Commentary by Jeff Commings, Swimming World Senior Writer
When we hear that a collegiate swimming and diving program is being canceled, the primary reason the universities give is budget cuts. But is that always the case?
According to documents obtained by Swimming World, the University of California-Davis was not telling the truth when it announced in 2010 that the men’s swimming and diving program would be among four programs cut from the athletic department due to budget tightening. What really happened was that the money that would have been used to pay for those coaches and operate the sports was siphoned to other teams. Even more shocking was that the athletic department did not cut back on expenses, but continued to give sports more money to spend.
Linda Katehi, the current Chancellor at UC-Davis, said in 2010 that cutting men’s swimming and diving – as well as women’s rowing, men’s wrestling and men’s indoor track and field – would help cut $5 million from the athletic department’s budget and put the finances back in the black by 2014. Expenses would be reduced, and that was going to include a cut in administrative salaries. Katehi also said the university would no longer be receiving state funds for athletics.
Everyone believed what Katehi was saying, and they had good reason to do so. California was going through a statewide budget crisis at the time, and public universities across the state began to panic when they realized they might have to slice some programs on their campuses.
But as the years went on, UC-Davis’ athletic department’s budget showed no sign of anemia. In the four years after cutting the four teams, expenses increased 15 percent, from $25.7 million in 2011 to $29.5 million in 2015. The athletic department continued to operate in a loss for two of those years, as expenses exceeded revenue. No member of the administration received a pay cut.
Documents reveal that UC-Davis’ athletic department was not receiving any state money in 2010 when it made this tough decision. Revenue was largely coming from student tuition, thanks to a funding program called the Student Activities and Services Initiative (SASI) that was universally approved by the student body in 1994. The initiative would pay coaching salaries and allow coaches to also act as teachers in the school’s physical education department, an extra job responsibility almost exclusive to UC-Davis. Another program, the Campus Expansion Initiative (CEI), would help pay for the university’s main goal of adhering to Title IX directives by adding women’s sports while promising equal treatment among sports in the athletic department.
But there was unequal treatment in the UC-Davis athletic department. Rowing was the university’s largest women’s sport, and cutting that team created a major imbalance in the male-to-female ratio. The remedy to that imbalance: Cut three men’s teams. Since then, no new women’s sports have been added to the program, which is a major violation of one of the major principles of the university created as a result of the CEI referendum.
The lies continued. Paul Medved is an alumnus of the university, and was a major supporter of the university until the athletic department announced its program cuts in 2010. It enraged Medved, but the real anger came a few years later when he began to review the athletic department’s budgets and saw that spending was not declining as promised.
“I couldn’t believe that they thought they were getting away with it,” Medved said during a recent phone chat. “After that, I couldn’t watch a [UC-Davis] football game without getting angry or sick to my stomach.”
Because student tuition is a large revenue source for the athletic department, the UC-Davis students could be viewed as stockholders. In essence, the university was lying to its stockholders as it continued to overspend and seemingly do nothing to reduce the budget. That was particularly infuriating to Medved, and he started to reach out to the university administration to demand answers. The few people he managed to talk to turned a deaf ear to his complaints and a blind eye to the documents he sent them.
Realizing that the university wasn’t going to answer to him, Medved felt the only way the public would see how the university was cheating the system was through legislative action. Medved has been working to secure legal representation and sue the university on behalf of the student body, but no attorney has been willing to accept such a daunting case.
“It’s what gets me out of bed early in the morning every weekend,” Medved said of his work to get a court date.
The men’s swim team at UC-Davis was on track to be successful two years after it was disbanded. Alumnus Scott Weltz won the 200 breast at the 2012 Olympic Trials, and his participation at the Olympics – placing fifth in the 200 breast final – would have been a boon for the program to bring in top talent. Medved, whose daughter Emily competed on the women’s swim team from 2005 to 2009, said the university did nothing to promote Weltz’s performance at the Olympics, and he believes it was because the promotion would have triggered a public push to bring back the men’s swim team.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Though Medved is looking at the broader picture, others have focused their fight solely on bringing back all or some of the programs cut in 2010. Those petitions have also gone ignored.
UC-Davis has been very quiet in the past four years about this issue, either with the public or the media. A statement from Katehi in 2014 published by the school newspaper The California Aggie remains one of the few public comments from the administration.
“As challenging as these decisions were, I am confident that we took the steps necessary to protect our core educational, research and public service missions and acted in accordance with our institutional values,” Katehi said in the newspaper article.
