UC Davis could cut up to nine sports programs because of university budget cuts, the Daily Aggie reports.
Athletics Director Greg Warzecka told the Aggie that a $1.79 million budget cut to the Intercollegiate Athletics Department will inevitably force the department to get rid of between five and nine of the university's 27 sports programs.
"It's very difficult on a lot of people, especially those of us who've worked closely together for 15 or more years," Warzecka told the Aggie. "We tried to build a program that was providing lots of opportunities for students to compete at the Division I level. Unfortunately, there will be fewer opportunities in the future."
School such as Davis, which support a football team and are members of the Football Championship Subdivision, have an average of 18 intercollegiate teams, Warzecka said.
UC Davis isn't the only university making such decisions. The LA Times reported in July that UC Irvine would cut five sports programs: men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's rowing, and sailing.
A little further north, at UCLA, the basketball and football coaches and the athletic director agreed to take pay cuts of up to 10 percent to shoulder part of the budget-cut burden, the LA Times reported.
And the Bruins basketball team had to travel a little less stylishly this year when it met Washington State, taking commercial airlines instead of chartering flights, the LA Times reported.
Over at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, officials dropped women's tennis in the summer to save $30,000, generating complaints that the college had violated Title IX requirements, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported.
One university that has not yet cut sports is UC Berkeley, where some academics have argued that the university should not loan money to support the sports program or forgive its debt, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
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