C.W. Post drops track and field

[rainbowgirl28]

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C.W. Post drops track and field
BY STEVEN MARCUS
steven.marcus@newsday.com

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June 29, 2007, 2:04 PM EDT

Citing economic concerns, C.W. Post is dropping men's and women's track beginning in September, the college announced Friday. Men's and women's cross-country will remain intact.

"The decision to discontinue varsity track and field was a difficult one," athletic director Bryan Collins said in a statement.


"However, the cost of maintaining a competitive track and field program has become prohibitive. Additionally, there are few Division II schools in our area to compete in track and field. Because of this, a large amount of financial resources were devoted to having our student athletes travel to meets and compete against lager Division I programs."

Those athletes who received athletic aid will continue to do so for the remainder of their eligibility period at Post, Collins said.

Post also announced that its football and field hockey team will join the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference in the 2008-2009 season. The PSAC offers better competition for football than the Northeast-10, which had been a springboard to the NCAA Division II tournament. Post will also begin issuing scholarships in football.

[rainbowgirl28]

Citing economic concerns, C.W. Post is dropping men's and women's track

"However, the cost of maintaining a competitive track and field program has become prohibitive.

Post will also begin issuing scholarships in football.

[VaultMarq26]

What a load of crap

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Just wait til they blame Title IX.

[Gchap7]

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I went to Post, jumped and had one more year left. It's horrible the way this mistreated the team - this was just the iceing on the cake. Im going to Adelphi next year and continue to spread the good word of the vault along.

C.W. Post plugged the plug on track , leaving its athletes with nowhere to run.

If timing is everything, it was all bad for those hoping to continue their career with less than two months remaining before the fall semester.

The announcement to drop men's and women's track was made via the school's website last Friday. ``They didn't meet with anyone from our team,'' captain Michael Ringhauser said. ``They didn't let us in on discussions that there may not be a team.'' Budgetary reasons were given for dropping the program, which began in 1962. ``If you are going to cancel, at least give the decency of more notice,'' Ringhauser said.

``I'm really disappointed,'' sophomore Christine Locher said. ``Everyone is scrambling, figuring out what to do. You are kind of at a loss now.''

Locher was a star at St. John's the Baptist in West Slip and bypassed an offer from Sacred Heart to attend Post, which had a rich tradition in the sport. None of the athletes saw it coming, though athletic director Bryan Collins said track was endangered for several years. ``Track has been underfunded and underscholarshiped for quite some time now,'' he said. ``If you look at our track it is basically a bad looking driveway.'' Despite that, track had a nearly 50-year history of many successful programs and in recent years produced two valedictorians at graduation.

Sophomore decathlete Gregory Millan said, ``It's on the school for not giving us notification that we were being reviewed as a team and have our voices heard. Ultimately it does not affect the school, it affects the kids. If we want to go somewhere else we have no chance now. If we knew in advance at least we could have talked to other coaches and had something else set up.'' Several athletes thought the decision to give scholarships to Post's football team weighed into the decision to drop track. ``Not one iota,'' Collins said. Cross-country will continue at Post and Collins said a club track team might be formed in the future.

The timing, Collins said, was not callously planned. ``I don't think the timing is ever good to drop a program. But our budgets do not come up until the end of the school year. We really don't know our situation with budgets until late in the year.'' Collins stood by the decision as being his, but said there was near unanimous approval from his department and administration.

Potential Olympian race walker Maria Michta was preparing for her senior year in the fall. Fortunately, she can still represent her outside club in the Olympic trails. ``If you are a senior you are basically stuck,'' she said. ``You are not going transfer for your last year. '' She feels bad for incoming freshmen, saying ``They might waste a semester, they might waste a year.''

That includes Allentown High School (N.J.) senior Gersai Alvarado. ``It caught me off guard, I'm really disappointed,'' he said. ``I'm just going to have to keep training on my own. Depending upon what they end up doing, I might transfer to a university in New Jersey. Maybe it just hasn't sunk in completely yet, maybe I have to be there and realize I have nothing to do.'' He was on the college web site when he saw a notice indicating track was being dropped. ``I couldn't believe it.''

Third year coach Rich Degnan said he resigned about two weeks ago, but found out along with his former athletes Friday about the program's demise. He had been recruiting well into June. ``The timing was tough,'' he said. ``I was surprised they dropped the program, I thought they might cut it back.'' He did acknowledge that several track programs around the country have been curtailed or dropped over the last several years.

Degnan said he left because the team ``athletically and academically had attained the goals I had set.'' He had been an assistant at Bay Shore High School and is considering other jobs, he said. ``Obviously this was not becoming a fulltime position and it might be more lucrative to go back to high school.'' He also teaches learning disabled students at Post.

Garrett Chapman had one year of eligibility remaining. ``They let us know at the end of June when there is no place to go,'' he said. ``We were like the neglected child. We were always told to cut our roster down. It was little things. The other day they were spray painting lacrosse nets and using our hurdles to hold up the nets, so they were spray painting all over our hurdles. If you walk into the main entrance of the Pratt Center the trophy case is all filled with track trophies. When they take those down and throw them away or put them in storage, it [the case] will be empty.''

Chapman learned a lesson from this episode, saying ``You have to be careful, you think schools have a certain level of loyalty to you and your program. I hope the next school I attend doesn't pull the floor out from under me.''