I would like to believe that the situation at UC-Davis is unique, that no other university who cut an athletic team lied to cover up a completely opposite agenda. The athletes were the biggest victims, and there’s nothing that Katehi can say to ease the pain.
Though UC-Davis is still hurting financially, the university’s athletic department needs to seriously consider reinstating the four teams it cut in 2010. Though these sports do not generate millions in revenue, it would be a great public relations move that would help restore faith and possibly give the school’s alumni base motivation to help solve the school’s money problems.
Yep. I have been involved in this process since the team was cut.
Wow….
I have remained in contact with Paul Medved and have continued to support his efforts in getting all of this to become transparent. What was done to the men’s swimming team was catastrophic. Katehi never once worried about the young men who did not get to finish their four years as college swimmers. Although my son Scott graduated the year they dropped the program, he was extremely vocal at hearings both in Davis and Sacramento committee hearings. We all wanted swimming for the men to be reinstated. The injustice of what happened to a great coach, Pete Motekaitis, made us all angry. My hope is that the men’s team will eventually come back and that UC Davis will realize that giving one sport the majority of the funds is wrong and ludicrous.
Lying bureaucratic liars who cover up for their fraud. It’s filthy and disgusting. Where can people contribute to the lawsuit?
This is typical of a corrupt UC system. The UC system has operated for years believing they are above the law. If you believe the article as I do, please forward the link to your State representative and demand that a investigation be implemented.
I’m sure there is/was some funny business going on with cutting the men’s and women’s swim and dive team at the College of Charleston also.
UC Irvine cut Diving and Sailing around the same time. A school in Newport Beach cuts Sailing. It was very odd at the time and they were not forthcoming either. My daughter dove for UCI and was very disappointed her sport was gone. Not fair to the student athletes who are recruited to attend. Good luck.
Athletic departments have been using the same story for 20 years. In 2001 Swimming world published this playbook – http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/saving_our_sport.pdf
So sad! UCD had a great program back in the day ?
Correct, one of those guys swam on the 2012 Olympic Team in the 200BR (Scott Weltz).
We will wait a year and do a budget study. Have I mentioned that AD Joe hull and pres Mcconnell at college of charleston suck and have no morals. They screwed our student athletes and they will someday experience karma.
Same at Syracuse, Maryland and UCLA
Of course.. Ugh
Iowa States budget is clearly more robust than in 2001. It’s a tragedy don’t get me wrong, I was a part of the 1995 Iowa State team that was scheduled to be discontinued until we won the Big 8 meet.
Iowa State used the same reason in 2001 – http://articles.philly.com/2001-04-29/sports/25329376_1_baseball-program-iowa-state-baseball-coach
Yeah this is soo bad!
It was a huge loss for Northern California.
Jessie Rogers Dustin Aric Luchini
told ya so…
Every student affected by these cuts (myself included) knew that these cuts were malarky. I’m just happy that more people can learn the truth now.
Stuart another swim program
#MensSwimmingMatters
Couple more things…
One of the “guiding principles” included in the CEI (the initiative which enabled the university’s move to Division I) was that entire sports could not be cut. And one of the provisions of the SASI was that university had to continue paying for the academic portion of the teacher-coach salaries. The Katehi administration simply walked away from its obligations under both these UC Regent-approved student fee initiatives.
Since those four sports were cut in 2010 spending on the remaining 23 sports has increased by $4.8 million with 40% going to just two sports. Anyone care to guess which two?
Finally (for now), the men’s basketball coach (53-72 with exactly one winning season at UC Davis) was just awarded a new five year contract extension including a 140% raise over his starting salary in 2011.
Seems like no one wants to listen to what is happening Paul. I know how diligent you have been with this issue. Someone needs to heed what is going on especially with the amount of money they are giving coaches for basketball and football at UCD. Neither team deserves to have that much money spent on its coaching staff. What is the message we are sending to the public?
Title iX
Sad.
Have they spoken to Nancy Hogshead-makar about helping fight. She does a lot of title IX work
This article seems a bit one-sided and missing important information. It would be helpful to know how UC Davis compares to peer institutions in terms of total athletic department budget, number of sports offered, sources of funding, etc.. It would also be helpful to know how increases in athletic expenses at UC Davis compare to national trends. I would not find it at all surprising if almost every Division I university in the country saw a 15% increase in expenses between 2011 and 2015. It should also be noted that the Great West football conference collapsed in 2011 and UC Davis was forced to move to the geographically dispersed Big Sky conference with (presumably) increased travel costs.
