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Supreme Being
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Courtesy of Jason Kaufman of WESTERN Athletics:
Western Illinois eliminates men's and women's swimming and diving programs
MACOMB, Ill. - Western Illinois University Vice President for Student Services Dr. Garry Johnson and Assistant Vice President and Director of Athletics Dr. Tim Van Alstine announced at the Board of Trustees meeting Friday morning that the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics will eliminate its men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs in an effort to reduce annual operating expenses.
“This was a difficult decision made after much analysis and evaluation across campus,” said Van Alstine. “We are committed to maintaining a successful broad-based, gender-neutral athletics program, and this move will economically allow us to continue that commitment. As a department we have been working through a very difficult budget situation for some time now, and unfortunately we have been forced to make some hard sacrifices.”
According to Van Alstine, the decision was based strictly on economics and will not impact the department’s gender equity numbers.
The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams consisted of 23 student-athletes on partial scholarships in 2008-09. The scholarships will continue to be awarded, and any student-athlete wishing to transfer will be granted immediate eligibility by the NCAA. Members of the team were notified early Friday by Van Alstine.
The 5.95 women’s scholarships and 3.85 men’s scholarships dedicated to the swimming and diving teams will be reallocated, as they become available, into existing sport programs in an effort to reach the maximum number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA. The team currently is without a head coach but employs two graduate assistant coaches.
“We will do everything we can to ensure that our current student-athletes graduate,” said Van Alstine. “We are very appreciative of the many academic and athletic accomplishments of our swimming and diving student-athletes, both past and present. They are still part of us and we will always value their contributions. If there is one positive here, it is that no full-time people are involved. While we feel for the many people this decision affects, we are fortunate that we did not have to take away a full-time employee’s job.”
Western Illinois has not eliminated a sport since 1985 when wrestling and women’s field hockey were dropped. Women’s soccer was added in 1997 and women’s golf was reinstated in 2001, bringing the total number of Division I sports programs to 20.
The department has implemented several other major cost-saving efforts in recent months involving printed materials and team travel in an on-going effort to reduce operating expenses.
Let's Go WESTERN!!
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Forum Guru
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Okay, lets be realistic! Oakland does not have a football team! That means that they have plenty to spend on other sports. They are gonna be hard to beat in the future no matter what in swimming. I really did not see this coming but to tell you the truth, I am not surprised.
jc
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Supreme Being
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Perhaps some of these scholarships can be shifted over to the baseball program.
Let's Go WESTERN!!
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Supreme Being
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I was really surprised to see that Swimming and Diving had so few scholarships.
I wonder what the rationale was to eliminate their program as opposed to any of the other teams ??
Let's Go WESTERN!!
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Freshman
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| This is just terrible. What other program has won as many conference titles as the swim programs in the last 20 years? Plus if you look at home many scholarships they had to do it with. This was just a bad choice. At this point I will have a hard time supporting a school that thinks this is the right move. Plus those kids that were on the team that really do want to swim are screwed. No schools have scholarships available for them now this late in the year. As you can see most schools do not get very many so they make sure to use them early each year. Way to wait till it's too late for them to apply at another school and get accepted, find housing and scholarship money. Wester Swimmer -1999 graduate.
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Freshman
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| Definitely a tough situation for the university and the athletes (current and former). Unfortunately Western is not the only school cutting programs right now, so I think it is unfair to be negative toward this decision. A handful of DI schools are eliminating sports: tennis and volleyball have been recent victims across the country. I heard that the funding from the Kinesiology dept was cut (S&D coach was paid from Kinesiology funds for teaching) and former coach was fired for compliance issues. I think these factors went into the decision of "why this sport". it is a shame that a sport with the success that the program had was cut, but at least a full time employee didnt lose his job bc of it. We can ask the head coaches at Ind State, Wagner, Maine how it feels to lose a job bc a program was cut.
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