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BREAKING NEWS: Men's golf to be discontinued

Published: Thursday, February 24, 2011

Updated: Monday, February 28, 2011 19:02

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The men's golf program will discontinue following the spring season, Truman State University announced in a press release Monday afternoon.

The University also will discontinue athletic scholarships for men's tennis, swimming, wrestling and baseball following the spring season. Players currently on these teams will continue to receive athletic scholarships as long as they are still on the team, according to the press release.

The athletic cuts are a result of an Athletics Task Force appointed by University President Troy Paino in the aftermath of state funding cuts.

"This difficult decision is based upon the economic reality facing the University," Athletics Director Jerry Wollmering said in the release.

Paino told the Index in January, after Gov. Jay Nixon proposed a 7 percent cut, that any decisions on whether to cut sports would likely be made by March 1. Paino said the decision to possibly cut sports was a "complicated issue."

"Athletics does bring a lot of value to the campus," Paino said. "And it also, at a school like Truman, is used as a part of our enrollment management. And what I mean by that is that at a school that has only 40 percent male students, sports becomes at least one additional way to recruit to male students to campus. … The likelihood of a women's sport being cut is very small with Title IX sitting there."

The men's golf team consists of 11 athletes, though only five typically compete at meets, and two part-time coaches. Co-coach Jim Berrey is employed full-time at Farm Bureau and co-coach Tyler Madsen is the full-time Assistant Sports Information Director at Truman.

The University currently awards more than $200,000 in academic scholarships to men's golf and the four sports that will receive reduced athletic funding, according to the release.

The five men's sports being cut received less than $70,000 combined in athletic scholarships in 2009-10, according to University documents, although the most recent data was not immediately available to the Index.

The Index will continue to update this story as information becomes available.

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2 comments Log in to Comment

efngw
Mon Feb 28 2011 23:24
Not sure how much gets saved by eliminating scholarships for baseball and wrestling. I'm pretty sure each sports got only one or two scholarships each though. So that seems a bit odd.

Why cut men's golf which takes five members 10 or so tournaments a year? Why not cut baseball which has a lot more athletes and a lot more trips? I understand that this way the fewest athletes and no coaches lose their full time jobs, but if this is really a cost cutting decision it doesn't make sense.

BT
Mon Feb 28 2011 21:47
So riddle me this Batman (or Troy Paino and Jerry Wollmering in this instance): Why does men's golf get cut, but baseball, wrestling, etc., get to survive, albeit without scholarships? Men's golf expenses are minimal. You're paying two part-time coaches who I'm thinking get paid very little. Golf's travel expenses include using the coach to drive a University-owned van to transport the five golfers who get to compete on the road. So for about 10 road tournaments a year, you're paying gas costs and for a couple hotel rooms for the two-day tournaments. On the other hand, for baseball and wrestling, you're paying a full-time coach a full-time salary. Travel expenses for a sport like baseball, with hotels and a charter bus for numerous multiple-day road trips, have to be a lot higher than men's golf. Also, baseball hasn't had a winning season since 1982. I'm not trying to be anti-baseball. Rather, I'm just wondering, why golf?

I'd bet that the men's golf program brings in about as much money in tuition dollars as it costs in expenses. Only problem is, those expenses have to be shouldered by the athletics department. I'm betting the tuition money probably goes to the University's general fund, which athletics gets a small slice of. So why golf, Wollmering and Paino? Why not let them at least continue without athletic scholarships like the other four sports affected by this? Especially since men's golf probably has the fewest expenses of the five sports affected. Paino and Wollmering need to answer these questions. They need to spell out just how much the golf program's expenses were, compared to how much tuition the program brought in. I hope the Index doesn't let Paino and Wollmering off the hook.

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