OU Axes Track

One of my alma maters, Ohio University, has made a distressing announcement. In order to manage the university's athletics budget and to adhere to Title IX, OU has announced that it is cutting a number of varsity sports. Among these will be men's indoor and outdoor track and field. I have a peripheral connection to the track teams at OU, as for a year and change (1999-2000) I was a volunteer assistant coach of the Bobcat sprinters and jumpers.

I have written about Title IX before (see here and here) and do not want to belabor that point. Plus, making matters a bit more complicated, while OU currently offers the second most varsity sports offerings in the Mid-America Conference, its athletic budget is in the bottom half of the MAC. Still, it is distressing. Men's track and field has been a fixture at OU since the early 1900s. The OU athletics Wall of Fame, which rings the main entrance to the university's still-stunning Convocation center, bears witness to the track success at the school. Nonetheless, the reality is that too often administrators find men's track and sports like it to be disposable in ways that other sports -- women's teams and the big revenue sports, football, basketball, and in some cases hockey -- are not.

No matter how the solons at OU spin it, this is a dark period for Ohio University sports. I hope that someone can propose a solution, but I fear that the reality is that the decision is final.