OT: It's Not Just UConn and Stanford That Are Cutting Sports Teams

[Fairfield Fan]

Dartmouth just announced that it's eliminating five sports permanently as well, affecting more than a hundred "student-athletes":

"Dartmouth announced this afternoon that it will eliminate the men’s and women’s golf, men’s lightweight rowing and men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, effective immediately, in order to increase flexibility in admissions and ease its budget deficit...

This will "reduce the number of recruited athletes in each incoming class by 10 percent. "

Dartmouth cuts five sports teams and closes Hanover Country Club

Dartmouth announced this afternoon that it will eliminate the men’s and women’s golf, men’s lightweight rowing and men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, effective immediately, in order to increase flexibility in admissions and ease its budget deficit. In addition, the Hanover Country...

www.thedartmouth.com

Tellingly, the college president stated that, “athletic recruitment at Dartmouth has begun to impact [the College’s] ability to achieve the right balance between applicants who are accomplished in athletics and applicants who excel in other pursuits.”

In other words, this top-quality institution is tired of having to turn away brilliant and talented young people in favor of golfers and swimmers who may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer.

One has to wonder whether Covid-19 is putting an end to the primacy of sports on college campuses. If not just financially struggling public universities like UConn, but also richly endowed private institutions like Stanford and Dartmouth, are saying "enough," perhaps we're entering a new era.

I'm guessing that women's basketball will survive. After all, there are only about a dozen athletes per team. And with Title IX, universities are supposed to offer equal opportunities in sports to both men and women. But times have changed...

 

[bluedevil]

I wonder if what is happening to college sports will trickle down to high school sports. Yes I know there aren't the expenses of scholarships but they do have to pay coaches and maintain facilities et al....what does everyone think?

 

[Ozimoto]

We may return to a situation more like the 1950's and 1960's on many fronts, including the standard of living. If the pandemic extends long enough that it impacts child care on a long term basis the return of the "stay at home parent" could become a necessity rather than an option. The importance of developing an effective vaccine as soon as possible cannot be overstated.

 

[Boreifs]

We may return to a situation more like the 1950's and 1960's on many fronts, including the standard of living. If the pandemic extends long enough that it impacts child care on a long term basis the return of the "stay at home parent" could become a necessity rather than an option. The importance of developing an effective vaccine as soon as possible cannot be overstated.

I think “work at home” is more accurate, or parents trading shifts. Very few families can afford to lose the income of a wage earner right now. What “return to 50s” would be more welcome, IMO, is respect for teachers.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

I wonder if what is happening to college sports will trickle down to high school sports. Yes I know there aren't the expenses of scholarships but they do have to pay coaches and maintain facilities et al....what does everyone think?

It could mean that we go the way of Europe, where athletically talented youth are recruited for pro teams in their mid-teens or before. Schools are not seen as finishing schools for the pros. And that means that they don't need universities to groom future pros either.

I wonder if we won't see more semi-pro leagues, which could prove an attraction for young people who don't want to waste their talents in college without a paycheck.

This could impact private schools that put huge emphasis on participation in minor sports in order to take advantage of that side entrance to top colleges and universities. So fencing, lacrosse, squash, rowing- all of these side entrance sports could be discarded if they no longer promise an in to Dartmouth, Stanford, Brown, Duke, etc.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

"increase flexibility in admissions...." Means decrease diversity in admissions (and I'm not talking race, gender , sex or religion)

Dartmouth just announced that it's eliminating five sports permanently as well, affecting more than a hundred "student-athletes":

"Dartmouth announced this afternoon that it will eliminate the men’s and women’s golf, men’s lightweight rowing and men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, effective immediately, in order to increase flexibility in admissions and ease its budget deficit...

This will "reduce the number of recruited athletes in each incoming class by 10 percent. "

Dartmouth cuts five sports teams and closes Hanover Country Club

Dartmouth announced this afternoon that it will eliminate the men’s and women’s golf, men’s lightweight rowing and men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, effective immediately, in order to increase flexibility in admissions and ease its budget deficit. In addition, the Hanover Country...

www.thedartmouth.com

Tellingly, the college president stated that, “athletic recruitment at Dartmouth has begun to impact [the College’s] ability to achieve the right balance between applicants who are accomplished in athletics and applicants who excel in other pursuits.”

In other words, this top-quality institution is tired of having to turn away brilliant and talented young people in favor of golfers and swimmers who may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer.

One has to wonder whether Covid-19 is putting an end to the primacy of sports on college campuses. If not just financially struggling public universities like UConn, but also richly endowed private institutions like Stanford and Dartmouth, are saying "enough," perhaps we're entering a new era.

