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Name the college that sponsored 41 varsity sports this year, tying with Harvard for most in the country.</p>
<p>The answer is about the last school you'd think of: math and science powerhouse MIT, the university with perhaps the brainiest—and nerdiest—reputation in America.</p>
<p>The Engineers—yes, that's their nickname—shared the honor with their bigger, wealthier neighbor in Cambridge, Mass., and have long competed in everything from football to fencing, softball to squash.</p>
<p>That's going to change, though.</p>
<p>The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Thursday it is eliminating eight teams because of the sputtering economy. ...</p>
<p>MIT joins the list of colleges dropping sports to counteract budget deficits. Northern Iowa is nixing baseball. So is Vermont, which is also canceling softball. Women's volleyball and men's soccer are done at Maine; men's track and women's swimming will be out at Pepperdine.
<p>I would almost guarantee every single school that drops a female sport due to budget will also drop at least one male sport. The same cannot be said for those universities that choose to drop a male sport.</p>
<p>The entire sports industry must be scaled back. How many kids participate in HS sports they dont even like, jst to get into college? What is the point?</p>
<p>“How many kids participate in HS sports they dont even like, jst to get into college? What is the point?”</p>
<p>I play tennis with our town’s Tennis coach. I also play with one of the former coaches of the high school in the next big city and I talk to another former coach from time to time. In our town, we have one kid that is able to play reasonably well. The rest of the team is there just to polish their college applications. They can say that they’re on a varsity team but the coach has trouble getting kids to practice, getting parents to pay for equipment that isn’t 30 years old and getting the attitude and discipline of athletes. I suggested that he have them run and do weights regularly. He told me that they’d die if he asked them to do a mile before a practice.</p>
<p>There are benefits to sports but like community service, it can be putting in a token amount of time to just get the checkmark.</p>
<p>kayf, frankly, I have not seen any in my neck of the woods. The ones who don’t like sports either don’t join HS teams or drop out. If a child doesn’t pursue her HS sport in college, it doesn’t mean she was on her HS team just to pad her EC “resume”.</p>
<p>It’s so unfortunate that the economy has brought colleges to this point. I was accepted at Hopkins and was hoping to row their, but their team just lost funding. Thankfully, I have some other options for schools that I am more than happy with. Rowing is too much of a passion for me to give up!</p>
<p>I even question the point of sports where the child does continue at college. Million dollar coaches, etc. Colleges are for education. You can join a rowing club.</p>
<p>kayf, these are DIII schools! No athletic scholarships and no million dollar coaches. The sports being cut are the ones that actually keep kids active and teach fitness (swimming, skiing, wrestling, etc.)</p>
<p>Parent of a former MIT kid here. Kid did a lot of intramurals and “for fun” athletics so I can’t speak from experience of having a serious athlete.</p>
<p>If the choice is cutting a few teams or cutting the hours in the library and access to the labs, as my State U is doing (and further cuts contemplated) I say cut the teams. Nobody likes to make tough choices in a bad economy, but why is athletics the holy cow and academics always the stepchild at Public U’s???</p>
<p>Bravo to MIT for making a hard decision which will get them tons of bad press but in the end, is the right thing to do. Keep the mission critical stuff; trim the frills; ride out the downturn and the dip in your endowment. Sounds smart to me.</p>
<p>8 varsity teams are cut at MIT. This is a bad way to save money and risk that more kids going to drugs and are not being happy with them self, these students live a balanced life and now you want to take it away … Harvard is not dropping any sports. they know it is best for everyone.
I don’t know how they will function without it, Sports are so much better then drinking and drugs, Sports keep them happy and sane. With the workload at MIT, sports are a great way to get away and let it all out. This is also a great way to meet really good friends. Golf has been a Sport at MIT since 1907, the 4th oldest sport That is so sad – these kids need to do something other than party when there is down time.</p>
<p>I would be quite surprised if some club sports could possibly afford to take on that sort of role. Specialized equipment and everything, sure they may own it all already, but do you think a university is going to leave it up to the students to supervise that kind of thing? Such as gymnastics?</p>