May 14, 2004

Athletics At SF State Slashed By Half

FROM THE GOLDEN STATE comes the latest round of bad news for the much-touted Cal State university system.

The latest casualty is San Francisco State University, which was forced to slice its athletics budget in half�from $3 million to $1.4 million�in order to help SF State cut $22 million from its overall budget.

SF State eliminated five sports outright: men�s track, men�s and women�s swimming, women�s tennis and women�s volleyball. Reined in significantly were seven sports inflicted with �second tier� cuts: coaches will be reduced to a 40% workload and the number of assistant coaches will be reduced from 20 to 16.

Only four sports�baseball, softball, wrestling and women�s soccer�went unscathed. The carnage leaves SF State with a total of 11 teams.

Blame Arnold, blame Gray Davis, blame the state legislature, blame unchecked entitlements, blame El Nino, blame whoever / whatever; but the stark reality is that the long overdue belt tightening is taking effect.

Gargantuan cuts in the California state budget totaling $6.8 billion trickled down to $524 million coming from higher education overall, and $220 million from the Cal State system. Those are very large numbers, even for a large state like California.

At SF State, administrators struggled to mitigate the state budget cuts by garnering more money from student fees. However, students voted down a proposed increase from $24 to $33 per semester. The student nyet made draconian cuts pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Although the SF State team cuts have been the most drastic among the 22 Cal State campuses with athletics programs, several other schools have felt the pain, including:

1. Long Beach State: a $500,000 deficit forecast for next year
2. Sacramento State: the football team's future rides on a huge student fee increase
3. San Jose State: new president might eliminate football
4. Humboldt State: 2004-2005 budget reduced by $226,000
5. Cal State Chico: student fees are down $100,000

Budget crises like these exacerbate the recurrent debates for and against college athletics. Anti-athletics factions have gained some top spin for now. However, it won�t be long until the football season yields another round of alumni giving and college athletics will get another shot in the arm.

(this 367 word excerpt�with accompanying commentary--was distilled from a 736 word San Francisco Chronicle article of 5-14-04 and a 440 word article from The Chronicle of Higher Education of 5-14-04, as well as background information from Los Angeles Times articles from 3-31-04 and 4-23-04)