By Graham Watson
ESPN.com

When the NCAA’s annual Sports Participation Report is released in the fall, the association expects to report that more than 100 teams were dropped in the past year, bringing the two-year total of dropped teams since the economic crisis began in the winter of 2007 to more than 227 teams.

Although the NCAA doesn’t keep track of which schools dropped programs for financial reasons, it’s safe to assume that the economic crisis is weighing heavily on all facets of collegiate sports.

Across the board, state financing for public schools is being slashed and athletic departments are getting hit hard. So much so that athletic directors often are faced with the decision of cutting a program or finding a private donor to float the program while the economy rights itself.

Cal State Fullerton, Northern Iowa and the University of New Orleans are three schools that have been hit hard by the poor economy and have either tried to save their athletics programs or cut some of them loose. Although these three schools represent just a small sample of suffering universities around the country, their stories hit home for nearly every collegiate institution.

Paying to play

Dan and Jill Hicks don’t spend a lot of dinner conversation asking each other about their days — the subject of work can be too stressful.

Both are head coaches at Cal State Fullerton — Dan the wrestling coach of seven seasons and Jill beginning her fourth season with gymnastics — and both programs are marked for extinction. The Hickses were told earlier this year that severe education cuts in California were forcing athletic director Brian Quinn to make some tough decisions. And because wrestling and gymnastics are the only sports that don’t participate in the Big West like the rest of Cal State Fullerton athletics, getting rid of those sports seemed like an easy solution.

But Quinn gave the Hickses an option: If they could obtain $150,000 — $90,000 for gymnastics and $60,000 for wrestling, which would cover travel, uniforms, supplies and services, with the school picking up the tab on salaries and scholarships — through fundraising, both teams could participate in the 2009-10 season.

Within a week of learning its fate, the gymnastics team, with the help of USA Gymnastics, was able to raise $75,000 through a pledge drive and another $15,000 through phone calls to donors. Dan said he expects to have his $60,000 after his camps are completed this summer, as well as an extra $20,000 to supplement scholarships.

But that’s where the happy part of this story ends. Despite a triumphant fundraising effort by both programs, the school is now asking for two years’ worth of both teams’ operating budgets to compete in 2010-11. That means gymnastics has to raise $544,000 and wrestling has to collect $394,000, all by August 2010, to cover scholarships, salaries, travel, and supplies and services.

“It’s sort of a slower death,” Jill said. “It also will look good if you can imagine the headlines. They allowed us this opportunity to save our sport because the last thing they want is bad publicity, and I truly don’t think they want to drop sports. Athletics directors, that’s not what they’re in it for.”

Quinn said that it would have been easy just to cut both programs but that he didn’t like taking away opportunities for kids. In fact, Cal State Fullerton added men’s and women’s golf through the help of a private donor for the 2009-10 season, one thing that irks the Hickses.

For Dan, the conundrum is doubly frustrating because he knows that if his program is saved and his wife’s isn’t, his program might still be cut. To stay in compliance with Title IX, Cal State Fullerton might see fit to do away with wrestling anyway.

But neither Jill nor Dan is losing hope. Dan is trying to meet with members of the athletic department and business office to see whether there’s a way to raise money yearly, something both coaches think they can do. Currently, the new golf program is being financed in a similar fashion.

“It really comes down to, who are you as a person in that situation?” Jill said. “Do you see it as an opportunity, or do you see it as negative? My husband and I just really feel like impacting these kids’ lives is really what it’s all about. It’s not about the money, and it’s not about what we get out of it. It’s about what we can give. So, we see it as an opportunity to give it our best shot and try to save our sport.”

Read the rest of the article on ESPN.com

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