Coalition to Save Our Sports Releases Update on Rutgers Situation

PISCATAWAY, New Jersey, April 25. RECENTLY, the Coalition to Save Our Sports (SOS) sent out a release to the media with several updates on the Rutgers cuts.

In the update, SOS highlighted an article called Varsity Blues written by Matt Cheplic in the New Jersey Monthly magazine explaining that Rutgers' only individual national champion within the past 25 years, 2003 NCAA National Saber Champion Alexis Jemal , would not have chosen to attend Rutgers if it did not have a fencing team.

The article asks the question, "When students like Jemal must leave New Jersey to develop their talents, can Rutgers really be considered the state university?"

Jemal also spoke before Board of Governors in an April 13 meeting. Here is her statement, provided by SOS:

In high school I read a quote in one of my text books that put my whole life's philosophy into perspective: "Stealing bread is wrong whether it's done by the king or the man living beneath the bridge." However, the realization that the king will never have to steal bread to feed his starving family is what inspired me to attend law school because I realized that not all things are equal in this world. I went to law school for 2 reasons: 1) because I believe in justice, meaning when someone is wronged something should be done to set them right; and 2) because I wanted to be a voice for those that go unheard.

Well, now I have to come to realize that we are the teams that live beneath the bridge.

* We make do with meager resources. We're not given the respect or equal treatment that other more popular teams receive.
* We don't get a lot of media attention.
* In fact, is anyone aware of what Rutgers athlete in this room, now a senior, is a four-time All-American and a two time national bronze medalist? He is a fencer named Benjamin Igoe. I'm not surprised if no one knows – after all his face has never been plastered on the back page of the Targum for his accomplishments.
* Do you know what one team has produced the only NCAA champions in Rutgers history? The fencing team.

And we have been wronged. Our bread has been stolen from us. The sports that we find fulfilling have been taken away and dreams and opportunities to achieve great success have been lost, but for what reason?

* Budget Cuts? – The Rutgers administration estimated a savings of 1 million dollars from cutting 6 teams. However, in the same breath they used to note their savings, they gave the football team's budget a 1 million dollar increase. In fact, the combined cost of the 6 teams is approximately $650,000. But together, the teams have raised about $3 million in pledges and endowment monies. You can do the math. The media, NJ's Assembly Committee on Higher Education, the community, the alumni, everyone I talk to, recognize that this decision is based on fallacies and misrepresentations and is NOT compelled by budgetary constraints.

* So what about the move towards excellence that supposedly a smaller athletic program would achieve? Well, these teams exemplify excellence with their excellent athletic and academic records. Based on the Director Cup standings, which rank the achievements of University Athletic Departments based on their Division I teams' performances at NCAA championships, do you know which team has been the number two point earner and one out of only three teams over the past five years to contribute points annually. It's the fencing team. Furthermore, the women's fencing team has the highest GPA of all teams as of the end of the fall semester, and the eliminated men's teams have 4 of the top 5 GPA's and are the only men's teams to have a 100% graduation rate. Cutting these teams is cutting excellence.

Furthermore, there are alternatives that should be explored before taking such drastic measures.
* Instead of giving a few teams the ax the budget cuts could have been spread evenly across every team, so nothing more than a pinch would have been felt by everyone equally. Instead Rutgers cut 20 % of the student-athletes to save an alleged 2% of the athletic budget.

We have repeatedly rebutted the arguments that RU has set forth to support the elimination of these teams and have shown the deception, the dishonesty, and the blatant misrepresentations.

Yet we continue to go unheard. Despite the sentiments of the community, the decision stands.

Despite our best efforts to voice the facts, our pleas fall upon deaf ears belonging to a few willfully blind individuals who refuse to see and acknowledge the lies and deceit of the Rutgers administration. At this point I'm at a loss for words.

This debate is no longer about the issues; it's about pride and ego. So who will help us fight to right a wrong? Who will be the voice for the teams that live beneath the bridge?

