Arizona State drops Men's Swimming, Tennis, Wrestling

[star2city]

Arizona State men's tennis, wrestling, swimming fall to budget ax, Title IX

Arizona State has won a national championship in wrestling, and should easily be nationally competitive in men's tennis and swimming. Yet ASU maintained the very popular women's sport of water polo.

Love's decision to cut three men's sports, leaving eight male sports programs at ASU compared with 12 for women, has prompted cries of reverse discrimination.

Why wrestling, swimming and tennis? Simply, they were most expendable.

Although ASU was a national champion in wrestling in the 1980s, the sport doesn't have the cachet in the West it used to have. That explains why only two Pac-10 schools still have the sport. Meets these days attract only a few hundred people. Swimming and tennis? Usually a handful.

The Sun Devils will save $1.1 million without these sports next year.

On the other hand, some sports, such as golf, are much closer to being self-sustaining. Golf has a strong fundraising program, and alums who have gone on to the professional tours often have given back.

The college-sports scene is heading in a scary direction. Football and basketball head coaches are attracting contracts worth millions, yet Olympic sports programs with operating budgets of $120,000 can't survive. You need to pay big bucks to stay competitive yet are left with a world of haves and have-nots. It's a caste system gone awry.

If you want to get mad at Love for anything, be mad at her for extending former football coach Dirk Koetter's contract and then firing him, requiring a buyout. Some of that money did come from private sources, but still, it didn't help perception.

ASU just spent $1.3 M for wrestling facilities

"How can you drop wrestling when you just built a $1.3 million building for wrestling a year-and-a-half ago?"

If there's a lesson to this, sports that produce revenue (be it from specific alumni donations or from tickets) are much more attractive in the current environment.

[UND92,96]

Without really knowing ASU's title IX situation, I guess what surprises me a little is that they didn't cut one women's sport also. For example, it would seem they could have cut wrestling, plus men's and women's tennis (or alternatively men's and women's swimming), and still be in a better position title IX-wise than they were before. It seems a bit extreme to cut three men's sports but no women's sports, unless they were way, way out of compliance with title IX.

[BigGame]

Title IX sucks!!!

Maybe we should have the colleges start funding and playing Ladies Football?

[GeauxSioux]

I know that I've said it before, but I can see baseball being cut at UND. It doesn't generate revenue, the climate during the college baseball season is not great, Kraft Field is not a Division I facility and it isn't a sport that UND will be competitive in on a national level.

This is where The Sicatoka steps in and produces a myriad of reasons why lacrosse should be added.

[The Sicatoka]

I know that I've said it before, but I can see baseball being cut at UND. It doesn't generate revenue, the climate during the college baseball season is not great, Kraft Field is not a Division I facility and it isn't a sport that UND will be competitive in on a national level.

This is where The Sicatoka steps in and produces a myriad of reasons why lacrosse should be added.

I don't have to. "star2city" already provided the teaser:

If there's a lesson to this, sports that produce revenue (be it from specific alumni donations or from tickets) are much more attractive in the current environment.

[GeauxSioux]

I don't have to. "star2city" already provided the teaser:

I kind of thought the same thing.

[SiouxMD]

The ASU men's wrestling team has been reinstated...

Wrestling has reinstatement money - www.azcentral.com

It looks like some teams will be reduced to garage sales and lemonade stands to keep themselves off the chopping block.

Lisa Love, ASU Vice President for Athletics, was intentionally heavy on the significance of wrestling boosters coming to the aid of their sport and light on specifics of how $8 million minimum will be raised to fully endow the sport.

At least now I have an idea of how much I may need to donate to UND to reinstate wrestling.

NCAA President Myles Brand spoke Friday at the at the College Swimming Coaches Association of America convention in Tucson but, Chasson said, did not offer any specific help for saving swimming or men's sports programs.

What exactly does this guy do anyway?