Nonsense! The point of the article is that UC Davis clearly lied. This has nothing to do with how much they spend relative to other schools. What is your point? Oh, and did you skip the part about how the students pay for sports out of a self-imposed fee? Why are you trying to conflate the issue? Are you trolling for the UC Davis administration. If yes, you’re terrible at it!
The self-imposed fee only funds a portion of the athletic department budget. Lots of schools have this and there is nothing special about UC Davis in this regard. Nonetheless, UC Davis manages to fund 23 sports. More than most of their peer schools (i.e. Cal Poly, UCSB, etc). I don’t recall anything in the language of SASI that stipulated that no sports could ever be cut. SASI was passed because UCD students wanted something better than the Division II status quo which existed at that time. They wanted to experience the excitement of Division I competition and exposure it would bring to the university. It’s unfortunate that some few sports have been cut along the way but most alumni would agree that UCD athletics have changed for the better.
Also, for those of you belly aching about Title IX, I would like to point out that an inexpensive women’s sport (rowing) was cut while three relatively more expensive men’s sports (swimming & diving, wrestling, indoor track and field) were cut. How is that a Title IX violation? If anything, it is improving the university’s Title IX compliance by raising the % funding allocated to women’s sports. Also note that the women’s rowing team lives on as a club sport (same as the men’s rowing team).
Clearly, reading comprehension is not your strong suit. It’s quite simple, women’s rowing had more participants than the tree men’s sports, ergo Title IX compliance worse. No wonder Paul Medved is having such a hard time, people can’t keep simple facts straight. SMH.
No Matt. Title IX is primarily based on dollars (not participants). But even if we look at it from the participation angle, women’s rowing has FAR less participants than the combined participation in men’s swimming & diving, wrestling, and indoor track and field. Women’s rowing probably has about 30 athletes. So, looking at it again from just the perspective of the number of athletes impacted. Approx 30 women. Approx 75 men.
Facts.
I always hate to pit Olympic sports against each other based on gender.
Per NCAA Scholarship limits Women’s rowing has 20 possible scholarships.
Men’s swimming and wrestling have 9.9 possible scholarships. Indoor track is additional season for track and field and really is only operational expense. I am pretty sure the Men’s swim team was not fully funded. UC Davis still has pool, women’s swim team and men’s water polo team, so the cost savings were not that great. It was more than likely a participation numbers game. I do not think the other women’s sports benefited financially. If UC Davis released full budget numbers per sport we could put this to rest.
Matt, not trying to stir this thing you and Bret have going on, however Men’s swimming was also funded by donations made specifically for the men’s team. Parents who pledged the money for 2010-2011 were not even reimbursed for the money they donated specifically for Men’s swimming . The women had there own fund raiser as well. I really don’t feel Title IX had much to do with the decision and unless you are privy to information that Paul Medved has been unable to dig up, then what has been said about cutting those four sports to keep costs down was all fabricated by Katehi and her then Athlectic Director. SASI came into effect long before any talk about Title I status. The monies from SASI and donations for the athletic department has been siphoned for years to over fund only those sports the admin felt would be money makers for the school. If things can not be done so that is it transparent for all to know what is going on, then I can only assume someone is hiding the real truth. I am more than pleased Swimming World has brought it back to the attention of its readers. The comments made here should be about what happened at UCD, not a place to name call or belittle each other.
Here is the original press release from UC Davis in April of 2010:
http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9432
Nowhere in the press release do they say that funding for other sports will not increase. In fact, they clearly are anticipating that funding for other sports WILL increase by noting the need to “generate higher levels of revenue and gifts”. Furthermore, the overarching reason for cutting the four sports was to “return the department to fiscal solvency in three to five years.” I believe that the department has been returned to fiscal solvency so mission accomplished. Now, would the department be fiscally solvent even if the 4 sports had not been cut? That is the $5M question people should be asking. A deep dive into the numbers is required to make that determination. I don’t think its right to say that UC Davis “lied” based on an observation that athletic department expenses increased following the sports cuts. Revenues clearly increased as well and the University should be commended for strengthening the fiscal state of the athletic department while making it less dependent on student fees.
