La Salle University has announced that it will cut 7 athletic programs at the end of the 2020-2021 school year. That includes men’s swimming & diving and men’s water polo.
La Salle cited budgetary reasons for the program cuts. The school will still offer both sports on the women’s side.
“Simply put, La Salle Athletics cannot continue to sponsor 25 varsity sports at a competitive level,” the school wrote in an open letter today. “The rising costs associated with providing a high-quality Division I student-athlete experience and the financial challenges incurred by the department contributed to this decision. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the need for this change.”
La Salle will cut the following teams:
- M swim/dive
- Baseball
- M tennis
- M water polo
- softball
- volleyball
- W tennis
La Salle notes in the letter that with 25 sports programs, the school currently sponsors more sports than any of the other 13 schools in the Atlantic-10 conference. (La Salle writes that Atlantic-10 schools currently average 19 intercollegiate sports teams, still above the NCAA average of 18 teams). The school says cutting down to 18 programs will improve the experience for student-athletes in the remaining 18 sports and will better align the school with its conference.
The cuts will come after the 2020-2021 school year, meaning athletes in the programs will be able to compete this season. The school says it will honor existing athletic scholarships and will help athletes who wish to transfer elsewhere to continue their athletic careers.
La Salle‘s men’s swimming & diving team finished 4th among 8 programs at last year’s Atlantic-10 Championships. The men’s water polo team finished with a 6-23 record. The Atlantic-10 doesn’t sponsor men’s water polo, and the team competes in the Mid-American Conference.
The school joins a long list of schools to eliminate swimming & diving programs this offseason. Here are the cuts already in Division I:
- Iowa (women & men)
- Boise State (women)
- UConn (men)
- Dartmouth (women & men)
- East Carolina (women & men)
- Western Illionis (women & men) – indefinitely suspended
- William & Mary (women & men)
This one is harder to take because they are private and they don’t have a football program, two factors that I believed protected Division I men’s swimming and diving programs. So, if they aren’t missing the big football revenue that pays for the non-revenue sports, what has changed on a permanent basis? Enrollment? It seems a temporary situation is being used by these ADs as an excuse to cut programs permanently.
• Many of the smaller NCAA Division I colleges and universities should consider making the move to Division II or III. College athletics should be for students who love a sport and wish to play/compete with student-athletes from other institutions (at a level higher than intramural competition). If scholarships are are academic and/or need based, then the money side of the cost of education equation insures some degree of fairness when it comes to creating a level playing field for all of the athletes/schools concerned. Most Division III schools offer more intercollegiate athletic teams than your typical Division I superpowers.
• William and Mary’s swimming team is an example of a program that was essentially DIII in all respects… Read more »
Can’t afford scholarship sports. Go D3!
The NCAA is sitting back and doing nothing.
I am trying to figure out how cutting 7 sports makes the experiences of the remaining athletes better.
My son went through the recruiting process here and thought seriously about going here but ended up choosing another school. I feel really bad for the male swimmers as it seemed that they had a really tight team culture and the swimming program was such an important part of their college experience. Such a shame.
Another very sad day for swimming. Interesting to note that the La Salle AD, William and Mary AD, and Stanford AD all worked together at Delaware.
Wonder if Platt knew this was coming and bolted for the MA gig?
I think Coach Platt has been around long enough that he knew how that “game was played”. He made a decision to get out before the “hammer fell”, as would most coaches. I am sure he even got a pay raise
I can never understand the rationale for cutting half of a combined team (such as S/D). They share the same facility, same staff, probably the same meets. Only reason I can think of is Title IX, but that is a whole separate story. Perhaps I am slightly biased as a male swimmer, but I do not follow the logic.
Be biased as a male swimmer. All are clearly biased against you. I don’t think this was the goal of title IX. Hopefully.
I was thinking the same thing. Already have the pool facility & coach staff