Saturday, January 04, 2014

Can Running Save the NCAA?

Great article mentioned by Pattisue Plumer at today's Coaches Roundtable.

Here is the link:
http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/can-running-save-the-ncaa?page=single

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a VERY long article, but inspiring. Track is great - maybe better than XC... oh, but maybe not.

Anonymous said...

Can Running Save the NCAA? The question is when will the NCAA eliminate track? This story states 273 added men's D2/D3 teams in the past decade and it makes me cringe. Using the same criteria, 4 D1 running teams have been added despite the high profile cuts. An increase in membership of 59 D2 and 53 D3 schools has happened in the past decade. That is the source of the increase in D2/D3 running teams. How can D2/D3 members be looked at as a source of inspiration when they have a lower % of track sponsorship than D1?

http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/PR2012.pdf
XC,Indor,Outdoor Men's Teams
2000-1
D1 305/252/270 (321)
D2 230/107/150 (260)
D3 325/194/239 (396)
2010-2011
D1 307/251/273 (352)
D2 257/134/176 (319)
D3 388/231/273 (449)

Anonymous said...

What's interesting is that 85,000 runners compete in NCAA cross country and track. The largest numbers of any sport period. It brings in more students paying tuition than any other sport. Yet it is the first to get cut.

The blind loyalty to football is concerning. It happens even at high school where football is the largest drain on the budget for any department. Calculate the costs of running the lights for games alone!

San Jose State. NCAA Division 1 Cross Country and Track programs. Named "Speed City" drops the program. Keeps football.

It's sad, but has been going on forever!

Anonymous said...

Maybe not so much in high school, but in most schools that have football, it is the sport that brings in most $$$$, and sadly that speaks loudest. Even in colleges where they rarely have a winning FB program, FB still is treated as the royalty sport.

Yep, it is sad, and I don't know if it will ever change.

Anonymous said...

Here are 22 schools in California that dropped football, the biggest purge was in the 1990's. NCAA Football was hit hard in California, but 4 California D1 football schools have struggled to keep XC/track. San Diego State has no men XC/track programs, San Jose State dropped XC/Track, but brought XC back, Fresno State saved their program in 2003 from being eliminated, and USC has no XC program

University of California, Riverside (1975)
University of California, Santa Barbara (1991)
California State University, Fullerton (1992)
California State University, Long Beach (1991)
California State University, Northridge (2001)
Loyola University of Los Angeles, now Loyola Marymount University (1951)
University of the Pacific (1995)
Pepperdine University (1961)
Saint Mary's College of California (2003)
University of San Francisco (1951)
Santa Clara University (1992)
University of California, San Diego (1968) [9]
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) (1985)
California State University, Hayward (Cal State Hayward), now California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay) (1993)
California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) (1977)
California Baptist University (1955)
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (1976)
California State University, Chico (Chico State) (1996)
San Francisco State University (1994)
Sonoma State University (1997)
Southern California College, now Vanguard University of Southern California (1961)
Whitman College (1976)

Anonymous said...

I'm not going to look up all of those colleges, and the poster can correct this if wrong, but are not most of those D2 schools? I don't think there is a D2 school left in CA, save Humboldt State, and maybe a private college, that has FB. And were not a lot of those drops post Title IX? Obviously not all and not speaking against IX, but it did hit FB hard. There s only so much to go around.

Anonymous said...

I see the footbal cuts in the 1990's (Long Beach State, Fullerton State, Pacific were D1) as budget cuts due to rising football expenses due to 1. All D1 schools had to have all sports D1 (some schools were D1 basketball but D2 football) 2. costs remaining to be competitive (new facilities, scholarships) 3. (travel increases (e.g. University of San Diego is only school west of Rockies in their D1 football conference) due to lack of football schools (e.g. Western Washington dropped football in 2008 making only 4 schools in D2 west of the Rockies) Title IX played a role, how large is a matter of opinion, in that all the schools that cut football came closer to or in compliance with Title IX. The NCAA didn't have women's championships in many sports until the 1980's and becoming compliant under Title IX was slow since most most athletic departments didn't want to spend more money to add sports for women, so men's sports were restricted or cut. The West cut football in the 1990's and the rest of the country that kept football is paying the price now of increased football expenses by cutting other sports.

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