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F* track. Right? What school would possible want a track and field program that has finished top 6 at Indoor NCAA's for 4 of the last 5 seasons? And top 10 outdoors for 5 of the last 7 seasons? Not me and obviously not SMU.

http://www.smudailycampus.com/vnews/dis ... 459ddf3c06


SMU axing men's track
Athletic director cites financial reasons for cut


By Emily Powell
Managing Editor
February 19, 2004


Head Coach Dave Wollman and Athletic Director Jim Copeland told members of the men’s track team Wednesday evening that their team was to be cut from the university’s athletic program.

Junior Hannes Hopley, who won the men’s discus at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, said the athletic secretary called to tell him about the mandatory meeting.

“Everyone knew something was wrong. I mean, they told us to skip class to come to the meeting,â€Â

Well you know equestrian is such a huge sport... How the f is equestrian gonna have a bigger fan base and make more money then track??? I guess the women's team is making tons of money because they didn't get cut... I mean this is equivalent to cutting the basketball team at a school that makes it to the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight most years.

once again a university has the chance to do the right thing and completely drops the ball........

Quck question for all the college coaches out there:

What the average D1 Men's track budget these days?

instead of cutting the entire program, why not just cut the team size or find ways to trim the budget? i'm going to shut my mouth now before i say anything else that might get me kicked off these boards.......

Actually, if they have equestrian set up anything like at UGA, they probably have:

A ton of walkons. At Georgia we had over 80 girl on the team last year with 5 scholarships to go around.
Low startup costs. Most of the horses get donated.
A plan to make money. Breeding horses can be quite lucrative.

Everybody blames Title IX, but you should blame football. The only schools cutting sports are schools that are on the outside looking in on the BCS conferences. You can read really indepth analysis of it at trackshark.com & mactrack.net.

Also, I could be wrong, but doesn't Title IX only apply to universities that get federal matching funds (public schools)? If so, then SMU can't use that as an excuse.

achtungpv wrote:Also, I could be wrong, but doesn't Title IX only apply to universities that get federal matching funds (public schools)? If so, then SMU can't use that as an excuse.

If kids at the school get federal money (like Pell Grants), Title IX can be applied to them. That's why it applies to almost every school.

People lets make sure we take care of tracks problems without blaming football. Football has extra scholarships and track not enough. Is football to blame because it is more popular than track? No, we have to promote track better. SMU did not recuit any local athletes, concentrated on only a few events, and never had meets or did things to promote the sport. A few years back someone used there place to host some summer meets and they were not allowed to have the pole vault. Sure Title IX and balancing out scholarships with football is a problem but they are not cutting basketball teams or baseball team (SMU doesnt play baseball) they are cutting track programs. We have got to make our sport more attractive to fans and get people involved. A few years ago a college coach told me he was expected to score alot of points at the NCAA meet or he would loose his job. To get these points he said he had to have international athletes. My reply was if we don't get more American kids involved than we will see alot of college coaches out of work.

Popularity has nothing to do with this and Footall is the ROOT of all of the title IX gender equity rules...........so the are the ONLY one to blame. You do make some very good points about how to generate more local interest in track...........IS there a solution????

If it is not popularity, then why does football appear on several channels every saturday and we are lucky to get ESPN2 to give an hour to track. How many shows are on during football season that just show football highlights. There are several colleges where thier games are sold out no matter who they are playing but you can by tickets to the NCAA meet that day. SMU just recently built a new, on campus, football stadium that was built with money donated for that cause. Where is a track program raising that kind of money. USC-UCLA dual meets in the 60's packed the stadium but now very few meets have decent crowds. For years basketball coaches blamed football but they found ways to speed up their game and promote it better and now college basketball is rolling. We can do nothing about football but I think there are alot of things we can do to help track.

MOST schools lose $$ (more than any other sport) on football. Very few are self sustaining. Yes it is BIG $$ but they spend it just as fast. Schools do not cut programs based on if those sports get on television or not........if that were the criteria then the ONLY sports they would keep would be football and basketball. It comes down to the # of participants and the amount of $$ the school dedicates to male vs female programs. This is evident by the fact most schools do not cut womens track, only mens or even worse they cut the mens indoor or outdoor only.

Here's how I would fix this whole mess:

Reduce the number of football scholarships down to 65 and the number of players on the roster to 70. That's 23 scholarships and 30 participants freed up for use in women's programs. Pro teams only carry a roster of 52(or something like that). Do they REALLY need to have 95 guys on the team? Most who never see the field? I never understood why a guy who barely sees the field for 5 years while he is in college should get a full ride while other athletes who perform well remain on partial scholarships.