Sports that were cut a year ago…
- Thread starter GoUIowa
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The only one added back was women's swimming and that was only due to a court order/lawsuit. The lawsuit coincidentally was dropped the same time women's wrestling was announced.
I have no issue with women's wrestling but do have an issue that 4 men's sports were cut last year, even after some had come up with the money to self fund, all blamed on covid budget issues. It is a really bad look to add a new sport, that no other school in the P5 offers, one year later, when the athletic department is still moaning about having to take a loan from the university and the cost to service that debt over the next 10 years.
While this may be great for wrestling it could be the final nail in the coffin for Barta (or we can hope).
I have no issue with women's wrestling but do have an issue that 4 men's sports were cut last year, even after some had come up with the money to self fund, all blamed on covid budget issues. It is a really bad look to add a new sport, that no other school in the P5 offers, one year later, when the athletic department is still moaning about having to take a loan from the university and the cost to service that debt over the next 10 years.
While this may be great for wrestling it could be the final nail in the coffin for Barta (or we can hope).
Why I agree with you initial point (bad taste in my mouth about adding a sport after cutting 4), I actually think this is good for Barta. I also think women's wrestling was a necessary add. It is growing and I think it's better to be on the front end of that growth. Also those men's sports were so important to me, that I couldn't even tell you what they were.
I am sure there are a lot of sports that could be cut at Iowa. Why do have to have some of those sports? You can create a club and participate if you want.
Adding Women's wrestling is a great move. The sport is growing, and a growing participation rate and fanbase for women's wrestling does in fact grow the entire sport. Also, it provides great optics for the university, beyond the usual Title IX, and "women's" sports such as volleyball, gymnastics, field hockey, softball etc. Wrestling has always been a "men's" sport and a women's program demonstrates enlightenment/woke fwiw, and creates the optics of breaking down barriers and forging new ground for women. But, it's Iowa, shouldn't Iowa be one of college/university programs with a women's program? Shouldn't Iowa be the first power 5 to add it? Now, I still think eliminating opportunities for men and women is still b.s. especially when they claim it is budget problems brought on by covid, while universities expand stadiums etc. and then fail to reinstate when private donors ponie up the money to save the program.
One of the men's teams that was cut is one of the few sports that Iowa has won a national championship in, men's Gymnastics.
Then they cut two other sports that they have to keep the relatively new facilities for because they are keeping the women's teams of those sports, Tennis and Swimming.
Maybe we could drop the women's programs of those sports and add a culinary program they can enroll in?
It's Iowa... in the unfortunate event you have to cut other sports but add wrestling, you do it 100 times out of 100.
I get that fans of cut sports are a little salty today. Unfortunately, they have to look at revenue plus Title IX considerations. Also, the women's wrestling program sounds like it is going to be self-funded for the next few years (thank you donors). The sport of wrestling is in the very roots of the state of Iowa and with the growth in girls wrestling, just makes sense to take it to the next level.
I went to three different high schools growing up in various states. All three had wrestling programs, two had swimming and none had men or women's gymnastics as it (still) exists as mainly a club sport. The two schools that had swimming were larger schools and the one that didn't was your typical small town school. If a school had a swim program, it was usually in larger and/or wealthier schools. In Iowa, swimming has less than 50 total schools that participate in the state.whereas there were 457 girls from 100 different schools that wrestled in Iowa's (unsanctioned) state wrestling tourney. They started a few years back with only 67 participants. This increase in girls wrestling is not just happening in Iowa. Hell, Iowa is catching up as Texas and California have been leading the way.
If anybody can commiserate with fans of a cut sport, it's wrestling fans. At Iowa, we had no fear about being cut but were worried about smaller programs or even well known schools cutting during Covid. I think in some cases, Covid was used as a cover to cut non revenue sports. It happened to wrestling at schools like Stanford and Fresno st (again). A grass roots movement saved Stanford's program.
I went to three different high schools growing up in various states. All three had wrestling programs, two had swimming and none had men or women's gymnastics as it (still) exists as mainly a club sport. The two schools that had swimming were larger schools and the one that didn't was your typical small town school. If a school had a swim program, it was usually in larger and/or wealthier schools. In Iowa, swimming has less than 50 total schools that participate in the state.whereas there were 457 girls from 100 different schools that wrestled in Iowa's (unsanctioned) state wrestling tourney. They started a few years back with only 67 participants. This increase in girls wrestling is not just happening in Iowa. Hell, Iowa is catching up as Texas and California have been leading the way.
