Higher Ed | Daily Report

Some collegiate sports teams in California are up against tough times.

Student athletes at UC Davis learned last week that the university would cut four sports teams in an effort to plug a $1.4 million deficit. The women's rowing, men's wrestling, men's indoor track, and men's swimming and diving teams fell victim to the chopping block.

Illustration by Mark S. LuckieUCSD's football future?

At UC Berkeley, a campus task force is still examining how to make the athletic department economically viable, including the possibility of eliminating some sports teams.

But at UC San Diego, the story is different: The student newspaper reports that university groups will pay $28,000 to hire a consultant to examine the feasibility of starting a football team and moving from Division II to Division I.

Four groups – the Associated Students UCSD Council, the chancellor’s fund, the vice chancellor of student affairs' fund and the athletics department – are sharing the cost to hire consultant Carl McAloose, who runs a consulting firm called Athletics Staffing and Consulting.

McAloose is a former athletic director at Florida Gulf Coast University, where he helped move the university from NCAA Division II to Division I in 2008, according to his bio.

He resigned from FGCU that year after learning the university was settling a federal gender equity (Title IX) lawsuit for $3.4 million, Naples News reported. McAloose formed his own consulting group in early 2009.

How much might forming a football team cost? McAloose was part of a consulting team that recently told the University of West Florida it would cost about $25 million to start a Division II football team there, primarily for construction costs. The consulting team also looked at moving from Division II to Division I, but university officials deemed that route too expensive.

The University of West Florida report found that adding a football team would necessitate adding another women's team because of Title IX requirements. In all, the two new teams would mean an increase of about $1.7 million annually to the university budget.

UWF plans to make a decision on football by summer 2011, according the university's website.

In San Diego, some groups have clamored for a football team. There's a Facebook group called "Bring UCSD a Football Team" with more than 4,000 members, and a website dedicated to the concept.

The university bookstore even offers a somewhat self-deprecating UCSD football t-shirt that reads: "UCSD Tritons Football - Still Undefeated!"

Others question the wisdom of adding football during a budget crunch. Associated Students President-elect Wafa Ben Hassine told the UCSD Guardian that while she was in favor of hiring the consultant and moving the UCSD athletics program to Division I, she did not support creating a football team.

“I am against forming the football team right now, because I don’t believe it is fiscally responsible at the moment,” Ben Hassine said. “Regardless, a football team involves student fees. There is no way that there could be a football team created without student fees, and I don’t agree with that.”