Six athletic programs at St. Cloud State University are being eliminated in a cost-saving move that also will require roster reductions in football and other men’s sports, school officials announced Wednesday.
The programs shutting down after this school year, affecting about 80 student-athletes, are men’s and women’s tennis, women’s Nordic skiing, men’s cross-country and men’s indoor/outdoor track and field. The cuts were announced by athletic director Heather Weems at a departmental meeting.
The university said the cuts will save that department $250,000, or about 5 percent of the athletic department’s general fund allocation.
In the wake of the shake-up, St. Cloud must adjust the size of some of the rosters in the remaining 17 programs in order to meet Title IX’s federal gender-equity requirements. The school’s hockey teams, its only programs in the NCAA’s top division, are unaffected.
The school added in a statement, there will be “modest increases in many of our women’s programs while requiring roster reductions in four of our men’s programs: baseball, football, swimming and diving, and wrestling.” In addition, the statement continued, athletics scholarships will be reallocated in various sports.
Thomas Nelson, interim director of athletic media relations, said he doesn’t anticipate any reconsideration for these programs anytime soon. “There doesn’t seem to be a contingency to bring any of these back.”
St. Cloud State President Earl H. Potter III said in the department meeting that the changes are part of a campuswide process connected to the university’s overall financial recovery plan.
Ahead of the 2014-15 academic calendar, St. Cloud announced that it needed to impose a hiring freeze amid declining enrollment as part of an effort to shrink an $8 million to $10 million deficit. SCSU has seen its enrollment shrink more dramatically than many of its sister schools. Its student body declined from 18,650 in the fall of 2010 to 16,765 in 2013-14, according to a state enrollment report.
The school said that the criteria considered when weighing cuts to athletics were: the history and tradition of the programs, facilities availability and conditions, recent competitive success, investment needs, alumni engagement and financial support and regional interest.
“This has been a very difficult process and decision,” Weems said. “This decision impacts the lives of our students and coaches, and their connection with our community. That said, athletics expenses continue to increase across all sports each year, and we are not able to meet the financial and support expectations of our programs.”
Wrestling coach Steve Costanzo, whose program brought St. Cloud its first national title in any sport in school history, said he had been “rumored for a while” that his roster would be taking a hit.
“The hardest part is the team is so close,” said Costanzo, adding that expectations are high for the team to defend its national championship. “These guys are part of my family. I’ve tried to block [the downsizing of the team] from my mind as much as possible” until after the NCAA Div. II tournament March 11-12 in Sioux Falls.
NCAA qualifier Clayton Jennissen, a junior, said he’s trying to stay focused on the national meet, but greeted the news with a glass-half-full attitude. “It’s better than getting cut, like some of the other teams,” the product of Cambridge-Isanti High School said.
For those athletes left without a program, the university said it will honor current scholarship agreements for up to four years for those who wish to continue at St. Cloud State. Also, the university said coaches from other schools can contact student-athletes about transfer opportunities.
Elsewhere in state
Other comparable schools in the state said they didn’t foresee planned cuts to their athletic programs.
At Minnesota State University Mankato, which operates at a similar level in athletics with St. Cloud State, three sports were dropped in 2010-11: men’s tennis, men’s swimming and women’s bowling.
“We’ve been through this,” said athletic department spokesman Pall Allan. “You hate to see opportunities go away for kids. It’s not a good day anytime you see something like this.”
Looking ahead to any further potential cuts at Mankato, Allan said he sees “nothing on the horizon.”
At another comparable school, Bemidji State University, men’s indoor/outdoor track was first slated for elimination in 2008, hung on for a bit and then was dropped for good in 2011.
Bemidji spokesman Andy Bartlett said the Beavers are in no position to shrink further, otherwise the school would lose its membership in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.
At the University of Minnesota Duluth, their roster of sports programs has stayed stable since dropping men’s tennis in the late 1990s.