To keep this important conversation tracking on a factual basis, I offer the following:
1) While the CEI was absolutely intended to protect the program’s (and the university’s) integrity in prospective new a Division I era, including with respect to Title IX, its “payload” was a commitment by the students to begin paying for athletic grant-in-aids (scholarships). The conditions (the guiding or “core principles”) included were the delivery vehicle, without which the initiative would very likely not have passed at all (as it had not passed a prior advisory vote by the UC Davis academic senate by a 2:1 margin).
2) According to Vice Chancellor Fred Wood’s memo to Chancellor Linda Katehi of 4/15/10 the number of affected student-athletes by sport were: Women’s Rowing (73), Men’s Swimming/Diving (28), Wrestling (32), and Indoor Track (20).
As for my own view, while there are many reasons to be concerned about a many aspects of what happened in 2010 and continues to happen to this day, this is not so much about Title IX (unless men’s sports, particularly football and men’s basketball, have been advantaged over women’s sports because of it) as it is about the civil rights of all those who have paid into these two student fee initiatives over the years, including the directly affected student athletes themselves. On top of their regular tuition, every UC Davis undergraduate pays more than $650 each year in initiative fees which support intercollegiate athletics. As the author suggests, they are indeed stockholders and they deserve to be treated honestly and fairly. And so I agree with Matt, Rhonda and others…more than anything else this is about calling out the University of California on a subtle but profound and shameful form of institutional abuse that in this case is based on an outright lie.
It would have been helpful to have a more well-rounded article. UC Davis (not UC-Davis) has a robust 23 sport program which few schools provide at the I-AA level. UC Davis also has facilities needs which cover numerous sports, so adding 4 sports just makes all of that more difficult. Besides, what schools on the west coast feature 27 sports?
Does Mr. Medved know the increase in yearly budget (dollars) that went to football, and men’s and women’s basketball? He may also know if they went into debt to build Aggie Stadium.
In the future, it would also be helpful to define terms like CEI.
Yes sir, happy to oblige…
Just a few miles away Cal lists 28 sports, Stanford 35. Stanford, btw, is frequently cited as the program UC Davis most aspires to be like.
The students also passed the Facilities and Campus Enhancements (FACE) initiative in 1999 to pay for facilities such as the new football (multi-use) stadium and a new swim center. So the students pay for all that too, but so far as I know the Katehi administration hasn’t lied about that part.
Between 2009-10 (the year prior to eliminating four Olympic sports) and 2013-14 (the most recent UC Davis EADA data available from the university itself) football expenses rose from $2,740,374 to $4,080,338. I believe that’s an increase of 48.9%.
During those same years men’s basketball rose from $798,130 to $1,394,151. I believe that’s an increase of 74.7%.
During those same years Women’s basketball went from $795,206 to $1,051,777, and increase of 32.3%.
CEI = Campus Expansion Initiative (2002-3)
Everyone is free to arrive at their own opinion about this, but after studying it very carefully over the past five years and speaking with many very well informed people, I can tell you I’ve sure got mine. Please let me know if you have any more questions. Meanwhile, cheers.
Thank you. Are there links for these yearly numbers? I thought I read late last night that a financial analyst in athletics has a public presentation once a year on the budget, is this correct, and if so, do you know where/ when it happens?
Stanford and California are Pac-12 schools with a hundred twenty year history in big time college athletics. UC Davis is about one hundred ten years behind them, which is just a little bit of a disadvantage. They also both make tens of millions from TV revenue and such. Davis has no such money flow. They also have massive endowments.
Is the $600 or $630 a year fee you mentioned just for athletic grants, or does that also cover the facilities students voted for (FACE?)?
Paul, are you seriously going to cite Cal and Stanford as comparables? What is the total athletic department budget at those universities and how does that compare to UC Davis? How many sports could Cal and Stanford sustain if they were forced to do so at UC Davis levels of funding?
I was just answering Bill’s question. Feel free to draw your own comparisons (but try not to make it so easy for Matt, Brett). I believe the $650/yr number covers all three initiatives – SASI, FACE and CEI.
Note, Stanford’s numbers are their own, but up until very recently Cal’s Athletics program reportedly ran an annual operating deficit of about $12 million/yr. After a considerable amount of bad press I believe they’ve reduced it to a mere $4-5 million/yr. I’ll leave out the part about the hundreds of millions in infrastructure debt and abysmal graduation rates for football and men’s basketball. Go Bears. But, in fairness and very much unlike UC Davis, Cal never promised their students anything else. Remember, that’s the point of all this.
