Temple University To Cut Seven Sports, Including Baseball, Rowing
By Tim Jimenez
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Temple University announced today that it is cutting seven intercollegiate sports as of next July.
Temple Athletics says it will be cutting back from 24 varsity sports to 17, following a seven-month analysis of the university's athletic programs in an effort to cut costs.
The sports being cut are baseball, softball, men's crew, women's crew, men's gymnastics, men's outdoor track and field, and men's indoor track and field.
Nine coaches will lose their jobs.
The university says the decision to cut the sports was the culmination of a study of the school's underfunded athletic department and its large number of sports.
Athletic director Kevin Clark said it was one of the hardest decisions he's ever had to make. He said 150 student-athletes will be affected, and those under scholarship will be able to transfer out without having to sit out a year.
Temple Senior Associate Athletic Director, Larry Dougherty says, "We are not able to give the quality of student athlete care that we would like to have for our division one athletic program with this amount of sports being sponsored. So that is the reason we reduced our program to 17 varsity sports today."
The last time Temple cut programs was in 1986, when it eliminated eight sports.
The cuts are expected to save about $3 million dollars in the $44 million athletic budget.
