Woman's Lacrosse in and woman's tennis out at Pitt

[RaleighPittFan]

It would have been nice to have added a men's sport (like men's lacrosse) to keep the title lX numbers even, but I'm assuming the cost was prohibitive.

https://www.cardiachill.com/2019/1/...s-to-drop-womens-tennis-heather-lyke-lacrosse

 

[sappycrease]

Nobody cares, Raleigh. You honestly start the most boring threads.

 

[DiehardPanther]

Nobody cares, Raleigh. You honestly start the most boring threads.

Then don’t read his posts. Nobody cares what a PS fan such as yourself thinks.

 

[Zeldas Open Roof]

A nice OP followed by a hoopie troll arguing with a psu troll. Smh.

Can you two go somewhere else and let us actual real pitt fans alone. Thanks for the post Raleigh. Lacrosse is a cool sport. My nieces live in Maryland and they love it. Not to big around here (my school district) doesn’t even have teams but hopefully it picks up.

 

[RaleighPittFan]

Nobody cares, Raleigh. You honestly start the most boring threads.

You PSU trolls a sensitive bunch of whiny little girls, aren't you?

 

[jivecat]

My guess is Men’s lacrosse will be installed in the next 5 years. Unfortunately, I think it may come at a cost to another sport unless the ACC funds are more bountiful than I thought.

 

[pittchagg]

What would you get rid of? My first guess would be Cross Country, but since that’s a women’s sport as well there may be Title IX ramifications.

The thing with that is that men’s cross country barely uses any scholarships, they don’t have facilities, and it’s an incredibly cheap sport to run considering they share a coach with the women.

The sport that probably makes the most sense is wrestling - it’s men only, it has exclusive team facilities, it’s more than ten scholarships, the travel and recruiting budgets are high, and it’s an overall money loser for every athletic department (even PSU and Iowa lose almost a million a year on it, and with their ticket sales they’re probably the closest to breaking even). It won’t be cut for a variety of reasons, especially considering all of the recent investment put into the program and the likelihood of the program actually becoming nationally competitive, but it’s probably the one that makes the most financial sense if you’re looking to add a men’s sport like lacrosse.

 

[pittdoc57]

The problem with men's lacrosse is that being competitive in the ACC will take a huge investment. There's no local talent base, no tradition, and since it doesn't exist yet no facilities. The ACC historically is a very strong men's lacrosse league and breaking into it in a respectable fashion will be damned near impossible unless the buy-in by all concerned is 100%.

Wrestling is expensive, but the established successful programs get a lot of donor money to support it. Wrestling fanatics are true fanatics, to say the least, and it helps to have rich ones.

 

[Las Panteras]

It would have been nice to have added a men's sport (like men's lacrosse) to keep the title lX numbers even, but I'm assuming the cost was prohibitive.

https://www.cardiachill.com/2019/1/...s-to-drop-womens-tennis-heather-lyke-lacrosse

That makes sense. However, I would not shut the door on mens lacrosse.

I mean, if Pitt were to add a men's sport, is there a more logical pick?

Maybe down the road?

 

[CrazyPaco]

What would you get rid of? My first guess would be Cross Country, but since that’s a women’s sport as well there may be Title IX ramifications.

You can't cut XC without destroying your T&F program. T&F is important for a variety of reasons and every ACC school sponsors men's and women's XC & indoor and outdoor T&F.

43 years of women's tennis at Pitt gone.

Pitt will be the only ACC school without women's tennis and the first school to drop a conference sport (at least since expansion). That is a bad look.

 

[CrazyPaco]

My guess is Men’s lacrosse will be installed in the next 5 years. Unfortunately, I think it may come at a cost to another sport unless the ACC funds are more bountiful than I thought.

Title IX makes adding men's lax in the next 5 years highly unlikely.

 

[passedout]

The thing with that is that men’s cross country barely uses any scholarships, they don’t have facilities, and it’s an incredibly cheap sport to run considering they share a coach with the women.

The sport that probably makes the most sense is wrestling - it’s men only, it has exclusive team facilities, it’s more than ten scholarships, the travel and recruiting budgets are high, and it’s an overall money loser for every athletic department (even PSU and Iowa lose almost a million a year on it, and with their ticket sales they’re probably the closest to breaking even). It won’t be cut for a variety of reasons, especially considering all of the recent investment put into the program and the likelihood of the program actually becoming nationally competitive, but it’s probably the one that makes the most financial sense if you’re looking to add a men’s sport like lacrosse.

No way wrestling gets cut.

 

[ThePanthers]

Whether its a bad look or not, i think lyke is doing what is best for the long term health of the entire athletic department. Only time will tell if it was the right move or not.

Pitt athletics hasnt been the healthiest of departments and it appears lyke is willing to make the tough changes that may help the future. Whether its looking at the victory heights and what sports it can keep the healthiest and most competitive long term.

It is a difficult decision which sucks and hard for many, especially the student athletes and staff.

I support and have interest in all of pitts programs and the entire athletic departmnet and want them all to be competive. Well see in the future if this was the right move to achieve this goal.

 

[pittchagg]

No way wrestling gets cut.

I totally agree, which is why the decision isn’t 100% financial. Wrestling is a sport where Pitt has the built-in potential to compete on a high national level. As a result, they’re more willing to take the financial hit because the potential for a bigger payoff is much higher than it is for a lot of the other sports we offer. My point was more that men’s cross country, in particular, is probably the lowest impact sport we offer in terms of scholarship and other funding needed to support it.