As for fiscal transparency and accountability at UC Davis it’s just lip service given to a poorly informed and unsuspecting few. Numbers are macro level only and there is no attempt whatsoever made to transparently demonstrate compliance with the terms and conditions of the enabling student funding initiatives, particularly the SASI and CEI. Almost no one has any idea whatsoever what they’re paying for or what they’re entitled to and that’s precisely the way the Katehi administration wants it. Go Ags.
PS You might find this recent commentary from Frank Deford interesting… http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=450236473
FWIW, I wouldn’t add in the FACE cost as purely some political burden ICA has to bear. If I read correctly, that funded much needed facilities, including ARC for intramurals. That, DI to DI, and adding / subtracting sports are another issue.
I think some argue that former AD Warzecka added sports without looking at the long-term financial obligations, i.e., they bit off more than they could chew.
My apologies if I made the mistake of looking at this in the simplest possible terms. Ok, not really. Paul, while I admire your commitment to digging up and understanding all the money issues. My point and the point of the article was thi: Regardless of how UCD administration spins this, it seems clear (in my opinion) that they lied. That is all, again, sorry I’m so simple minded. BTW, I’m a former Davis water polo player and have gave money for the construction of the new swim center.
I truly am sorry for the typos in my previous post. Hope you all get my gist.
Paul, former AD Terry Tumey was supposed to attend some Davis student government meetings (ASUCD) last year, but he didn’t make them, and instead the campus sent lawyers. Do you have any feedback on those meetings / purpose? All I could conclude was that the campus or ICA hired a special liaison to communicate between ICA, the campus, and ASUCD. Is there anything more?
No need to apologize, Matt. You’re spot on with the main point of all this. All the rest are details. Since when is it ok for the top administrator(s) of a UC campus to conduct, perpetuate and cover up a lie? What lessons are being taught to its students? And why, when they case is made time and time again for them, does Janet Napolitano’s office do nothing about it?
Bill, You may be right about biting off more then they could chew back in the day, but who did that and then who was made to suffer? And you are right about Terry Tumey’s approach to ASUCD and ICA’s contractual, professional and moral obligations to it. But remember, since 2010 the AD reports directly to the Chancellor herself and none of this would be happening without the Chancellor’s personal blessing (it’s all part of her “excellence” campaign). Up until then the AD reported to the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs (who reported to the Chancellor but had an obligation to the students, too). So we should all try to cut any new AD some slack (while still holding them accountable) even when they don’t get it right. As for the new hire in Student Affairs, he’s probably a good guy, but he reports to people who report to the Chancellor. What freedom to do the right thing can he possibly have? I sent him seven questions* this past summer that went to the heart of the problem (cc’ing ASUCD leadership, the VC of Student Affairs and the AD so they could witness the exchange) and, however hard he personally tried, he was not able to provide a single substantive responses before saying he had to end the conversation. So judge for yourself what the students are getting in the way of information. In my opinion it’s just this administration’s latest effort to pull the wool over the eyes of its students (and take advantage of their own turnover). And because it’s supposedly based on trust it’s probably the most insidious attempt yet. Go Ags.
*If you can figure out how to send me your email address I’ll send them to you. Maybe send it care of Jeff C.
Just seeing Brett’s last post of 10/21. In response, the most recent data FY13-14 showed that the university had to kick in $2,182,053 to make it look like ICA’s budget was running a surplus. If not for that contribution ICA would have been in the red yet again (just as it was for the two years prior). To ask what the program would have spent if those four teams hadn’t been cut or suggest that anyone is against honest growth in each team’s budget is to miss the point yet again. Those budgets grew at the expense of the teams which were cut. So even did ICA Admin’s budget despite assurance that it would be reduced and with four less sports to manage. And that is anything but what the university explained back in 2010, including in the link you cite. Had it been framed that way, had what would later become the truth been clear at the time – that this was an invitation to a Donner Party style banquet, no one would have supported those cuts…not even those associated with the other sports. Hopefully you wouldn’t have either.
Paul, your work and knowledge about the workings of UCDavis Athletics is admirable. I for one applaud what you have done. There will always be naysayers who think that what was done to these teams was okay and not a big deal. I agree that the article is to open peoples eyes as to what really happened. Thank you for your never ending courage to help educate people about the truth of 2010 sports cuts and expose the lies.