Stanford University announced Wednesday morning their plan to cut eleven varsity sports from the school’s athletics department budget. Programs facing elimination upon conclusion of the 2020-21 academic year include:
- men’s fencing
- women’s fencing
- field hockey
- lightweight rowing
- men’s rowing
- co-ed sailing
- women’s sailing
- squash
- synchronized swimming
- men’s volleyball
- wrestling
Many athletics departments throughout the country are expecting budgetary shortcomings in the near future. With the COVID-19 pandemic raging on in the United States, there’s no guarantee of college basketball or college football’s return anytime soon. The possibility of cancelled programs existed the moment March Madness slipped away.
However, don’t fall into the trap of believing this is the beginning of the end for collegiate athletics. While it’s perfectly normal to feel upset for the students that are losing the sport they’ve worked endlessly to train for and dominate, this specific issues seems tailored to Stanford.
Not Quite a Cardinal Sin
For instance, let’s take a look at the rest of the Pac-12 Conference:
| university | # of varsity programs |
| Arizona | 18 |
| Arizona State | 26 |
| California-Berkeley | 30 |
| Colorado | 17 |
| Oregon | 18 |
| Oregon State | 17 |
| Southern California | 21 |
| Stanford | 36 |
| UCLA | 25 |
| Utah | 19 |
| Washington | 22 |
| Washington State | 17 |
I’m not trying to say this isn’t an unfortunate circumstance, but as for the Cardinal, losing eleven arguably non-consequential varsity sports still leaves Stanford with the fourth most sponsored programs among Pac-12 schools.
We shouldn’t completely disregard the shock and panic caused by a highly-regarded university cutting eleven varsity sports. Complete disregard is immature and unfair to athletes impacted by today’s announcement. However, the over-exaggeration of the consequences pertaining to the situation at hand don’t quite add up.
Football programs aren’t on the verge of collapse. We’re ways away from that ever being a reality. This surely knocks a few schools into unfavorable positions, but it takes more than one potentially skipped season to cause complete detriment to a program.
Support the athletes that will serve their last ball, swim their last stroke and hoist their final sail. But don’t lose sleep over an upcoming demise of college athletics. Other schools with bloated departments may follow suit. Don’t let that frighten you.