Whereas some teams are honored for their accomplishments, all we ask in return for our accomplishments is to exist. When betrayed by our administration, by our leaders, we turn to a hopefully independent board who should listen to reason and logic, use their best judgment to accomplish what is in the best interest of the university as a whole, and who should use their power to right a wrong.

So I ask you to reconsider this ill-advised decision. Please do not cut these teams.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Additionally, SOS sent out its statement to the media that it also distributed at a Senate Budget Committee meeting as well as budget-related questions given to all Committee members.

Lisa Pantel, for the Coalition to Save Our Sports – proposed presentation to the Senate Budget Committee, April 16, 2007

I am here on behalf of the Coalition to Save Our Sports, a broad-based group representing thousands of individuals – Rutgers alumni, college and high school student-athletes, the national and state organizations for the eliminated sports, and other team supporters – formed to oppose Rutgers' decision eliminate six of its highest achieving varsity teams effective in 2007-08.

On Friday, April 13, the Coalition to Save our Sports appeared before the Rutgers Board of Governors ("BOG") for the 4th time in an effort to oppose the Board's decision to eliminate 6 top achieving varsity teams — a decision made in July when no students were present and without notice to affected and interested parties. To allegedly save less than 2% of its total budget – and I must emphasize allegedly – because the Coalition firmly believes that the University will reap no savings – 20% – 1 out of every 5 – varsity athletes were cut while budgets of other teams – which, by the way, lose millions annually, were increased. In so doing, the BOG wiped out a collective 400 years of excellence at this university. In the past, long before there was a winning football team, these six unheralded teams were, year after year, finishing their season with top grades and top athletic performances on shoestring budgets.

Crew: The Board of Governors eliminated men's crew – the oldest organized sport at the University, the sport referenced in the school cheer — "upstream red team" – a team that, remarkably, has produced 14 Olympians since 1992.

Fencing: In a State that by Rutgers' Recreation Director's own admission, is a "hotbed of fencing," this University, in a decision blessed by its President, eliminated a consistent high achiever – men's and women's varsity fencing – a team, which has been the number two point earner at the University in Director's Cup points based strictly on results at NCAA national championships, indeed one out of only three varsity teams to have won Director's Cup points every year in the past 5 years. A team which has produced 34 All-Americans in the past 21 consecutive years at the NCAA National Championships. The team to have produced Rutgers' ONLY NCAA individual champion in the past 25 years (and probably much longer) and Rutgers' ONLY NCAA National team champion in the past 60 years. And a team, by the way which, as of the end of 1st semester, has the highest cumulative GPA of all teams.

Tennis: In eliminating the men's tennis team –2nd place in the 2005 Big East Championship and Top 4 in the Big East for 7 of the past 10 years, the University claimed that it could no longer afford to maintain 10 guys with tennis rackets, sneakers and tennis balls who, like all these other eliminated teams, ask only to exist, to compete as Scarlet Knights.

Swimming: And with one of the premier aquatic facilitates in the US, with a coach who will continue to coach the women's team, which trains simultaneously with the men's team, Rutgers eliminated the Men's Swimming and Diving Team. In so doing, it irreparably damaged its Women's Swim Team, the number 3 team in Directors Cup points earned at the University. As of this date, the Women's Swim Team has ONE recruit for next year, versus EIGHT at this time last year.

Loss of Opportunity: I should add – this decision not only eliminates 153 varsity roster spots. It also eliminates opportunities for thousands of deserving high school student-athletes engaged in these sports who must now write Rutgers off their college lists, for Rutgers is the ONLY public university in the State offering Division I teams in these sports. For an institution that is supposed to be a provider of opportunities, as affirmed in Dr. McCormick's Annual Address, this loss of opportunity to New Jersey youth is also Rutgers' loss, as well as its failing.

Editorial Endorsements: I will not go into the merits of the Coalition's position. Coalition materials are in the packets which we have provided to you. Suffice it to say that every major newspaper in the State has editorialized in favor of reinstatement, including the Star-Ledger; the Bergen Record; the Trenton Times; the Home News; the Observer-Tribune; and the Asbury Park Press. The New York Times, in its editorial on March 18, characterized the University's continuing efforts to justify this decision as (and I quote) "Phony Baloney."

