Associate Professor of Biochemistry
Phone: (502)852-5752; Fax: (502)852-6222
 
Based on the posts about eliminating hockey at Kent State:
 
1. This strikes me as a done deal. At most universities, action by the Board
of Trustees is a governance formality - basically once the President decides
what he wants to do, the Board will support it. The odds are 99+ to one that
on 4/13/94 hockey will be eliminated when the Board meets.
 
2. I can understand eliminating a hockey program for financial reasons, but
throwing in men's gymnastics reeks of a gender equity effort. From info posted
last yr, Div I hockey costs about $600,000 +/- and does not pay its way at
many schools, but gymnastics should be (relatively) cost-effective. The
principal cost should be for out-of-state tuition and some schools are finding
creative ways around this. Since they are not eliminating womens gymnastics
(assuming they have it) and will be left with 8 sports for each gender, this
looks like one action by the President to correct financial and gender issues.
 
3. Elimination of a major competitive program now may hurt efforts in the
future to establish or upgrade programs at other univ. to Div I status. Most
univ are experiencing very tight budgets and the cost for 18 scholarships with
a mix of in-state and out-of-state athletes, plus coaches salaries, ice time,
equip costs, etc. is enough to cause even hockey-supportive presidents to be a
bit apprehensive. The fact that a program like Kent's is being eliminated will
become common info and probably won't help. After touring the new Mariucci, I
am amazed that they were able to build such a state-of-the-art facility and
wonder if part of the reason might relate to their relatively low scholarship
costs for recruiting only MN kids (+ routinely putting 9,200 folks in the
seats).