women’s gymnastics and men’s and women’s fencing because of an athletic department deficit of $1.9 million.

Like Wisconsin, some other Big Ten Conference schools, including Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, reportedly are considering similar cuts.

“We ... are obviously fast approaching a limit as to how far we can stretch a budget,” Ohio State athletic director Jim Jones said.

A few years ago, former athletic director Rick Bay proposed dropping six sports from Ohio State’s total of 31.

“The athletic council voted not to drop anything at that time,” said Jones, then an associate athletic director.

While Wisconsin has become the leader of the cutback movement in the Big Ten, Brown and Yale have done the same in the Ivy League.

Brown, estimating it will save about $75,000, said it was dropping men’s water polo and golf, and women’s gymnastics and volleyball.

Robert Reichley, Brown’s executive vice president, said it was part of a school-wide program to eliminate current deficits and avoid a recurrance in years to come.

“We will be slightly smaller now, but more focused,” Brown athletic director David Roach said.

Yale, citing a university mandate to cut $560,000 out of its athletic budget, dropped men’s varsity water polo and wrestling and junior varsity hockey.

The athletic cuts were part of across-the-board parings that also affected academic programs at Yale.

“I hate like the dickens to take away competitive opportunities from young men,” Yale athletic director Ed Woodsum said, “but we’ve still got 33 varsity sports and that is a lot.”

Kathryn Reith, director of communications for the Women’s Sports Foundation, is just as concerned that those opportunities are being taken away from women.

“If the schools have to make cuts, they should make sure they don’t disproportionately hurt women,” she said. “If they cut a women’s team and not a men’s team, that’s definitely a violation of Title 9.”

Reith said the foundation was investigating whether Brown and UCLA, which has cut men’s and women’s crew and water polo, were in violation of Title 9, the federal law that forbids discrimnination against women’s sports programs. “We need more information,” she said.

Otherwise, Reith was in sympathy with the cuts.

“The universities are in a tough bind,” she said. “The athlete departments are not doing well. A lot of football teams are not making money to support the minor sports.”

Also being affected are the school bands and cheerleaders.

At Alabama A&M;, vice president Leon Frazier said the school anticipated five percent budget cuts last November and began limiting travel, including trips for the band and cheerleaders.

Troy State (Ala.) financial vice president Bill Hooper said the school has cut travel by one-third and equipment by one-half, including the band and cheerleader programs.

Arizona decided recently to drop the “Pride of Arizona” marching band, but later university provost Jack Cole said he was confident the decison would be reversed.