I'm guessing that women's basketball will survive. After all, there are only about a dozen athletes per team. And with Title IX, universities are supposed to offer equal opportunities in sports to both men and women. But times have changed...

They are as "pressed" by all the endowment legacy kids they feel bound to take in.
. Always amusing to see education administrators at work.

 

[DefenseBB]

Tellingly, the college president stated that, “athletic recruitment at Dartmouth has begun to impact [the College’s] ability to achieve the right balance between applicants who are accomplished in athletics and applicants who excel in other pursuits.”.....In other words, this top-quality institution is tired of having to turn away brilliant and talented young people in favor of golfers and swimmers who may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer.

One has to wonder whether Covid-19 is putting an end to the primacy of sports on college campuses. If not just financially struggling public universities like UConn, but also richly endowed private institutions like Stanford and Dartmouth, are saying "enough," perhaps we're entering a new era.

I'm guessing that women's basketball will survive. After all, there are only about a dozen athletes per team. And with Title IX, universities are supposed to offer equal opportunities in sports to both men and women. But times have changed...

First off, if you knew anything about the sports themselves, you would understand that Dartmouth is the worst of the Ivy's in swimming. Their facilities are sorely outdated and it is impossible to recruit the best swimmers. Academically speaking, they do attract great students who are swimmers and fit in academically at Dartmouth, just not good enough to compete with Princeton, Penn, Harvard and Yale. This is solely about money not "flexibility". Dartmouth struggles mightily in many sports in the Ivy's and does not have the endowment to support their programs the way other schools in the Ivy's can. Now if you want to talk about academic flexibility, Dartmouth should eliminate football which definitely does not have the sharpest knives in the drawer) especially given they have 65 "slots" to award to students vs. 14 women's for swimming and 9 for men's.

The Pink elephant or 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about is how football with it's 65 and 85 scholarship slots (yes, I know the Ivy's do not have athletic scholarships but all the other conferences do), and the 11 plus coaches on the football staff plus the 5, 6 or 10 Athletic Department members solely devoted to football and how this cost dwarf's all the other sports combined. Given the head trauma and lawsuits, I am shocked more schools have not made the most logical of calls on terminating the football programs...Given that for all but 3 FCS schools (Ivy's play in the FCS) lose money year in and year out. OF the FBS schools depending the accounting anywhere from 20-45 schools make money on football with only 20 funding their full athletic budgets with football and that's about to change in very harsh manner...

College Football Is a Money Pit, and One School Has Had Enough

Jacksonville University surprised athletes, alumni and fans this week when it announced it was discontinuing its Division I football team, which had been competing for more than two decades.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Fairfield Fan]

First off, if you knew anything about the sports themselves, you would understand that Dartmouth is the worst of the Ivy's in swimming. Their facilities are sorely outdated and it is impossible to recruit the best swimmers. Academically speaking, they do attract great students who are swimmers and fit in academically at Dartmouth, just not good enough to compete with Princeton, Penn, Harvard and Yale. This is solely about money not "flexibility". Dartmouth struggles mightily in many sports in the Ivy's and does not have the endowment to support their programs the way other schools in the Ivy's can. Now if you want to talk about academic flexibility, Dartmouth should eliminate football which definitely does not have the sharpest knives in the drawer) especially given they have 65 "slots" to award to students vs. 14 women's for swimming and 9 for men's.

The Pink elephant or 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about is how football with it's 65 and 85 scholarship slots (yes, I know the Ivy's do not have athletic scholarships but all the other conferences do), and the 11 plus coaches on the football staff plus the 5, 6 or 10 Athletic Department members solely devoted to football and how this cost dwarf's all the other sports combined. Given the head trauma and lawsuits, I am shocked more schools have not made the most logical of calls on terminating the football programs...Given that for all but 3 FCS schools (Ivy's play in the FCS) lose money year in and year out. OF the FBS schools depending the accounting anywhere from 20-45 schools make money on football with only 20 funding their full athletic budgets with football and that's about to change in very harsh manner...

College Football Is a Money Pit, and One School Has Had Enough

Jacksonville University surprised athletes, alumni and fans this week when it announced it was discontinuing its Division I football team, which had been competing for more than two decades.

www.bloomberg.com

Good points. But Dartmouth does compete effectively in a number of minor sports. Women's lacrosse, rowing, sailing, skiing, women's basketball. It does have a top of the heap football team, and it took the lead in innovations to spare head traumas, including eliminating full-on contact in practice. At least, FWIW.

