LOH CUTS EIGHT TEAMS

Eight athletic teams will be eliminated if they cannot raise the funds necessary to sustain their programs for the next eight years by June 30, university President Wallace Loh announced yesterday.

After the President's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics — a task force Loh assembled in July to address the athletics department's $83 million debt — released a report last week recommending cutting eight of the university's 27 varsity sports, Loh announced yesterday he was accepting all of the commission's recommendations. The teams facing elimination are men's cross country, men's indoor track, men's outdoor track, men's swimming and diving, men's tennis, women's acrobatics and tumbling, women's swimming and diving and women's water polo. All scholarships and affected coaches' contracts will be honored, according to Loh's statement.

"I can tell you stories of the hundreds and hundreds of emails, over 500 personalized emails, and I probably read half of them. Some of them I would take to my wife just to see and we'd just sit there and cry because it was so, so heart-wrenching," Loh said in an interview last night. "What makes this job so hard is not the spreadsheets; it's the human lives that are being impacted, the dreams that are ended, and that doesn't show in the numbers, so that's what it's been like."

Based on a recommendation by Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, all affected teams will be given a chance to, by June 30, raise the funds needed to support themselves for the next eight years. The programs must be paired to maintain Title IX requirements, meaning one men's and one women's team must raise the necessary money for their respective programs.

"I wouldn't be sitting here in front of you if I didn't think there was the possibility of raising these funds," Anderson said at a press conference yesterday. "I have every hope in the world with all the emails I received in the last couple of weeks that folks want to help out and save these teams."

To save their programs, the men's and women's swimming and diving teams must raise more than $11.5 million by June; men's track and women's acrobatics and tumbling needs nearly $9.5 million combined; and $8 million is needed to fund women's water polo and men's tennis.

Anderson said two senior staff members would be appointed to aid in the effort. The M Club, an organization comprising former varsity athletes, has already committed $1 million to the "Save the Programs Campaign."

Although several teams began mobilizing last week to garner support against the possible cuts, many coaches and athletes could not be reached yesterday to comment on the final decision.

While the athletics department's budget appeared to be balanced over the last several years, the commission found the department repeatedly tapped into reserve funds, which are now depleted, and had to borrow $1.2 million in university auxiliary funds. By following the commission's recommendations, officials expect a balanced budget by 2015 and a cumulative surplus by 2019. The department currently faces a $4.7 million deficit, which is expected to exceed $17 million by 2017 without drastic cost-cutting measures.

Loh's deadline for a decision was initially set for Dec. 31, but after meeting with numerous coaches, athletes and parents last week in the wake of news some teams could be cut, Loh said he wanted to make his decision as soon as possible to allow athletes ample time to transfer by January.

"I have one guiding principle: To do what is in the best interest of the student, and if it's in the best interest of the student to proceed as quickly as possible, then I will do that," Loh said.

After the commission released its report last week, Anderson, the athletic council and the University Senate's Executive Committee reviewed the recommendations. Both Anderson and the athletic council accepted the panel's recommendations, but the SEC did not come to a consensus in its deliberations. Senate Chair Eric Kasischke, who served on Loh's commission, said senators could not agree on which sports should be cut and were concerned over how the eight teams were selected.

"Because it was not possible to provide all the detailed information, we were in a quandary — we recognized things needed to be done, but we weren't quite sure if those were the right teams to be cut," Kasischke said.

Senators also felt it was unfair for the teams to have to raise the money to sustain their programs without substantial university help, Kasischke said.

"We don't think it should be the burden of those teams solely," he said. "All the teams should be responsible because, to me, it's sort of like you're blaming those teams, so to fix the problem they have to take care of it themselves. I think it's a department and university-wide responsibility."

Bob Groseth, executive director of the College Swimming Coaches Association of America, said he thought the swimming and diving teams were capable of raising the money. Although it's a daunting task, Groseth said, it's better than the athletics department cutting the teams immediately.

"The alternative is they don't have a program," Groseth said.

Because football and men's basketball revenues support most of the athletic programs, Loh said, the university could have either made roster cuts across all 27 sports or reduced the size of the athletics department altogether to support the remaining teams.

"And this choice ... between having many programs, all of which are relatively unsupported … versus a model that says we should have a smaller program, better supported, so that our student-athletes can compete successfully in the classroom and in the field, and that is the choice I made."

abutaleb@umdbk.com, schneider@umdbk.com