Literature Review #3

"Rutgers Revisited: Coalition to Save Our Sports Responds to Rutgers Media Statement." Swimming World News. The Coalition, 27 July 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.

This article talks about the six athletic programs that were cut from the Rutgers athletic program to supposedly save money and slowly get out of debt due to low revenues and increased spending. It also talks about how great these sports were to the school and what many accolades and benefits they brought as far as athletic and academic attention. It further talks about how these cuts were a mere distraction to spend more on things that benefited others' pockets, and how this decision came back to bite them in the butt anyway.

The Coalition is the group that put this information out there, and they seem to have quite a bit of knowledge on this topic; maybe through interviews or data given to them, or maybe one of the people giving out information was again from Rutgers Athletic department.

One key concept is the fact that the sports that were cut were actually very competitive in their fields compared to the rest of their foes in conference play. They were also very academically inclined student athletes who upheld great standing in that aspect, and it still was not enough to keep them around, although there was no actual necessity to cut them. The whole thing about Title IX is to create more opportunities, not take them more away.
Another key concept is the actual increase in spending due to regulations put in to stay on good standing with the NCAA, despite these cuts.

"Rutgers "elected" to cut six sports in 2006, including men's swimming and diving, as part of a budgetary crackdown from the State of New Jersey. The explanation for the decision to completely cut six sports, instead of taking the state-mandated percentage cut across the board came under heavy fire at the time."
"Rutgers claimed that it was forced to eliminate the teams due to reduction in funding received from Trenton. Yet, no savings resulted."
"$711,734 increase in women's athletic scholarship spending triggered by the elimination of Women's Fencing which forced Rutgers into the Title IX "proportionality" test."
"The Scarlet Six included incredibly high performing teams, producing numerous Olympians and NCAA All-Americans, Rutgers' only national championship performances, and Big East titles"
"By terminating the Scarlet Six, Rutgers has eliminated the present and future financial contributions of some 4000 team alumni and supporters."

This material helps me to see more details on the cut of these programs in general, and what came out of it. It clears up things that lead up to resolutions that were questionable at times, and how they could have been avoided, and how we could have potentially had a stronger overall program had these sports stuck around.