The University of California at Berkeley announced plans to cut its men's and women's gymnastics programs Tuesday, part of a budget-slicing initiative designed to stave off the Cal's athletic department's $13 million defecit.
Baseball and women's lacrosse were also chopped, and the university will no longer fully support it's men's rugby team, which won the NCAA title this year, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Rugby will become a varsity club sport (club sports typically receive limited or no funding from the school's athletic department), but men's and women's gymnastics will no longer be funded by Cal after this school year, the university announced in a press release.
Without Cal, Stanford would become the only Pac-10 team with a men's gymnastics program. Cal has won the NCAA title in men's gymnastics four times -- most recently in 1998 -- and the program's new coach, 2009 World team member Tim McNeill, is the most decorated athlete in Cal history, with five NCAA titles.
The university has pledged to honor the athletic scholarships of all athletes on affected Cal teams, as well as assist those who wish to transfer elsewhere in order to pursue NCAA athletics in their sports.
The Cal Bears Athletic Department is currently short $13 million, according to the school's reports. The elimination of gymnastics, lacrosse and rugby is forecasted to save Cal roughly $4 million during the 2011-2012 school year.
Cal's men have been bracing for this news ever since the university made public that its athletic department was deep in the red last year. Team supporters and alumni established Cal Gymnastics Forever, a website where people could share stories and photos about the team, and sign up to pledge donations to keep the program going.
So far, the group has been moderately successful when it comes to finding sources for independent funding. In its last Facebook message to supporters, the Cal Gymnastics Forever group wrote: "We reached our goal of 100k in fundraising for 2012 and beyond. Our goal now is to focus on the short term with events and fundraising activities along with donations for 2011."
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Comments
Chancellor’s consultants cost $3,000,000: athletic savings $4,000.000. Absolute transparency for University of California Berkeley. UC Berkeley’s budget gap has grown to $150 million, & Chancellor Birgeneau is spending money that isn't there on $3,000,000 consultants. (A world-class East Coast University is doing the same as UC Berkeley without consultants: $0 cost). His reasons range from the need for impartiality to requiring the consultants "thinking".
Does this mean that the Faculty & management of UC Berkeley – flagship campus of the greatest public system of higher education in the world - lack the thinking, integrity, impartiality, innovation to identify savings? Have they been fudging their research for years?
The consultants will, by the way, get their recommendations from faculty & staff interviews; yet $150 million of inefficiencies could be found internally if the Chancellor & Provost Breslauer did the WORK of their $500,000 jobs (This simple point is lost on Breslauer, Birgeneau).
The victims of this folly are Faculty, Students & taxpayers.
There is only one conclusion as to why inefficiencies are not volunteered by faculty & staff: Chancellor Birgeneau & Provost Breslauer have lost the credibility & trust of Cal Faculty & Staff. Even if the faculty agrees the consultants' recommendations - disagreeing might put their jobs in jeopardy - the underlying problem of lost credibility & trust remains.
Contact your representatives in Sacramento: tell them of the hefty self-serving $’s being spent by Birgeneau & Breslauer.
Make a difference…speak your opinion 925 942 6082, 916 651 4007. Let there be light!
Tim McNeil was stepping into his dream job, its really sad to see that the no matter what happens, a decision has already been made about his future at CAL.
If California fans care about gymnastics, than sell every home meet before the season even starts.
Let the A.D. know the people of California care about gymnastics.
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