You make a good point about "money." They don't have near the per-student endowment of Princeton, Yale, or Harvard. So money does play a role in landing the best athletes, at least relative to Ivy competition. But if this is about money, then at what point does the entire Ivy League become unviable? How many more league members will follow with cuts in sports? How many can remain with the full panoply of teams and still have the league called a league?

Dartmouth is also one of the smaller Ivys, with just over 4,000 students. So fielding an entire athletic program meant that recruited athletes exceeded a quarter of the entire student body, a larger percentage than Yale or Harvard or Penn.

 

[stamfordhusky]

In other words, this top-quality institution is tired of having to turn away brilliant and talented young people in favor of golfers and swimmers who may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Not sure that is a fair description. Dartmouth's golfers and swimmers - due to the Ivy academic index - would be in the top 2% of UConn students.

 

[stamfordhusky]

But if this is about money, then at what point does the entire Ivy League become unviable? How many more league members will follow with cuts in sports? How many can remain with the full panoply of teams and still have the league called a league?

Note that after these cuts, Dartmouth will still have 30 varsity sports - more than almost all colleges. And the Ivy League may have the largest number of teams per league member of any league in the country. For comparison, UConn will now have 18 teams - far less than any Ivy school. Does that mean the Big East might not be called a league much longer?

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Note that after these cuts, Dartmouth will still have 30 varsity sports - more than almost all colleges. And the Ivy League may have the largest number of teams per league member of any league in the country. For comparison, UConn will now have 18 teams - far less than any Ivy school. Does that mean the Big East might not be called a league much longer?

I really think the sweet spot is around 20. Arizona has 17, counting track and field and cross-country as 1 each. Rutgers has 20, counted the same way.

Of course, I don't think any school is competitive in every sport, but very few sports at Arizona have not had success at some point in their history, many recently. Rutgers, OTH, has really struggled across the board for many years and still has few really good programs.

 

[Steelerone]

There will be an uproar about these cuts for a short period of time and then they will be accepted. I'm waiting for one of the major powers to say they are cutting the football or basketball programs. But the only way that's going to happen is if the meteor hits in full force.

 

[Steelerone]

First off, if you knew anything about the sports themselves, you would understand that Dartmouth is the worst of the Ivy's in swimming. Their facilities are sorely outdated and it is impossible to recruit the best swimmers. Academically speaking, they do attract great students who are swimmers and fit in academically at Dartmouth, just not good enough to compete with Princeton, Penn, Harvard and Yale. This is solely about money not "flexibility". Dartmouth struggles mightily in many sports in the Ivy's and does not have the endowment to support their programs the way other schools in the Ivy's can. Now if you want to talk about academic flexibility, Dartmouth should eliminate football which definitely does not have the sharpest knives in the drawer) especially given they have 65 "slots" to award to students vs. 14 women's for swimming and 9 for men's.

The Pink elephant or 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about is how football with it's 65 and 85 scholarship slots (yes, I know the Ivy's do not have athletic scholarships but all the other conferences do), and the 11 plus coaches on the football staff plus the 5, 6 or 10 Athletic Department members solely devoted to football and how this cost dwarf's all the other sports combined. Given the head trauma and lawsuits, I am shocked more schools have not made the most logical of calls on terminating the football programs...Given that for all but 3 FCS schools (Ivy's play in the FCS) lose money year in and year out. OF the FBS schools depending the accounting anywhere from 20-45 schools make money on football with only 20 funding their full athletic budgets with football and that's about to change in very harsh manner...

College Football Is a Money Pit, and One School Has Had Enough

Jacksonville University surprised athletes, alumni and fans this week when it announced it was discontinuing its Division I football team, which had been competing for more than two decades.

www.bloomberg.com

Great point DefenseBB. Perhaps one answer to that is Ye Olde Guard. The endowments from several donors are often in response to the football program. As some people get older their thought turn to "the good old day" of games and parties, rally's and parties, and any other excuse for a party. The association with football is one of the foundations of these memories and they want to keep it going because it helps them remember the Days of Yore. Maybe sounds silly but some truth in it.

 

[kibblesnbits]

As soon as I heard about the Stanford cuts my first question was whether it was actually more about achieving an academic/athletic balance. Stanford is not a large school (less than 2000 undergrads per class) so supporting a massive number of sports meant a lot of spots for athletes. It's not that a Stanford sailor is likely to be a 1200 SAT kid. He/she will still be quite competitive academically yet is probably not be the same kid the school would bring in if athletics weren't a driving factor. There's a reason people were trying to buy their kids into incredibly selective schools as recruits of tennis, fencing, sailing, rowing, etc. The standards are high, but not off the charts high as they are for general admits.