UBSPECTRUM.COM
THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2017
VOLUME 66 NO. 43
BLINDSIDED M E N ’ S S O CC E R / B AS E B A L L / M E N ’ S SW I M M I N G & D I V I N G / R OW I N G
Athletes, coaches and parents shocked, angered and confused by UB Athletics’ abrupt decision to cut four teams MICHAEL AKELSON SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR
Four UB Athletics teams walked into a meeting Monday morning silent and confused. They all walked out heartbroken and stunned. President Satish Tripathi stood in front of four teams at 8 a.m. Monday morning and told them their athletic careers at UB were coming to an end. Men’s soccer, baseball, rowing and men’s swimming and diving sat in the Center for the Arts Drama room blindsided by the news that their teams would be cut from UB Athletics, effective at the end of the spring 2017 season. A total of 120 student athletes will be affected by the cuts. “It was just kind of jaw dropping,” said Charlie Sobieraski, a junior baseball player. “We all kind of looked at each other like, ‘did that really just happen?...’ Everyone ran to their phones calling their parents. It’s not something you want to tell your parents, ‘hey ma, I gotta find a new school.’” Tripathi and Athletic Director Allen Greene did not tell any of the athletes why their teams were the ones being cut, according to multiple athletes who were at the meeting. They also did not inform them of how much money would be saved or where the money would be going. About a half hour after the meeting, the university sent out a press release answering a few questions, but many athletes are still searching for answers. “The university no longer has the resources to support 20 athletics teams,” the release said. UB Athletics, which has a $32 million budget, is saving approximately $2 million annually by cutting these sports. The decision will not reduce the amount students
pay in fees to support Division-I athletics. The university took into account program costs, athletics’ facilities, Title IX, geographic location and a comparison of sports sponsored by Mid-American Conference (MAC) schools. Athletics is still honoring all national letters of intent and scholarships of affected student athletes who stay at UB. The number of Division-I sports teams at UB has now dropped from 20 to 16, a number in line with many other schools in the MAC. Greene took questions from The Spectrum via email, but answered multiple questions with statements taken verbatim from the university’s press release. When asked if he anticipated more teams to be cut in the future, Greene answered with a quote from the press release that said, “The University at Buffalo is committed to Division I athletics and remaining competitive in the Mid-American Conference.” As of Wednesday, a school is required to have 16 sports programs to remain in the MAC. Most players understand that the decision was financial, but many are bothered by the way the school went about it. Around 8:30 p.m. Sunday night, UB’s Athletic Compliance department sent out a mass text message to all of the school’s athletes saying there was a mandatory meeting Monday morning. Twelve hours later, students left the meeting more confused than when they had entered. The other 16 UB Athletics teams sat in different rooms in Alumni Arena where administration told them about the four other teams that would be cut. Coaches and players were in awe, looking around the room on the verge of tears, knowing that it could have been them. There was no warning of what the meeting would be about beforehand. Coaches
KAINAN GUO, THE SPECTRUM
UB’s men’s soccer team warms up before a game this past Fall. The team had advanced to back-to-back MAC Championship games before being cut.
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of the four affected teams were only told within an hour before the meeting that they would no longer have a job next year. Head baseball coach Ron Torgalski, who has been the head coach since 2007 and has worked for the program since 2001, says he was told at 7:45 a.m. Monday morning that his team would be cut. “It was never mentioned, never brought up,” Torgalski said. “Any meeting I’ve ever had was ‘we’re not in the business to drop programs.’” UB men’s soccer head coach Davie Carmichael, who was hired on Jan. 31, sent out a Tweet Sunday night praising his team’s effort in their first spring game with the hashtag #progress. On March 8, the men’s soccer program announced Michael Tanke as a new assistant coach. Carmichael, Tanke and an upward of seven other coaches, will now have to find a new job. High school seniors and college freshmen, sophomores and juniors who committed to UB will now have to make a quick decision: stay at UB to finish their degree, or transfer to another school to continue their athletic career. “This isn’t a good point in the year to get recruited by anyone as a transfer,” said Kyle Brennan, a senior baseball player. “It’s late in the recruiting season and other schools gave out their money pretty much already, so you couldn’t help but just feel for [underclassmen.]” Torgalski also expressed concern that most baseball programs have used most of their money at this point in the season. “These kids may have opportunities, but from a financial standpoint, it’s probably gonna cost them a lot of money,” Torgalski said. “Especially the in-state kids that are here at a state institution and we can put a nice package together for them, it becomes very affordable and that’s how we got some of these kids… now, not only is the kid affected but the whole family is affected because financially, they gotta figure things out.”
nounce an eight-member recruiting class, according to Torgalski. Torgalski said it was “by far the best recruiting class” he had gotten since becoming the head coach. He also says administration “absolutely” knew that he was still recruiting players throughout the year. “We worked diligently to explore every option,” Greene said when The Spectrum asked why the department continued to let coaches recruit players to the program. “Regrettably, after exploring many scenarios, the reality is our current path is not sustainable and reductions reluctantly became the only option.” Many athletes expressed concern for incoming freshmen committed to the program. Some wonder how difficult it will be for them to re-start the college search process this late in the year. “It’s basically a month and a half before school’s over and you’re expecting however many athletes you just took away to find new schools,” Sobieraski said. “[Incoming freshmen] are at a really big disadvantage because those schools that they passed up on, are now gonna look back and be like ‘well you passed up on us the first time so why should we give you another chance.’” Since the news has dropped, former and current athletes, students and faculty have questioned UB Athletics’ spending. Some wonder if Athletics could have saved the $2 million if it had not undergone two re-branding efforts in the last three years. “My freshman year was two logos ago,” said Braden Scales, a fall 2016 graduate and former men’s soccer player. “My first thought is, how much did all that cost? I know it takes a lot of money to fund a soccer program, but you do look at a lot of the small things that add up over time, that makes you wonder. There’s been a lot of decisions from the Athletics department as a whole that have been quite shocking.” Torgalski said he wonders if there would still be a baseball program if not for the two re-branding efforts. “I think it cost the Athletic Department a lot of money,” Torgalski said. “When you look at the signs and the logos and everything that had to be changed a couple of times, that’s not cheap… Amongst other things, but I think that is a big contributor.” Torgalski said Athletics made promises to improve the program’s facilities since he took the job, but eventually he “didn’t expect anything.” “Since I’ve been the head coach, I never even asked those questions because I knew what the answer would be,” Torgalski said. “That was one thing that I never told a kid because I knew it probably wasn’t gonna happen, so I didn’t try to sell a kid on ‘hey, we’re gonna get a new stadium,’ or ‘we’re gonna get this.’”
“It was never mentioned, never brought up,” said UB head baseball coach Ron Torgalski. “Any meeting I’ve ever had was ‘we’re not in the business to drop programs.’”
Athletes and coaches question UB Athletics’ spending and conduct Many athletes wonder how long the school has planned these cuts. They are unsure why the university waited until now to tell them. When asked when the department made the decision, Greene told The Spectrum that the process “recently concluded.” All four teams continued to recruit athletes to their programs throughout the year and even into the spring semester. The men’s soccer team was ready to announce a new recruiting class of 11 players, according to multiple former players. The baseball team was also prepared to an-
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