Rutgers Alumni, Student Government, and National Endorsements; The largest student governing body at Rutgers, the Rutgers College Governing Association, as well as Rutgers' Alumni Federation, have passed supporting resolutions. Countless alumni and team supporters, the state and national organizations for these sports as well as the United States Olympic Committee, have written letters to the University urging reversal of this decision. Perhaps you have seen the many published Op-Eds and letters to the editors in newspapers throughout the state. And I trust that you have seen the numerous newspaper articles – the most recent ones are in your packets.

Assembly Higher Education Committee: Patrick Diegnan, Chair of the Higher Education Committee perhaps said it best after considering lengthy testimony from Robert Mulcahy – In calling Rutgers' decision "illogical", the Assemblyman went on to say as follows (and I quote): "I cannot, and I have tried my best, cannot conclude, cannot conclude, that this is a budgetary decision [for] a University whose budget is in excess of $1.5 billion per year, of which the State of New Jersey gives approximately $500 million per year. To cut out a program that debatably is going to bring a savings of a couple of hundred thousand dollars, when all is said and done, is an absurdity at its best." His conclusions were echoed by every single member of his Committee, which unanimously passed a Resolution urging the University to immediately reinstate the six eliminated teams.

And while President McCormick comes to you and will tell you that these cuts cannot compare to academic cuts – which resulted in layoffs of staff and the eliminations of classes and course sections, we say, we only hope that those layoffs were necessary, because THESE cuts were certainly not. The analogy would be apt if 153 students were banned from taking classes in a particular department, if any and all opportunities for these students in academic departments were totally foreclosed, eliminated. BUT THAT would be illogical, as illogical – to use Assemblyman Diegnan's words – as these cuts are.

Coalition Fundraising and Rutgers' Obfuscation of Budget Figures: Since the hearing before the Higher Education Committee, these teams have, through the Coalition, raised in excess of $3 million, teams which have a real cost of approximately $650,000 per year – based on 2005-2006 budget figures. I wish that I could give you current financial figures, but the University, despite the end of the football season and most of the school year, denied, at the end of February, that it had anything other than a one page summary proposed budget for its Athletic Department, which, per statements made by its Director, is now approximately $41 million, although the 1 page budget summary produced by Rutgers is at $37 million.

Multi-Million Dollar Donors Speak Out: And since that hearing and as a result of the University's decision – two multi-million dollar donors to the University have assailed the Board's decision eliminating these six teams as indefensible. Both – Bruce Nicholas and Richard Shindell – are individuals who, like countless others, recognize that this is a decision which does not serve the University, its students, or the State. Mr. Shindell was honored this year for a $3 million donation to endow a chair in neuroscience. He also recently donated $500,000 which went to football's Hale Center.

In his personal and unexpected appearance before the Board of Governors on Friday, Mr. Shindell, former T. Rowe Price Senior VP, a member of the Board of Overseers and of the Scarlet Cabinet, the top level of athletic donors, as well as a member of the Colonel Rutgers Society, expressed his devotion to his alma mater. But, in connection with Rutgers' elimination of six of its highest achieving and lowest budget teams, he said as follows – "this decision is bad, and the [Board's] arguments are getting shopworn and more outdated and distant from the people who love this university."

The fallout from this decision will continue, not by plan, but because it is clearly wrong for a host of reasons — not the least of which is that the University, in its alleged quest for "excellence," cut just that. Not the least of which is the known and acknowledged fact that, while crying the money blues, the Scarlet R and the University refused offers made by alumni in past years as well as in the present to work with the Athletic Department's fundraising arm to raise funds for these teams.

Yet the University refuses to listen to reason. It remains intransigent, entrenched, obstinate.

