College Programs on the Chopping Block

by Steve McGill

So I was scrolling through my Google news feed earlier this week when I came across a headline that blew my mind, causing me stop mid-bite while working on a lunchtime roast beef sub. Clemson University, the headline read, was going to cut its entire men’s Cross Country and Track and Field programs after the end of the 2020-21 academic year. Fall, winter, spring. Indoor, outdoor. Everything. Say what? Clemson? Track & Field powerhouse Clemson? The Clemson that has won 53 ACC team championships? The Clemson with some of the best indoor and outdoor facilities in the country? The Clemson program that has been in existence since 1953? The Clemson where hurdling greats like Duane Ross and Brianna Rollins went to school? The Clemson where legendary coaches Charles Foster and Boogie Johnson once coached? That Clemson? 

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But once the initial shock wore off, the level of surprise dwindled rapidly. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was merely witnessing a sign of the times. And that things could get worse before they get better, and that things might never get back to the “normal” that we all knew pre-COVID. The coronavirus has wreaked havoc upon the entire world, making the most ordinary routines either impossible to continue or causing them to be scaled back to a major degree. The 2020 Olympics were cancelled, and we still don’t know what the 2021 version will look like, or if it will take place at all, considering the fact that spikes are happening all over the world. The hope for a vaccine and more efficient tests that produce quicker, more accurate results gives us hope that the Games will go on. But athletes have to train, and they have to race many times before they show up in Tokyo. How many of those races will go on as planned? The Olympics, really, are just the tip of the iceberg.

Last year, the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball national championships were cancelled. In professional sports, the NBA had to move to a bubble that drove players to the brink of insanity, as they were isolated from family and friends for months. Still, the bubble worked in the short-term, and was brilliant idea that was executed to perfection, but even the NBA can’t play in a bubble for a whole season. In other major professional sports, the NFL has had COVID cases popping up like dandelions, and MLB had many cases, including an athlete who was on the winning World Series team. Dude went out and celebrated with his teammates after the game anyway, but that’s another story for another day. Meanwhile, college sports are already cancelling stuff for this year. NCAA football games are being postponed and rescheduled right and left due to positive cases. 

In talking to friends of mine who coach track, whether it’s at the collegiate level or high school level, the story is the same: everybody is struggling to find places to train. My buddy Kevin Howell, whose daughter Jackie Howell graduated from the University of Kentucky two years ago and is now beginning her professional career, told me that she has been forced to train at her old high school, since the track where her professional coach resides is closed for the foreseeable future. I have been traveling an hour every Saturday to coach my athlete, Brandon Johnson, as there is a public track near where he lives that remains open. But everybody goes there, so I always try to go at a time when there aren’t a lot of people around so that, 1) we can focus and have the space we need, and 2) we can minimize the possibility of catching the virus. 

But getting back to Clemson, the news about such a major, successful, well-known, and well-respected program getting axed woke me up to a reality that I was admittedly trying not to face. In the words of JFK, “The world is very different now,” and not in a good way. Other programs that have either been obliterated or are fighting to survive via petitions and protests include the University of Minnesota, Central Michigan University, the University of Akron, and Appalachian State University. Those are all D1 schools; I’m sure there are plenty of D2 and D3 programs that are sinking in the COVID quicksand as well. The story is the same everywhere. Gotta make budget cuts because of all the money athletic departments have lost due to virus-related cancellations. 

The cold fact of the matter is, Track & Field has never been a revenue-producing sport, and, unless a school has an athletic director who appreciates the sport (which is a rarity at best), track is expendable. Especially men’s track, due to Title IX. I thought the original purpose of Title IX was to get AD’s to add more women’s programs, not to cut men’s programs. But a lot of things in theory are much different when put into practice. With athletic programs looking to squeeze the cheeks financially, Track & Field, like all Olympic sports, (or “fringe” sports as they are sometimes referred to), is a sport that can go. According to the ESPN article about the Clemson program, “At a university trustees meeting this summer, board members were told the school could lose $30 million to $50 million in athletic revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic.” The women’s program probably wouldn’t have made the cut either if not for the fact that the women’s program is needed to maintain the Title IX balance. 

With the 2021 indoor season looking like it will be severely damaged by the pandemic, and the outdoor season being up in the air, the programs that do continue on are needing to do so under more stringent guidelines. Most programs are very stingy with scholarship money to begin with; they will need to be even more so now. The amount of athletes who travel to away meets will diminish. The amount of meets teams can travel to at all will diminish. The amount of walk-ons who make teams will go down. Food money for road trips will decrease. Athletes will be under even more pressure to perform at a high level to avoid losing scholarships. Programs will need to justify their existence to athletic directors and university presidents — not just in terms of wins and losses and conference titles, but also in terms of operating expenses. In reading several articles on Clemson and some of these schools, a common theme is evident: the track program didn’t cause the problem, but the track program is taking the hit for the problem. So it’s the same as if you had to take a paycut at your job. Now you gotta cut back on your bills. Do you really need wifi if you have unlimited data on your phone and you can use your phone as a hotspot? No. Wifi bill has gotta go. Do you really need Netflix and YouTube TV? No. One of them’s gotta go. Does your 9-year-old really need the name brand Froot Loops when the store brand costs a dollar less? No. Wherever you can save money, you save money. 

That’s what these college programs are doing. Saving money, and breaking hearts and crushing dreams in the process. But I blame no one. These are unprecedented times. Here’s to hoping we all get through it together. 

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