Boulder – A looming $7 million budget deficit prompted Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn to slash the men’s tennis program and 12 administrative positions Thursday in order to save an estimated $1 million for the 2006-07 fiscal year.
Bohn inherited an estimated $3.5 million deficit when he took over as CU’s AD almost a year ago. The firing of football coach Gary Barnett in December and the hiring of a new staff cost an estimated $4 million.
“It would be easy to say Gary cost the tennis program, but it was not the trigger,” Bohn said at an afternoon news conference.
Before the transition, tennis was on the table for elimination, Bohn said.
“This is a regrettable, and the last, option that we pursued to create a viable operating budget,” Bohn said.
He added that slight increases in attendance at football and men’s basketball this past season, as well as improved fundraising, weren’t enough to prevent the cuts to the athletic department. Of the 12 staff positions, six are currently unfilled.
Bohn said six staffers have been notified their positions will be eliminated. The cuts will not affect ongoing capital improvements that have been funded through donations, including a bubble for football practice, the first locker room upgrade since the Dal Ward Center was opened 15 years ago, and the move of the women’s soccer team to a campus site.
“Rather than allow existing programs to be eroded, we have a commitment to be excellent and competitive,” Bohn said. “We are trying to grow the budget.”
Bohn said he has no timetable for retiring the deficit, which has been built up over the past five years, but wants an ongoing balanced budget that allows some money to go to pay off the deficit. CU’s current athletic department budget is $36,051,225. Of the money paid to Barnett after his firing, Bohn said roughly $1.6 million was owed to the former coach, even if he stayed, but that amount had never been funded.
Other factors Bohn cited in the budget crunch include a continuing escalation in utilities and the ongoing growth in tuition costs. At $7 million a year, the bill is twice that of five years ago and CU estimates it may be $10 million by 2010. The athletic department must raise funds for all scholarships.
Revenue from the club seating added during the 2003 football stadium expansion has not approached the break-even level when taking into account annual expenses along with the debt service, Bohn said.
The men’s tennis team is 9-5 heading into the start of Big 12 play this weekend at Oklahoma State. Nebraska will be the only Big 12 North school retaining men’s tennis.
Bohn pointed to the strong tradition of track and field and the fact that track actually counts as six teams (men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track), as well as CU’s traditionally strong golf and ski teams.
“It came down to heritage,” he said.
The men’s tennis budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year was $324,975. Bohn said CU will help tennis players find another school to transfer to and, if they wish to stay at CU in lieu of transferring, their scholarship will be honored. Tennis coach Sam Winterbotham was unavailable for comment.
Left unsaid was that any school eliminating a women’s program would skew the department’s numbers for Title IX compliance.
Bohn first met with the tennis coaches and players, then held a staffwide meeting before announcing the cuts at a late afternoon news conference.
“It was pretty somber,” volleyball coach Pi’i Aiu said. “We’re all a family. We have to move to the future and take care of the kids we have now.”
It is the first cutback of sports at CU since seven sports were eliminated in 1980. It leaves CU with the NCAA Division I-A minimum of 16 programs, nine for women, seven for men.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303 820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
