Before my comments here is the report from The Diamondback:
Eight Terrapins sports teams have been recommended for elimination, university President Wallace Loh announced last night after receiving a report on how best to salvage the athletics department’s budget.
The President’s Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics said Loh should consider cutting “at a minimum” the following teams: men’s cross country, men’s indoor and outdoor track, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s acrobatics and tumbling, women’s swimming and diving and women’s water polo.
Loh’s commission, which was first charged in July with examining the athletics department budget, recommended that these teams be discontinued as of July 1, 2012. It also recommended that all athletic commitments to these current student athletes be honored through graduation; all coaches’ contracts be upheld until the duration of their contract ends; the commission help students transition to other institutions with those programs; and new recruits who have signed their letters of intent have their scholarship commitments honored.
“The prospect of reducing teams has been discussed in past years, but it makes it no less painful,” Loh said in a statement to the university community. “As I read the report, my thoughts were on the student-athletes and coaches of these teams, individuals who have dedicated so much of their lives to competing and coaching in their chosen sport at the highest level. As the parent of a student-athlete, I understand the very real anguish this recommendation occasions.”
Everyone who knows me is aware that since the inception of Terp Talk, I have championed every sport at College Park, not just the major 2–Men’s football and basketball. Yes these are the 2 sports that stir the drink. But as a parent of daughters who played field hockey and lacrosse, I understand how important every sport is to the respective student athlete. I assure you, kids of the 8 teams love Maryland, their teams, and their sport as much as any student athlete. they are heartbroken tonight. I assure you from my knowledge of Kevin Anderson and Dr Loh, they are also heartsick tonight. But these are the harsh realities of today’s economy. The rumors have been out there for a while, Judgment day has arrived and it is not pleasant.
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