row2k news Letter to rowing community from UNH senior Courtney Hazleton
February 8, 2006
I am a senior on the University of New Hampshire Women's Crew team. On Tuesday, January 31, our coaches were informed by way of another coach that our team was being eliminated from Division I Varsity status beginning in September. After receiving the fatal news, our team of forty women, sat in silence. I looked in front of me, there sat a junior from Chicago, IL who had come to UNH to row. She coaches crew in the summer and displays a passion for the sport that is rarely paralleled. To my left, a freshmen, who also chose UNH because of her love for the sport and now faces the decision of weather to leave the University community that she has made her home for the last six months.
Rowing, as we all know, is a sport that requires dedication, perseverance, and an iron will. Our coach constantly tells us, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." As student-athletes, the women on our team have gained incredible life lessons from all those hours on the water and applied them in pursuing excellence in the classroom, in contributing to the wider university community, and in earning respect and respecting ourselves.
Rowing is the fastest growing sport in the nation, and UNH will be the first school to cut Women's Crew from Division I Varsity status. After track and field, our team is the second largest women's sport on campus. Moreover, rowing is the only sport where an interested student can walk on to a Division I Varsity team without prior experience. The elimination of this unique opportunity is a grave loss for a liberal arts institution that stresses diversity and emphasizes the importance of well-rounded students.
The Athletic Director, Marty Scarano, announced that cuts of $500,000 were being made to address a $1 million deficit in the athletic budget. Four sports have been eliminated: Women's Crew with an operating expense of $70,126; Men's and Women's Tennis with $21,978; and Men's Swimming with $37,137. The roster for Men's Skiing will also be reduced from 27 to 12 for an approximate saving of $22,805. According to our research, this equals only $152,046 out of the $19,640,268 designated as "Total Operating Expenses" for athletics.
Ironically, UNH has announced that their decision means that for the first time the university will be in compliance with Title IX. Surely cutting an extremely low budget women's team, like Crew, whose 40 members receive no athletic scholarships, is hardly cost effective given the deficit. The university's justification makes a mockery of the spirit and intent of Title IX.
We would appreciate any support you can provide to save Women's Crew at UNH, be it letters, emails or phone calls to the President of the University, Dr. Ann Weaver Hart, or the Athletic Director, Marty Scarano. New England has a proud tradition in the sport of rowing, and we hope that the rowing community everywhere will help us prevent UNH from creating a precedent by eliminating Women's Crew as a varsity sport.
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