Wrestling Advocate Wants Students to Speak Out on Athletic Fees ...

In Mike Moyer?s crusade to bring back the hundreds of collegiate wrestling teams that have been eliminated over the past three decades, a new battlefront has emerged. Call it the war over student fees.

At many Division I athletic programs, student fees provide the lion?s share of revenues?sometimes covering as much as two-thirds of all expenses. For that reason, Moyer, the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, thinks students should be more involved in major decisions in athletics. Say, for instance, a decision to eliminate a wrestling team.

?Most of their athletic department money doesn?t belong to the school, and it doesn?t belong to the state. It belongs to the students,? Moyer says. ?It?s their money. They need to have more say in how it gets allocated.?

In recent months, Moyer has met with student-government representatives at a handful of universities to encourage them to pay attention to the way their student fees are spent.? California is a specific target: Several of the state?s collegiate wrestling programs have been discontinued in recent years, and only four NCAA programs remain. He?s also trying to reach out to coaches and athletes in other Olympic sports to discuss the financial model that supports them?and that also makes them vulnerable.

The University of California at Davis is one place Moyer has been focusing his efforts. Last summer, UC-Davis dropped four of its 27 sports?women?s rowing, and men?s swimming, indoor track and field, and wrestling?as the athletic department absorbed more than $2-million in budget cuts. Over all, the university slashed more than $36-million from its budget in response to a rollback in state support.

Moyer?s message to the students was this: It?s your money. Speak up.

?The intercollegiate athletic business model is terribly broken, and everybody knows it. However, administrations continue to field it even though they know it?s not sustainable. And that?s the travesty,? Moyer says. ?It?s becoming a question of how much more carnage of Olympic sports is going to have to occur before [administrators develop] a better business model.?

For now, though, student fees continue to prop up many Division I athletic departments that lack the diverse revenue streams of big-time programs. And as state lawmakers continue to wrestle with soaring deficits and flagging revenues, there?s no clear solution in sight.

Still, Moyer is optimistic that by appealing directly to students, he can persuade athletic officials to preserve programs. ?We talk so much about why athletics is important in our society,? he says. ??If every time money gets tight we?re going to kick sports out to the curb, eventually you run out of sports.?

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Source: http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/wrestling-advocate-wants-students-to-speak-out-on-athletic-fees/28796

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