If anybody can commiserate with fans of a cut sport, it's wrestling fans. At Iowa, we had no fear about being cut but were worried about smaller programs or even well known schools cutting during Covid. I think in some cases, Covid was used as a cover to cut non revenue sports. It happened to wrestling at schools like Stanford and Fresno st (again). A grass roots movement saved Stanford's program.
None of those sports came up with the money to self fund. The cut sports collectively barely came up with enough money to find more than 1-2 of them for a single season.
If you somehow think this reflects poorly on Barta you’re trying/thinking way too hard.
The Apr 24, 2018 gift of $2.4M established the Kirk and Diane Mellecker Family Head Men’s Tennis Coach Fund. This fund created the first endowed coaching position at the University of Iowa. At the time, Barta said this: "Their significant contribution will transform the lives of so many Hawkeye student-athletes for generations to come.” Link to that story: https://www.foriowa.org/iowa-stories/iowa-story.php?isid=4&namer=true
For generations to come.
Not.
Usually being well endowed is a good thing. Now, what happens to the $2.4M endowment? I hope they have to refund it!
For generations to come.
Not.
Usually being well endowed is a good thing. Now, what happens to the $2.4M endowment? I hope they have to refund it!
Scott spells it out more in this tweet.
This was done to make the Title IX lawsuit go away
Not sure about that one. Women’s wrestling has been in the cards since the facility was a dream. That was long before Covid and dropping sports.
as you usual you just continue to make things up to fit your premise as you go along.
I researched this because it kind of tied into one of my earlier posts about the market for these sports in Iowa so I was curious:
Gymnastics: 2/15 men's, 5/21 for women
Tennis: 0 Mens, 0 for women
Swimming: 3/27 Mens, 1/12 womens.
In all of the above sports, there were more athletes from foreign countries than from Iowa which begs the question...why the f*ck do we not have a guy in Dagestan? Anyways, Iowa is at a low point for Iowans (thats about to change) on the roster and we still have about 1/3. Football has a sh*tload.
Why is there never a push by public universities to maintain some sort of in-state proportionality in athletics? They do it for the overall student body. Seems like it would make sense since athletic scholarships make up a fairly decent number of overall scholarships at these schools and since these schools are funded by taxpayers.
Wait, what? A potential women’s program has been discussed since the idea of the new facility went public.
Exactly. If we aren't looking hard at Dagestan, or maybe some places like Mongolia or even Azerbajan we might be overlooking talent. That said, I'm always pleased to see more wrestlers from Iowa wrestling at Iowa colleges.
You don't think cutting sports, getting sued and then reinstating the only women's sport that was cut isn't a bad look?
It is also a little silly IMO to have women's swimming/diving and tennis, but not men's considering they share a lot of the same resources. But I know that has happened at other schools too.
Somewhat on this topic, not sure if this was brought up previously, but remember when they said the football coaches were going to take a paycut due the pandemic? Apparently that never happened, and several actually got increases (but Brands and others did have their pay cut) - https://swimswam.com/iowa-football-coaches-did-not-take-pay-cuts-as-previously-announced/
Call me naïve, but maybe (just maybe) these sports were cut to make way for sports that make more sense from the perspective of being a university in Iowa.
I think you're naive. For one, when the sports were cut it was to save money. Doubtful that any sport being added will make much if any money. I guess there's a chance being the first Power 5 to add women's wrestling will result in more donations, but if that was the case they should have done it sooner.
Two, it sounds like women's wrestling was added because of the Title IX lawsuit due to the cutting of sports, in particular women's swimming and diving I'm not complaining about that, but I doubt women's wrestling would have been added if not for that, at least not this year.
I’m not so sure that women’s wrestling can’t build a nest egg in its earliest years, that might last a while. I think sponsors and fans would be very eager to support such a pioneering program.
Why? One would think the folks in Iowa would be tickled pink to come up with ways to lure students from out of state.
Doh! Never mind…..
I'm OK with American students getting scholarships to American funded Universities, regardless of which State they reside in.