 

[CrazyPaco]

Whether its a bad look or not, i think lyke is doing what is best for the long term health of the entire athletic department. Only time will tell if it was the right move or not.

Pitt athletics hasnt been the healthiest of departments and it appears lyke is willing to make the tough changes that may help the future. Whether its looking at the victory heights and what sports it can keep the healthiest and most competitive long term.

It is a difficult decision which sucks and hard for many, especially the student athletes and staff.

I support and have interest in all of pitts programs and the entire athletic departmnet and want them all to be competive. Well see in the future if this was the right move to achieve this goal.

That may be, and I don't disagree with the business decision aspect of it, but what options were explored to fund raise for the program knowing it was on the chopping block. None, at least publicly. I hope they reached out to some program alumae and boosters privately.

 

[CrazyPaco]

I totally agree, which is why the decision isn’t 100% financial. Wrestling is a sport where Pitt has the built-in potential to compete on a high national level. As a result, they’re more willing to take the financial hit because the potential for a bigger payoff is much higher than it is for a lot of the other sports we offer. My point was more that men’s cross country, in particular, is probably the lowest impact sport we offer in terms of scholarship and other funding needed to support it.

The thing about XC is that a distance program is an essentially component of Track & Field. You actually don't save any scholarship numbers by cutting XC and not T&F. There is 12.6 combined scholarships for XC+T&F. That stays the same whether you have XC or not. It is just doesn't make sense to cut XC, and cutting men's track is a horrible move, and it actually could hurt football recruiting because there is the occasional speedster that wants to do both. You want experts on developing speed around your sports programs, that is, if you are running smart sports programs.

The other thing to consider is that there is a NCAA mandatory minimum number of total varsity sports sponsorship to maintain Division 1 status. Men's XC+indoor T&F+outdoor T&F count for three total sports with only a 12.6 scholarship burden between them and overlapping coaching staffs and minimal travel expenses due to competitions being mostly large invitations as dual meets have disappeared. It is fairly economical to sponsor these sports compared, to say, lacrosse. And i you do have facilities and can hold large invites (which is probably not going to happen at Pitt for outdoor, but maybe indoor if they build a facility), you can make some money from team entry fees. On the women's side, these are great head-count sports for balance. If you cut either XC or T&F for one gender, it would put a fairly large mark of non-commitment to the sport on the other and you are going to be hard pressed to recruit athletes or coaches.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Maybe women's ice hockey could be added. I know the area has women hockey players.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

I haven’t seen anywhere it being perceived a bad look. It was replaced with another women’s sport. Any other of the ACC schools play conf matches at a community athletic club 20 miles away? Pitt is 1-69. It’s terrible for all involved who invested what they could but I’m guessing Swofford didn’t push back very much.

 

[CrazyPaco]

I haven’t seen anywhere it being perceived a bad look. It was replaced with another women’s sport. Any other of the ACC schools play conf matches at a community athletic club 20 miles away? Pitt is 1-69. It’s terrible for all involved who invested what they could but I’m guessing Swofford didn’t push back very much.

Inside college athletics, especially for supposed major athletic programs, it is a bad look to cut programs, particularly conference programs that everyone else has. Do you see any other ACC schools cutting conference sports? They're adding them, not cutting them.

Swofford doesn't get a say, but neither did anyone actually connected to the program apparently, as no one was brought in to discuss the program's trajectory (which was up...they defeated WVU two years ago and PSU last year and won their first ACC tournament match last year and recruiting was in the process of major upgrades) or possible financial solutions, which is the problem. Tennis is at no worse starting point than soccer.

 

[Saboteur]

You PSU trolls a sensitive bunch of whiny little girls, aren't you?

I ignored this tampon long ago.

 

[pittdan77]

Inside college athletics, especially for supposed major athletic programs, it is a bad look to cut programs, particularly conference programs that everyone else has. Do you see any other ACC schools cutting conference sports? They're adding them, not cutting them.

Swofford doesn't get a say, but neither did anyone actually connected to the program apparently, as no one was brought in to discuss the program's trajectory (which was up...they defeated WVU two years ago and PSU last year and won their first ACC tournament match last year and recruiting was in the process of major upgrades) or possible financial solutions, which is the problem. Tennis is at no worse starting point than soccer.

I feel like there's something more to the story. Did a major donor go away? Is it a facility problem? I get the optics but I'm not upset with Pitt maximizing the value of its athletic budget if things are as tight as everyone claims.

 

[Black_Man_Panther]

43 years of women's tennis at Pitt gone.

Pitt will be the only ACC school without women's tennis and the first school to drop a conference sport (at least since expansion). That is a bad look.

As if bussing the ladies out to Oakmont for practice was a good look.

 

[CrazyPaco]

I feel like there's something more to the story. Did a major donor go away? Is it a facility problem? I get the optics but I'm not upset with Pitt maximizing the value of its athletic budget if things are as tight as everyone claims.

No major donor went away, as far as I know. I'm pretty sure the decision perturbed at least one major donor. Facilities were obviously a problem because they didn't have any. But someone that knows the program much better than I doesn't think the lack of facilities was a major impediment to continued improvement in the program and I'll take their word for it, and I don't think the coach felt any differently.

I'm not upset with the business side. It is logical from a business perspective and I get the decision. I just wish they would have tried, at least privately, to seek ways to save the program by seeking new financial support before reaching the final decision on this. That apparently wasn't done, which is my major problem with it. This is just a devastating decision for the athletes, staff, and alumae, and such decisions always are no matter where they are made. I understand why Pitt did it, but don't feel they went about reaching their conclusion before exhausting all alternatives.