The COVID-19 pandemic has led a private NCAA Division II university in Texas to discontinue six of its athletic programs.
St. Edwardās University in Austin, Texas announced Wednesday that the menās soccer program, menās and womenās tennis programs, and menās and womenās golf programs will be cut after the spring semester. Cheerleading will transition into a club team in the RecWell Department.
āIt really is a sad day,ā associate vice president for athletics Debbie Taylor told the Austin American-Statesman. āCoaches pour their hearts and souls into their athletes and programs, and thatās hard. Thereās just a sadness for the department as a whole. They were all very successful.
āIt came down to having to cut costs substantially. Most of the actual loss of revenue will be in tuition with unpredictable enrollment due to COVID-19.ā
The universityās release said that the programs were cut after a ācomprehensive evaluation of the athletics program including sport sponsorship, state of available facilities, cost of running programs and future enrollment expectations.ā The belief is that the dropped programs will allow St. Edwardās to redistribute more resources to menās and womenās basketball, menās and womenās cross country, menās and womenās track, womenās soccer, volleyball, baseball, softball and esports. The university only charges admission to basketball and volleyball events.
āI am deeply grateful to the coaches who have worked diligently over the years to build nationally recognized and well-respected programs,ā Taylor said in the release. āAs we make this difficult transition, I know that all of our coaches and staff members have our student-athletes as a top priority and will work closely with them to support their needs.ā
The university, which has about 4,000 undergraduate students, stated that it will honor all scholarships for impacted athletes, and will give them an immediate release if they choose to transfer. Taylor told the Statesman that the cuts will impact 73 student-athletes.
āIt came out of the blue,ā menās golf coach Chris Hill told the Statesman. āI just got a verbal commitment from a 2021 kid two nights ago and just made up my schedule for next year this morning. It doesnāt make any sense to me because our golf program is healthy.ā
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