Authorized Decision is not a Justifiable Decision: After 9 months of waiting for an explanation as to why this decision still stands, Mr. Gamper, outgoing Board Chair who will be receiving an honorary doctorate from the University at Commencement, finally delivered this explanation, and Dr. McCormick made a statement accepting "full responsibility": the University has the authority to make such decisions and, per Mr. Gamper, they don't need to justify every decision as "no business could function that way." The mere fact of authority does not, of course, justify a decision that is essentially universally deemed to be ill-advised and unacceptable. So much for logic and reason. So much for accountability and transparency, responsiveness and the need to be representative. So much, too, for alumni and future alumni. And the stream of donations from those who have and will stand with their alma mater through thick and thin, despite the won-loss record of the football or basketball team.

Autonomy Does Not Support Arbitrariness: Yes, this University does have autonomy. But should it have the autonomy to act arbitrarily and capriciously? To make a decision that it can justify only by the mere fact that it has that decision-making authority? To make a decision, that has, by Mr. Mulcahy's own admission, veered from its express mission statement, so that that laudable statement will now, after the fact, need to be rewritten?

$30 Million for Football Stadium Luxury Boxes but Rutgers Cannot Afford these Teams?!?!: So why am I here before this Committee? One item of business that was introduced –albeit not discussed at the 4/13 BOG meeting – was the Athletic Director's recommendation to the Board to go "full steam ahead" with the football stadium expansion while the momentum exists, i.e., while the memory of victory is still fresh. Before the tide turns. Although the dollar amount of this undertaking was not revealed at the public portion of the meeting, according to sources, the estimate for the luxury boxes is $60 – 70 million, $30 million of which will be sought from the State, as early as this year!

On a personal note, I am not, myself, an alumnus. I am the mother of a son – a national championship fencer, a Junior Olympic medalist, a National Merit and Bloustein scholar, a Star-Ledger Scholar, and Presidential Scholar at Rutgers, a freshman with a 4.0 GPA and enough credits to be a junior – who chose Rutgers over offers of admission from MIT, Princeton, Brown and other schools, and who HOPES to be future alum. (I must add that, in a moment of utter poignancy, the Scarlet Knights fencers, including my son, elected 2007-08 captains at their annual season-end fencing dinner Saturday night).

I am here because I supported my son's decision to matriculate at what I believed to be a fine school, one with an excellent faculty, one that provides an educational experience and opportunities second to none. One that, with all due respect, this legislature NEEDS to believe in and to invest in – appropriately. BUT, sadly, one that, with respect to this decision, is way off course.

The Legislature Must Secure a Commitment by Rutgers: And so, I am asking you to listen to Dr. McCormick's and the University's request for funds with these six teams in mind, with the loss of opportunity that this decision entails. I am asking you to ensure that Rutgers makes a long-term commitment to these deserving teams as a condition of any further funding. I am asking you to procure this commitment from Dr. McCormick. I am asking you to urge Rutgers to bring back these teams NOW before stellar student-athletes have to leave this university and leave the State, before more high school students similarly write off Rutgers and leave the State or, in an unfair choice, stay in the State but must as a result give up the sport to which they have devoted years. I am asking you to support and invest in Rutgers, but I am asking you to first ensure that Rutgers makes the minimal expenditure to invest in the current and future student-athletes on these six deserving teams.

Thank you for listening and for allowing me the opportunity to speak.

Questions for Dr. McCormick and Rutgers University, Senate Budget Hearings, April 16, 2007

1. Dr. McCormick, we understand that you are going to be seeking some $30 Million from the State for luxury boxes for the Football Stadium, which will cost a total of some $60 million to $70 million. Why would you ask for that kind of money from the State and plan to spend even more and then claim that Rutgers cannot afford to keep the Men's and Women's Fencing Team, and the Men's Swimming, Crew, and Tennis Teams, which have a net cost to Rutgers of some $650,000 per year? And when Bob Mulcahy appeared before the Assembly Higher Education Committee, he made it very clear on the record that these teams were cut purely for fiscal reasons.

