Supporters of the Maryland swimming and diving programs have officially ended their run at raising enough money to save their program after missing a July 1st fundraising deadline. A statement released by the University reveals that out of 8 programs that were announced to be on the chopping-block in November, only a single one (men’s track) hit their fundraising benchmark.
University of Maryland statement here.
The cuts were first recommended in the fall to account for a huge budget shortfall in the Athletics Department. The Athletics Department offered the program a small sliver of hope to become perpetually self-funded, but with only about two years to raise over $11 million, even at that it was a tall order. The first deadline of $2.8 million in cash donations was up on June 30th.
April statement from Save Maryland Swimming outlines frustrations with the process.
Despite a good fight from the swimmers and their alumni (see interview with Megan Lafferty and Kevin Reardon), the writing was on the wall when a massive exodus of transfers began after the NCAA Championships. We have received a full list of which transfers are going where, and will work on releasing that info in the next week.
It’s Maryland…of course they will fail. Virginia Tech, Penn State, and any SEC team own Maryland recruiting. Maryland is the 3rd or 4th most popular football team in their own state. Some school’s just weren’t cut out to be great football programs, Maryland is one of them.
So sad. Hard to believe a school like that with a pool like that won’t have a swim team. Yet another football team for me to actively and passionately root against. I wish them total failure.
Don’t blame football. Blame Title IX and the lack of female sports that draw a paying crowd! I have a daughter who will take advantage of Title IX in a few years and a wife who was an All-American lacrosse player so don’t jump to any conclusions about my stance but if female sports can fill Beaver Stadium 8 games a season then they should get equal funding!
Until then enjoy Terps football and invent a female sport anyone would to pay to watch!
Yep, blame equal opportunity. Nothing good in this world happens when there is the opportunity for both men and women, or blacks and whites, or gays and straights to be their best. We should go back to the way it was and only let white men play sports and have all the collegiate advantages. Things were so much better then.
The problem with Title IX isn’t the fact that women can’t fill a stadium. It’s that the “old boy” network’s sense of entitlement to all that money as “theirs”. Not that they are a part of a larger community. The inability of Collegiate Presidents to stand up to the Football and Basketball “cash cow” programs and the eventual scandals because… Read more »
Why did YOU bring race and sexual preference into this discussion? You seemed to be educated…
Anyway, I do my part and my sport is cut so that we can be Title IX compliant by adding a women’s bowling team. PLEASE, that is not why Title IX was initiated. How about we take football, the only real revenue generating D1 sport outside of 15% of men’s hoops and 1% of woman’s hoops, out of the equation and then shoot for equal opportunity. Why should men’s sports suffer because there isn’t a women’s sport with 90 players.
Seriously, we cut men’s swimming and added female bowling? Maybe we can add women’s crew team as well… We will be compliant but… Read more »
Inequality is inequality, whether its race, gender or anything. The solution isn’t to attack women’s sports and wish for the old ways.
The lack of creativity in the administration of the colleges and the inability for the said “leadership” to stand up to coaches that really run the school (often times into sanction), has created an outcry to terminate all sports in many communities.
In this time of cutbacks and tuition increases, it’s hard to justify having any sports to the general community. We can recite statistics until we are blue in the face about the graduation rates of college athletes over non-athletes. And the graduation rates of swimmers over other athletes.
But stop blaming Title IX.… Read more »
Title IX is a problem for men’s swimming but in this case both the men’s and women’s swim teams were cut so Title IX does not seem to be the culprit. I agree if anything football shouldn’t be counted in the Title IX calculations since there isn’t an equivalent women’s sport (field hockey is one of the few women only sports in the U.S. and will never bring in the crowds of football). In the case of Maryland though, the teams were victim of extremely poor management by an athletic director and the idea that pouring loads of cash into a football program will make it successful.