TEMPE, Arizona, May 14. IN an article in the Arizona Republic, Jason Skoda and Richard Obert collected several reactions from impacted student-athletes after a meeting with Arizona State Athletics Director Lisa Love.
Yesterday, Love met with members of the men's swimming, tennis and wrestling programs to discuss ASU's decision to cut the three programs. Some semblance of hope has been given to the cut programs as endowment targets have been set up in an attempt to save each program. This is a far cry better than the way Rutgers handled its cut, but no where near the phase-out Syracuse is currently working with that actually gives the Orange time to raise the money.
It will take $5 million to endow the men's swimming program, while tennis would require $5 million and wrestling would need $8 million.
Several of the remarks in the article demonstrate just how hard this decision will hit those student-athletes that have been cut.
Freshman swimmer Miran Terzic, a sprinter from Bosnia-Herzegovina, said he had just done a long lease on a house before learning the program was being cut.
"It's like, 'What now?' " Terzic said. "Now I have to start the process of starting all over somewhere."
He said he woke up to the news.
"Totally blindsided," Terzic said. "I don't know what to do."
Another quote from the article demonstrates just how secretive the athletics department as a whole was about the process, when contacting the impacted student-athletes before making a final decision may have led to potential solutions.
"The thing that disturbs me the most is we asked the question before Kyle signed about the stability of the program," the elder DeBerry said. "We asked point-blank, 'Is the program financially stable?' (Senior Associate Athletic Director) Don Bocchi said, 'No question, he will be here all four or five years.' I keep playing that conversation over in my mind and saying, 'Wow.' "
Full text of the Arizona Republic article.
As the Save Arizona State Swimming movement becomes organized, Swimming World will keep its readers updated on what can be done to help.