Our view: University cuts only begin with men’s golf team

The announcement that Truman Athletics would cut the men's golf team after the spring season (see story, page 1) has rocked the campus and the Kirksville community. But for many, that announcement, along with scholarship cuts to wrestling, baseball, men's swimming and men's tennis, was not a surprise.

Obviously, for 11 men at Truman, their world has changed drastically. The Truman State University Men's Golf Facebook page was full of messages of support and confusion this week:

"We have struggled to find the evidence that supports why this decision was made, as it has yet to be presented to us. As a team we are now committed to finding a better solution to this decision."

We are the last group of people who support cuts of student organizations on campus. But we're past the point of avoiding budget cuts. They're happening everywhere, not just in athletics. Unfortunately, Truman Athletics has a target on its back as far as budget cuts go. We're an academically-minded school with the most sports of any public school in Missouri and of all the public schools in the MIAA. Standing out from the crowd in academic or athletic performance is one thing. Standing out of the crowd for an excess of sports in a budget crisis is another. Athletics Director Jerry Wollmering said the Athletics Task Force examined 145 Div. II schools in the country, and only eight had more than 21 sports, at least for a few more months. Most of those schools had at least $5 million athletic budgets. Truman also had 21 sports. And it's athletic budget is $3.8 million, according to University documents. We're guessing this won't be the last cut to Truman Athletics in the near future. But at this point in time it could have been much worse.

The evidence the men's golf team is searching for might not be the most obvious. Was golf the most expensive sport? No. Did they have an abundance of scholarships that could be awarded to another sport? No, considering the team was only awarded $3,000 in scholarships in 2010-11, the lowest of any University sport.  

So will the $72,100 worth of athletic scholarships Truman awarded to these five teams (and soon to be taken away) fix the budget crisis? No.

But, as the University has tried to do throughout this entire year, an effort seems to have been made to cut strategically, not based entirely on cost, but on other factors that affect the University.

Recruitment, number of team members, success rate, fan base, opportunity for revenue streams, coaching, team legacy and visibility in the community and the fact that men's golf has zero full-time positions probably all went into the decision process.

Some have argued that Truman will lose the tuition dollars of these 11 team members. It is true that some team members might transfer schools to play golf. But as one of the smallest teams on campus, we're losing at maximum 11 Truman students. That will be heartbreaking for them and for the people who know them, but Truman will survive the potentially small amount of lost tuition dollars, because students will almost always come to Truman for academics. The struggle the University will face, however, is that gifted students often have other interests besides academics — like sports.

Right now the elimination and scholarship cuts probably feel like a death in the family for the athletic department and especially for the members the men's golf team. People are angry, confused and disappointed. But it has become painfully obvious this year that we all are going to have to get used to that disappointment. Men's golf is the first in what will be a long line of cuts throughout the University. Do any of us, including the administration, want to lose men's golf? No.

The best thing any of us can do now is to make sure the administration knows how the Truman community feels about our sports, our organizations and our academics. If you are passionate about something, tell the administration how important it is to maintain funding for that organization or club. Don't wait until the cuts are made to raise your voices. Prove to be part of the new direction Truman is headed toward. Participate in the budget conversation and what should and shouldn't be saved, because things at Truman are changing. Don't be blindsided when the University cuts your program of choice. As Truman receives fewer and fewer dollars from the state it will have to make sacrifices. Men's golf is but the first in a long, long line.