2. We understand that this past Friday, two multi-million dollar donors just wrote off Rutgers because of its refusal to reinstate the eliminated teams, one of whom is on the Board of Overseers of the Rutgers Foundation, and was just honored by the University for a $3 million endowment which he funded for a Neuroscience professorship and research position, and who also gave $500,000 for the Hale Center built for the Football Team. In fact, he has been touted by the University as a shining example of someone who came to support academics because of the initial attraction of Rutgers football. Does it make sense to turn away multimillion donors who are working to reinstate these low cost teams, and then ask the taxpayers for hundreds of millions for the University, including $30 million for luxury skyboxes?

3. How could the Rutgers Board of Governors countenance an Athletic Department decision to divert $828,000 (per the 2005-06 Athletic Department budget) in student fees from the initially intended beneficiaries, the Olympic sports teams, to provide compensation, as explained by Mr. Mulcahy at the October, 2006 meeting of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee ("SAAC"), for the so-called "free" tickets given to students for basketball and football games? Do you think that is an appropriate use of those funds, which could instead be used to fund 100% of the cost of these teams representing 20% of the University's varsity athletes?

4. We understand that the Rutgers' Athletic Department is response to many OPRA requests for its budget for 2006-07 has produced a single one-page budget showing $37 million in expenditures and $36 million in revenues, and maintained that it does not have individual team budgets for 2006-07. Yet Mr. Mulcahy has recently been quoted as saying that his budget is $41 million. Do you believe that it represents good management of the taxpayers' money to have that kind of expenditure governed by a one page budget? Can you explain the discrepancy between the $37 million budget produced in response to OPRA and the $41 million stated by Mr. Mulcahy?

5. How can Rutgers justify eliminating these teams with a net cost of some $650,000 when it is now about to embark on a publicly announced $1 Billion capital campaign? Why should these teams, representing over 400 years of collective Rutgers' history and superb athletic and academic accomplishment, be left behind?

6. How can this University, with one of this country's premier aquatic facilities, the Werblin Center, and a women's swim team with same coach as men's, be without a men's swim team? Does it represent good utilization of taxpayers' money to wipe out the Men's Swim Team when you have such a beautiful aquatic center for its use?

7. How can this University with a budget of some $1.5 Billion and an Athletic Department budget of upwards of some $40 Million claim that the only way to cut less than 2% of that Athletic budget is to cut 20% of Rutgers varsity teams and 20% of its varsity athletes?

8. How can Rutgers pass off this decision as a cost savings measure when the supporters of these teams have, in the aggregate, raised over $985,000 in pledges plus $2 million in new crew endowments, so that the cost to Rutgers of operating all six teams in 2007-08 will be less than $150,000?

9. Is it equitable to eliminate these teams whose annual Scarlet R giving for 2005-06 accounted for 24.31% of their total budgets, while Scarlet R giving for all teams averaged 14.44% of their budgets?

10. If, as it has been maintained by the Athletic Department, it has been known for some time that the Olympic sports teams were in jeopardy of being cut due to budgetary issues, why didn't the University and Scarlet R exercise leadership to mount a high profile fund raising campaign for these teams? Why did they refuse past, and continue to refuse current, offers of assistance to raise funds for Olympic sports teams?

11. How can the University justify completely ignoring the February 8, 2007 unanimous Resolution of the Assembly Higher Education Committee urging the reinstatement of these 6 teams after hearing extensive testimony from two Rutgers representatives, Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy and Director of State Relations Sharon Ainsworth?

12. In your Annual Address in the fall of 2006, you addressed the provision of "greater opportunities" for Rutgers students and

"affirmed without hesitation that Rutgers will maintain its core missions … . Rutgers will never turn its back on those who we serve – especially our students – nor will we abandon our dreams for their highest achievement."

How can you square that statement with the Athletic Department's elimination of the only opportunity for those engaged in the eliminated sports to compete on a Division I team at a public university in New Jersey, thereby forcing those capable of competing at the highest intercollegiate level to leave the State, which, for many, is not an affordable option?

Meanwhile, the Take Back Rutgers Alliance took out a full-page ad in the Targum asking all alumni, students and New Jersey citizens to join the fight.

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