Four years ago, Lauren Shannon decided to attend this university for one reason — it was one of the only Division I schools to have a women’s acrobatics and tumbling team.
She has not regretted her decision; for Shannon, this team has been her college experience. It is the place she met her best friends and made some of her best memories. In the face of several teams, including her own, being cut, Shannon and others are fighting to ensure future generations of student-athletes get the same experiences.
A little more than a week ago, university President Wallace Loh announced eight teams — men’s cross country, men’s indoor track, men’s outdoor track, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s swimming and diving, women’s acrobatic and tumbling and women’s water polo — would be cut unless the teams could raise the funds necessary to sustain their programs for the next eight years by June 30.
The odds are not in their favor; the teams have millions of dollars to raise in a short amount of time. But that hasn’t stopped more than 160 student-athletes from reaching out to alumni, selling T-shirts, hosting special fundraising events and amping up outreach on social media sites.
“Now that we’ve gotten over the initial shock that we’re one of the sports that could be cut next year, we’re moving forward and devising a plan for fundraising because we know it’s not going to be the end for our sport,” said Shannon, a senior kinesiology major. “Everyone wants to stay together, everyone has made friends here and everyone’s a family. We’re going to do whatever it takes to stay together.”
To maintain Title IX requirements, the teams have been paired together, meaning one women’s team and one men’s team must be saved together.
The acrobatics and tumbling team and men’s track have to raise a combined $9.5 million to continue competing; more than $11.5 million is needed to fund men’s and women’s swimming and diving; and women’s water polo and men’s tennis need $8 million.
Although senior psychology major Shelby Reyes, who is also a captain of the water polo team, said her teammates were “shocked” when they first learned their sport was on the chopping block, they are now simply focusing on the task at hand — raising money for their team and men’s tennis.
“We’re doing literally anything and everything we can do,” Reyes said. “I understand the whole [Title IX] aspect, so I can’t fault them for saying we can’t save one team without the other. It’s going to hurt if they say we can’t [continue] because we didn’t raise money for both sports, but with the system I understand why.”
Just a week and a half after Loh’s announcement, great strides to save the teams have already been made. The swim team’s alumni and parent network has launched both a nonprofit organization, Save Maryland Swimming and Diving Inc., and a website to draw national support. Kevin Reardon, a 2010 graduate who swam on this university’s swim team for four years and is leading fundraising efforts, said the team has $410,000 in commitments and expects the figure to soon rise above $500,000.
“There are a lot of people working really hard behind the scenes,” Reardon said. “We’re playing the cards we’ve been dealt because that’s the only option.”
These efforts came after the President’s Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics — a task force Loh assembled in July to address the athletics department’s growing $83 million debt — released a report last month recommending eight teams be cut to balance the department’s budget by 2015 and acquire a cumulative surplus by 2019.
The athletics department is also taking steps to aid teams in their quests, including appointing two full-time senior staff members to assist in fundraising, Deputy Athletic Director Nathan Pine said. Additionally, the M Club, an organization of former varsity athletes, has committed $1 million to the “Save the Programs Campaign.”
“It’s a daunting task; there’s no question the numbers are large,” Pine said. “But I will say this: There is a lot of interest out there to save the sports … so there’s that in combination with the need never being greater and putting the manpower behind [the efforts].”
As the teams continue raising money, the funds will be put in a holding account until the deadline, Pine said. If they do not raise all of the funds needed, the money will be returned to donors.
Loh said while the department can no longer sustain its 27-sport program, deciding to cut teams was a last resort.
“When [Athletic Director Kevin Anderson] says we have no option but to cut teams, that’s simply the plain truth, and that’s when it becomes very, very painful, because it goes into which teams should you cut, and I did not want to get into that,” Loh said in an interview. “And what makes it so painful for me is we are terminating a family.”
abutaleb@umdbk.com
