@LimboKid , I would put money on your theory. My guess is that many schools have been evaluating their programs and wanting to do some pruning fora while but haven’tquite had the will to do so. Covid stressed everything in the system and made it the perfect time to take action, especially with iffy seasons next year.
Statement from Stanford:
@gardenstategal Yup, COVID-19 is the final straw.
Fall is gone for the Ivy League. Waiting to see what NCAA Div1 comes up with soon.
My D22 is an equestrian competitor. There are a handful of schools with very-competitive, sanctioned, university-funded, NCAA equestrian teams that are an official part of their respective colleges’ athletic departments. The vast majority of “college equestrian teams” compete at the club level and offer no financial incentive in the way of athletic scholarships to their members, Most, if not all expenses, are covered by the team members themselves or with private donations or fundraisers. It will be interesting to see if there is any shift in the status of some of these teams in the near future.
The NESCAC has canceled fall athletics:
https://www.nescac.com/news/2019-20/NESCAC_Presidents_Statement
According to New England Soccer Journal, some D3 schools may attempt in-state scrimmages with each other.
Really sad. Not an athlete but love to watch and cheer…
Only league play is cancelled. Teams are free to play non-league games. Similar to the UAA decision, which isn’t surprising given the geographic distribution of their league.
Also, the MAC is moving ahead with league games, but postponing until 9/18.
And W&L cancelled fall sports, but the ODAC is planning to play games as of 9/11.
Better than nothing…
Penn vows to never cut sports!
https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/07/penn-will-not-cut-varsity-sports-ivy-league-ncaa-coronavirus
The NCAC conference (Ohio and nearby) is going forward with fall sports, with some modifications: https://www.northcoast.org/News/2020-1/Releases/NCACFallUpdate20 I was also pleased to hear the President of Denison acknowledge in his most recent video last Friday that athletics is important to Denison.
The Patriot League cancels fall competition:
Dartmouth’s cuts are especially heartbreaking. Only 2 million? For an ivy and cutting 5 sports, that’s equivalent to near nothing. The president basically said that student athletes tarnish Dartmouth’s name as a school bc they lower the academic average. What??!! The swim and dive has a higher average than the entirety of the school does, so this was a low and untruthful blow.
Swim and Dive was just beginning to get really good… they have a petition going to bring it back.
I don’t understand why the didn’t cut budget from every sport instead of removing specific ones blindly.
@hopefulswimmer58 It does not seem right for a school such as Dartmouth to drop and not have a swim & diving team.
Good point about if it was to save $2m, they could’ve cut across all sports budgets or dropped a different sport(s) to club level.
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Maybe Dartmouth is facing a larger than average endowment hit. We will all know by Oct.
My mom is freaking out after reading this from WaPo.
Kenyon cancels rest of 2020 athletics (and goes to a subset of student body on campus model). https://blogs.kenyon.edu/campus-report/post/2020-21-planning-update-for-students-and-families/?fbclid=IwAR2c9g71TNlFgu_DSJVGIikBsWNy6iesZP7WzlPwFMIT91ZoJa64jPcX9qc
There is a huge uproar and a number of petitions regarding the Dartmouth cuts. Several of the sports cut are largely self-funded - meaning they have pegged endowments and/or significant alumni support. The average GPA of those athletes is high and many of the athletes were admitted on their own, without a “recruiting spot.” In addition, those are typically not the kids that get in trouble or cause problems on campus.
I feel for the athletes that chose Dartmouth because of their sport, particularly the incoming freshmen as they may have chosen a different school had Dartmouth made the announcement earlier.
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The pandemic shows the true priorities of schools. Their leadership raking in millions a year will cut a sport affecting dozens of kids and their families to save a few million a year before taking a few % points off in pay cuts. C’est la vie.