[T]he University of Vermont is reducing the number of athletic scholarships offered in the men and women’s cross country/track and field program and swimming and diving program as part of a department-wide cost-cutting measure.
While current scholarships will be honored, the two programs will not be offering any new scholarships this year. The change comes as the university moves forward on plans to build a $95 million athletic center.
Coaches were informed of the decision over the summer, and recent graduates from the track and field program say they feel the cuts will hurt the program severely.
Jeff Schulman, UVM’s athletics director, said the department would save around $180,000 offering 3.5 fewer scholarships total in the two sports in fall 2019. The teams offer mostly partial scholarships to reach a greater number of athletes.
Swimming has 5.75 total scholarships this year and will have 4.75 next year, Schulman said. Women’s track and field has 5.9 scholarships this year but will have 4 next year, while men’s track and field will drop from 3.5 to 2.5.
Schulman said the decision was part of a wider effort of cuts to make the department more sustainable. Operating budgets were cut in all varsity sports, he said, and department employees are working less overtime, he said.
Three full-time positions in the department were also cut, one position in athletic communications, one facilities staffer and one through the reorganization of assistant coaching positions.
Schulman said the decision will be re-evaluated on an annual basis, and the department is raising money for privately funded scholarships in the two programs.
Matt Belfield, the coach of the men’s and women’s cross country and track and field programs, said the program was bracing itself to not offer athletic scholarships when those currently with such aid graduate.
“Nothing’s permanent, but it certainly would appear with the current budget situation, this isn’t going to change anytime soon,” he said. “So we’re moving forward with the expectation this is going to be a non-scholarship program.”
Belfield said the elimination of the scholarships would make it more difficult to recruit.
“There’s no question there are people that are in our program now and have been in our program before that wouldn’t be able to come under the current circumstances,” he said.
Ian Weider, who graduated in 2017, was a prolific long jumper during his time at UVM. He said the track team will struggle to compete against its Division I competition with the decrease in scholarships.
“It’s sort of putting us in a D-3 category where there’s no scholarships available, but we’re going to be playing against Division I teams,” he said.
Weider was on a partial scholarship his junior year and a full scholarship his senior year.
“I thought it was relatively insulting that they’re willing to put all this money and effort into new facilities, and they’re sacrificing the other teams,” Weider said.
The $95 million athletics facility will renovate the hockey teams’ Gutterson Fieldhouse, build a new arena for the school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams and re-purpose Patrick Gymnasium as a fitness and wellness center for the entire student body.
Schulman said he understands how it can be hard to reconcile the optics of the department building the facility while cutting in other areas. But he said the facility is being funded through targeted philanthropic gifts and facility bonds that are restricted in use, while the annual athletic budget comes from yearly funding from the university.
“The reality is they are two very different funding sources,” he said.
UVM cut its baseball and softball programs to address a budget shortfall in 2009 and cut four sports in the early 2000s amid similar financial difficulties: men’s swimming, golf and men’s and women’s tennis.
This is not the first step in an effort to eliminate the programs, Schulman said.
“This is just the opposite, it’s part of a very intentional effort to maintain all 18 of our varsity programs,” he said.
The department understands the challenges the cuts can create in recruiting, Schulman said, but he said he was confident UVM can continue to provide athletes with a meaningful experience.
“We care equally about their experiences,” he said. “That doesn’t always mean resources are going to be equal.”
Belfield said the program understands the realities of the department’s financial situation, and will continue to be as competitive as possible moving forward.
He said he expects the women’s team to be hit harder than the men’s team by the change, as women’s cross country and track teams typically have more scholarships than their male counterparts.
Belfield said while he is disappointed the program will lose funding, the program is strong and there is no animosity between the team and the athletic department.
“There’s no question they care about the people and they want them to feel good about their experience,” he said. “For me and for competitive people, that doesn’t tell the whole story … the fulfillment of a good experience is showing up at a competition and having a chance.”
Schulman said as larger Division I schools in bigger conferences have invested more in athletics, there has been a trickle down effect of costs that increasingly strain smaller Division I schools like UVM.
“We do have to make strategic decisions in our programs about what we can afford, and part of that is knowing we have to make investments in some of our higher profile programs that generate revenue to stay competitive,” he said.
For example, the department has had to increase spending on coaching salaries, nutrition, strength and conditioning, and mental health support to keep up with competitors, he said.
The men’s and women’s cross country, indoor track and outdoor track teams have placed in the middle of the pack in the America East in conference championships in recent years.
While the women’s cross country team placed third and the men’s cross country team placed fourth at the most recent America East championship (out of nine teams in the conference), the men placed eighth in outdoor track and seventh in indoor. The women placed seventh in outdoor and sixth in indoor.
The schools that consistently rise to the top of the standings in the America East — UMass Lowell and Albany — also top the conference in scholarships offered, Belfield said.
The swimming and diving team has also been solidly in the middle of the America East, finishing third at conference championships in each of the past three seasons out of six teams this year and five teams the previous two.
Gerry Cournoyer, the university’s longtime swimming and diving coach, said that he understood the athletic department had to make some difficult budgetary decisions
“I have two choices, I can be really upset about it or I can problem solve, and the job of the coach is to problem solve,” he said.
Cournoyer said some alumni and friends of the program have stepped up to raise some scholarship money, but it won’t be close to covering the amount of funding that the program is losing.
He said that the program is stepping up its recruitment efforts, finding talented high school swimmers in pockets across the country who can afford to attend UVM without a scholarship.
Ed Simon, who graduated in 2016, was a pole vaulter and high jumper at UVM. He said he wasn’t sure how the decrease in scholarships would affect the team, as many non-scholarship athletes are key competitors as well.
“I would imagine there would still be an effort to attract high-quality athletes from out of state, but it would be more likely they’d be getting Vermonters, based on money,” he said.
Mallory Honan, who graduated in 2017, was a jumper and hurdler on the team and has stayed involved as volunteer assistant coach. She said she had a great experience on the team, but she thought Schulman’s decision shows a lack of respect for the program and will make it impossible to stay competitive.
“It makes the coaches have a much harder time of getting in athletes who are being offered full rides at other schools and can’t afford to come here,” Honan said.
She appeared in UVM’s “It’s Time” video used for fundraising for the new building and said she would not have done so if she knew the department was going to reduce the number of scholarships her team could offer.
“You’re building a complex that is needed, but you’re taking away so much,” she said.