UW-Oshkosh Program Cut....?

[GarbageGoals33]

I have heard through the grapevine that the UWO mens soccer program will not be fielding a team for the 2015 season.

[Wormburner]

Think it's 2016, but they're not fielding a team sometime within the next 2 years!

[jknezek]

With Wisconsin continually cutting financial aid to the UWW system, plus the state mandated tuition freeze, I'd be surprised if this is the only cut in the coming years.

[casualfan]

http://www.uwoshkoshtitans.com/news/2014-15/SportModule

The Men's Soccer and Men's Tennis teams will play their final season in the 2015-16 school year.

Down goes a typically top 5 North Region program. Hard to believe considering the history of the Men's Soccer program.

It will be interesting to hear how this impacts UW-Whitewater and UW-Platteville since they will remain without a conference automatic qualifier. Judging by the article, that seems to be the main reason for choosing Men's Soccer and Men's Tennis as the sports that would be cut.

If UWW and UWP continue to field teams, will it be a two horse race every year for the Pool B bid??

[Nutmeg]

With Wisconsin continually cutting financial aid to the UWW system, plus the state mandated tuition freeze, I'd be surprised if this is the only cut in the coming years.

Unfortunate....😩

[D3 Scout]

Spoke with someone in the Wisconsin-Whitewater athletic department and they said that UWW will not be cutting a team due to budget cuts now or in the future.

Hard to believe UWO could not shift money around to keep one of their most successful programs in the athletic departments history on the field.

[Mr.Right]

I blame this on the Koch brothers master puppet and right wing lunatic Gov. Scott Walker

[gustiefan04]

Spoke with someone in the Wisconsin-Whitewater athletic department and they said that UWW will not be cutting a team due to budget cuts now or in the future.

Hard to believe UWO could not shift money around to keep one of their most successful programs in the athletic departments history on the field.

Agreed. It's hard to imagine that the AD couldn't have gotten a little more creative and moved some funds around to keep one of his most successful sports alive. I've heard from a handful of alumni that the AD wasn't exactly a big supporter of soccer to begin with, and that they feel the AD could could have been done more to keep the program going.

The AD's background is heavy in football and fundraising. How about putting those those fundraising skills to work and saving your men's soccer and tennis programs!!!???

[bulk19]

A WIACer here, in Wisconsin, whose take on this is that there are a lot of underlying political factors involved in this situation; this is a trial balloon floated to drum up sympathy... If soccer and tennis are that important to UWO, they will find a way to keep them funded. If not, so be it...

UW-La Crosse was on the brink of cutting the men's baseball program a few years back, but the players got off their behinds and did a lot of fundraising to keep it alive. The program also received a lot of corporate sponsorship... Perhaps the institution of higher education on Wisconsin's east coast can take a page out of the one used on the west coast of the Badger state...

[Pat Coleman]

Oshkosh's release closed the door on that possibility.

[Wisco21]

As someone affiliated with the WIAC and specifically UWO, I can say with confidence that there are definitely things in motion right now to reverse this decision. Alumni as well as athletes (not just the soccer players) at the school have been diligent about finding alternatives, the sport's reputation is quite favorable among the students at the university. The biggest thing they're asking right now is for awareness and support. Below is a link that has more information if anyone is interested.

https://www.facebook.com/saveourtitans?fref=ts

[bulk19]

Here's today's newspaper coverage regarding a public forum they had on this subject yesterday:

http://www.thenorthwestern.com/story/news/education/2015/04/08/tensions-flare-forum-uw-oshkosh-athletics-cuts/25495389/

The UWO learned brass is outright dismissing the notion of fundraising? (You can read the lame excuse as to why this is in the UWO release on the athletics sight)...  What a way to stifle energy, creative problem thinking, passion, pride, unity and anything else that the sports, and trying to save them, would generate on at an institution of higher education....