And I love our Australian punter, he's fantastic at his craft and likely a great human being to boot, but that's a different deal to me.
That‘s not what you said in your earlier post. You said “since before the new facility was just a dream“. …but change things so they once again fit.
Do you even know what quotation marks are? They are used when quoting someone directly. In this case you added a word I didn’t use, which changes the entire meaning of the phrase. It’s particularly brain dead in a case like this where you can literally hit a button and it will handle the whole quote thing for you. Here’s how it works, using my comment within the post in question, unedited.
Mess with the bull, you get the horns. I will await your heartfelt apology on pins and needles.
LOL. you think you are a bull….you forgot the L on that. A bully and a jerk would be more appropriate.
Wait a second. You go after that hard and are obviously, blatantly wrong. You don’t even acknowledge it, but I’m the bully and the jerk?
What the heck is wrong with you?
guess I don’t like people who continually go after people who post on here as you have done for years. seems you like to dish it out but have trouble taking it. must be that alpha male thing.
Trouble taking what? You misrepresented what I said and were just flat out wrong. But somehow that’s my fault.
The public school system I work for only covers in state tuition. Like many institutions, we get waivers for international students with the grades. Therefore, with our women’s tennis roster full of international players is cheaper to put on a full ride than a player from Las Vegas or Phoenix.
This from the fourth-best poster in all the cessspool.
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Another reporter indicating the Title IX lawsuit had a lot to do with this move being made now as opposed to later.
Note that Iowa spent $664,000 more on mens programs vs womens.
From the story:
Barta noted the timetable for adding a women's sport was sped up by the lawsuit.
"Were it not for COVID, we wouldn't have cut sports," Barta said. "Were it not for the Title IX lawsuit, I wasn't ready to add women's wrestling yet. But I can tell you while the timing may be challenging, the decision is awesome. We’re excited about it, and we’re ready to go forward."
Attorney James Larew released a statement from the Iowa women’s swimming athletes, who applauded the decision and believe it will create more opportunities for female athletes nationwide — as other universities are expected to follow Iowa’s lead. Brands said he knew of others that were close to making a similar announcement.
The NCAA defines Title IX compliance as requiring dollar-for-dollar spending on scholarships among men and women, and it must be proportional to student population. According to Iowa's fiscal-year 2020 report supplied to the NCAA, $6,524,387 was spent on athletic aid for men and $5,860,477 for women. (That, of course, was before the three men's sports were cut.)
Barta pointed to a growing trend of more women attending college nationwide as a reason that his department was looking at adding wrestling pre-COVID and as many as five years ago.
The Full Story:
Note that Iowa spent $664,000 more on mens programs vs womens.
From the story:
Without the Title IX lawsuit, women’s wrestling would not have been added this quickly.
Iowa athletics director Gary Barta confirmed that a settlement agreement regarding the Title IX lawsuit (initially brought forward a year ago by four women’s swimming and diving athletes after Iowa announced it would eliminate four sports as a response to financial issues caused by COVID-19) was finished, with paperwork being the final hurdle. The center of the agreement, per Barta, was that Iowa would add another women’s sport (in addition to reinstating women’s swimming). Barta said it was a no-brainer to choose wrestling "for obvious reasons."Barta noted the timetable for adding a women's sport was sped up by the lawsuit.
"Were it not for COVID, we wouldn't have cut sports," Barta said. "Were it not for the Title IX lawsuit, I wasn't ready to add women's wrestling yet. But I can tell you while the timing may be challenging, the decision is awesome. We’re excited about it, and we’re ready to go forward."
Attorney James Larew released a statement from the Iowa women’s swimming athletes, who applauded the decision and believe it will create more opportunities for female athletes nationwide — as other universities are expected to follow Iowa’s lead. Brands said he knew of others that were close to making a similar announcement.
The NCAA defines Title IX compliance as requiring dollar-for-dollar spending on scholarships among men and women, and it must be proportional to student population. According to Iowa's fiscal-year 2020 report supplied to the NCAA, $6,524,387 was spent on athletic aid for men and $5,860,477 for women. (That, of course, was before the three men's sports were cut.)
Barta pointed to a growing trend of more women attending college nationwide as a reason that his department was looking at adding wrestling pre-COVID and as many as five years ago.
The Full Story:
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