As the spring months roll around, most of the college campuses across the nation have one major sport to concentrate on: baseball. However, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has not fielded a collegiate baseball team in more than 15 years, leaving students, faculty and fans curious about the dismissal of the program.
There were several reasons why Pat Richter, the newly hired athletic director at the time, decided to drop the Wisconsin baseball program after its 1991 season. Richter played baseball for UW when he was a student, but the athletic department was approximately $2.1 million dollars in debt and it wasn't going to be able to dig itself out of the financial hole without making changes. Baseball was not the only sport to be dismissed by the Wisconsin athletic department as men's and women's fencing and men's and women's gymnastics were also cut. Although he and the community had mixed feelings about the decision, it was the right thing to do.
The baseball team did not receive much fan support as the university imagined it could have near the end of its 117-year tradition. It seemed like the most logical decision to cut the program.
Title IX regulations also played a factor in dropping baseball. Title IX enforces a three-point gender equity system in both education and athletic programs across the United States. First, schools must provide athletic opportunities that are proportionate to enrollment numbers. Additionally, both men's and women's sports must have comparable financial support, and there should be a comparable number of male athletes to female athletes.
This becomes complicated at large universities. Wisconsin, for instance, sponsors a football team which alone takes up 100 male athletes. To comply with Title IX, Wisconsin then has to sponsor approximately 100 female athletes from various sports. And since football teams typically bring in money for the university, it would not make sense to drop that men's sport to make room for others.
Although Wisconsin is the only university in the Big Ten that does not have a baseball team, Wisconsin Senior Associate Athletic Director Vince Sweeney said last year that there are no plans for the sport's return to UW. To add a baseball program, Wisconsin would either have to drop one of its other men's programs or add another women's program to comply with Title IX regulations. There would be no reason to drop a different men's team, and adding both a women's team and a baseball would be quite expensive.
Aside from paying coaches, giving scholarships to players and building a baseball field somewhere on campus, the athletic department would also have to pay for baseball equipment, travel expenses, and a communications and promotional staff. And those are just the finances on the surface.
Although some people argue Title IX has a negative effect on men's sports, universities that abide by the law can still find ways of having successful programs by both genders. Title IX is actually a very fair system. Universities across the nation went from having very few opportunities for women to having a large array of them, both academically and athletically.
Yes, the UW athletic program may not be in financial trouble like it used to be, but to bring baseball back to campus now may be too much work just for the sake of fielding a team. There is no proof that the program would be successful or that it would be able to pay for itself.
Wisconsin has had a club baseball team for several years, and even though it is not university sponsored, it at least gives the sport some representation on campus. Maybe someday baseball will be sponsored by the Wisconsin athletic department, but for now, it is in Wisconsin's best interest to focus on the sports it already has than trying to start up other programs, especially with the economy in the United States being so horrific.
Do you think Wisconsin should field a baseball team? E-mail Crystal your thoughts at crowns@wisc.edu.