Yes, budget issues are occurring at all UW system schools, and yes, much of the discussions/debates are turning political. But if I were a UWO student-athlete who plays soccer, or tennis, I'd seriously consider taking the money I have earmarked for tuition there and transferring elsewhere. Shame on those who have proposed a narrow-minded fix to this situation - the two who made this decision - who apparently did not welcome input and ideas as to a problem that can be solved...

Sorry all - I don't even like soccer!  - but I'll get off my soap box before I start to cross the lines of the politics being played out in this state regarding the UW schools and their budgets. Or maybe I have crossed them already. Ha.

[bulk19]

OK... one more perhaps political comment.. . So, I've lived in three cities with WIAC campuses, or is it campi?  over the last decade where new facilities/buildings have been built, using combinations of various people's money - that being the tax payers, or students.

Arguments can be made that in some cases upgrades were needed... and that the improvements would attract students and benefit those already there... And the majority of students benefit, too, compared to say the number who have played on an athletic team...

But to those of you have have graduated, is your university/college better known because it has state-of-the-art facilities, and that is what you remember from your time there? Do you remember sitting in a fancy new desk, taking notes in an English class?

Or do you remember more vividly your time there following the sports teams, and the successes or failures those teams had, and the nail-biters you may have attended?

Do people across the country look at your school and say, hey, aren't you guys the ones who have the best oak desks? Or do they say, hey, didn't you guys win a D3 title last year?

Or will they be asking "hey, what happened to your soccer team? Didn't you guys have a soccer team?"

[jknezek]

OK... one more perhaps political comment.. . So, I've lived in three cities with WIAC campuses, or is it campi?  over the last decade where new facilities/buildings have been built, using combinations of various people's money - that being the tax payers, or students.

Arguments can be made that in some cases upgrades were needed... and that the improvements would attract students and benefit those already there... And the majority of students benefit, too, compared to say the number who have played on an athletic team...

But to those of you have have graduated, is your university/college better known because it has state-of-the-art facilities, and that is what you remember from your time there? Do you remember sitting in a fancy new desk, taking notes in an English class?

Or do you remember more vividly your time there following the sports teams, and the successes or failures those teams had, and the nail-biters you may have attended?

Do people across the country look at your school and say, hey, aren't you guys the ones who have the best oak desks? Or do they say, hey, didn't you guys win a D3 title last year?

Or will they be asking "hey, what happened to your soccer team? Didn't you guys have a soccer team?"

It's not the oak desk it's the electron microscope. It's not notes in English class, it's having a performing arts center or a state of the art computer lab. Look, the vast majority of D3 students hardly ever attend sporting events. At most D3 schools, sporting events are primarily for the athletes, not for the student body. Does that change at certain schools and in certain circumstances? Absolutely. But I can remember basketball games at W&L (arguably a pretty poor basketball team when I was there) with 50 people in the crowd, almost all parents. Same with soccer and certainly the nationally ranked tennis teams almost never had fans. A student journalist like me? Sure, but fans? No. Even the football team, at the time generally .500, had most of the student body not bothering to show up or leaving after the tailgate.

I love D3 sports. I go to Birmingham Southern soccer, football, and lacrosse games because it's my local D3 school. I drive an hour each way to go to Huntingdon football games when they are playing an exciting game. But we're the exception. Sports just aren't the driver you are trying to make them out to be for the "campus experience" in a lot of places.

Having a modern, large, useful computer lab that accommodates your student body? Much more important to almost everyone than having a men's tennis team. I'm thinking UWO is not going to be the last school to take this path.

[bulk19]

My point is:

We are talking about students who benefit, be it by participating on an athletic team, or in a state-of-the-art classroom. They get what they pay for, by whatever tuition they pay... But let's not forget - it is the taxpayer who also funds those who benefit...

Colleges and universities sure do know how to spend the money, and will willingly find ways to do so, in the millions... Walk around the grounds of the three schools I alluded to, and tell me that they don't find ways to spend the money, and continually ask for more...

But ask them to do with less, or make cuts - $60,000? - and they can't, or are unwilling, to find ways to do that, other than cutting a soccer team?