There is no denying that sports provide a special outlet for students. The extracurricular activities provide students to hone in on special talents that they are unable to practice during school or work. Participating on School’s teams provide a great social outlet as well. There are numerous benefits to participating in college sports and yet schools are finding themselves unable to afford teams, and huge cuts are being made to various athletic programs.
One such athletic program that cut eight teams due to sever financial issues is University of Maryland. These cuts occurred last year. The university had to dismiss their men and women’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, men’s indoor and outdoor track, men’s cross-country, women’s water polo, and aerobics and tumbling. Through their dismissal hundreds of students lost their opportunity to participate on a team they have spent countless hours training for since middle school. Furthermore students who were accepted into the programs lose scholarship opportunities, something that is a major reason as to why the student decided to attend that school.
Consequently, the University’s attendance for the sports that were kept have decreased significantly, causing more financial trouble for the athletic program. With the loss of attendance, comes the lack of school spirit, a vital aspect of college life. However, because the cuts were due to financial reasons, makes the case more difficult. The school had opportunities to mend their financial status, however they were not successful enough to raise money for each team. The only team that was able to make enough money to keep their program was men’s outdoor track. The other teams were unsuccessful in coming up with the millions of dollars needed to support their program.
After finding out that the baseball team was being cut this year (again due to financial problems), Towson University’s baseball team blacked out the school name on their jerseys. Once again, this example demonstrates that school spirit is an important aspect to the school and when a team has the audacity to remove the school’s name from their jerseys, there is not a positive relationship between the school and its students.
Cutting teams from the athletic program is not something that should occur very often, and certainly not often enough that multiple teams need to be dismissed from the school’s program. There negative effect it places upon the students proves that schools should try their hardest to save funds for such programs. Such cuts deprive students of a creative, social, and overall beneficial atmosphere.
If I were an athlete at Maryland I would be beyond frustrated with the school about these cuts. As you state in your blog, the incorporation of sports events on a college campus is indefinetly linked to school spirit and the success of the sports programs. I think the sports are much more important to the university than it has yet come to realize.
If I were in the position of many of the atheletes in those programs I would be incredibly frustrated and I’m suprised that the Baseball team was the only team to make protest the school in that manner. As important as academics and the arts are they do not create the school spirit that sports and the students are the ones who will suffer along with the athletes.