"Long ago, these universities made a choice that it wasn't about the bonds and relationships forged over 6 a.m. swim practices, nor handsome academic All-America certificates mounted on the athletic department walls. Everyone chasing the glory and shame of big-time Division I sports should stop apologizing for bailing on swimming and golf and crew programs, because college sports gave up on the illusion of sports as part of the overall collegiate education.

This isn't just Rutgers, but the rest of the places that have willing accomplices in the pursuit of football and basketball glory, the national television and exposure and companion shame that comes with this world. Six Scarlet Knights sports were thrown overboard Friday after the state cut $66 million in funding to the university, inspiring indignant pleas on behalf of the swimmers, tennis players and golfers told that they would be eliminated after one more season.

It's a shame the coaches lose jobs here, the kids lose the sports, but this isn't an injustice. It's business. It's a lousy, corrupt, flawed business, but a business nonetheless. And everyone needs to stop pretending that Division I college athletics aspire to some greater good, that it exists for the greater student body good.


Budget cuts hit Rutgers hard, and they'll probably hit harder again someday. This time, gymnastics, volleyball and wrestling made the cut. Next time around, those probably won't be so lucky. This isn't just Rutgers. And this will be happening everywhere over the next few years, as public money for universities gets tighter, as fund raising becomes tougher, as Title IX exacts a greater toll.

Someday, here's what it will be: Football, basketball, women's sports to balance Title IX scholarships and a bunch of club teams that raise money with candy sales to take vans to neighboring schools for competition.

If nothing else, Rutgers needs to explain why an athletic director paid out millions of dollars in contract extensions to failed coaches. Yet, it doesn't need to defend itself for refusing to bankroll the good, dedicated coaches and kids in fringe programs. Maybe it's hard to hear this -- maybe it should be different -- but these teams aren't part of the mission statement in Division I anymore. They're not the priority.

The only time athletic departments ever pretend to care about these sports are when they can parade the graduation rates and grade-point averages of those kids around, as though to balance the mess usually found in football and basketball.

Because reckless administrations and boosters kept participating in an arms race, building state-of-the-art arenas, practice facilities and luxurious locker rooms -- all with the logic that it's needed to out-impress its rivals in recruiting -- a culture of excess has been created to compete at the highest levels.

Rutgers wanted to engage in the arms race of college football, constructing space age practice and weightlifting facilities, planning a luxury box expansion of the football stadium. Rutgers made the choice to give Greg Schiano, still without a significant, signature victory in his career, a long-term extension that will pay him more than $1 million annually. Athletic director Bob Mulcahy has made a career of overcommitting too much money, over too many years to coaches he misjudged.



...As budgets get tighter, as funding dries up, colleges are going to keep eliminating minor sports. Mostly men's minor sports, too, because Title IX protects women's sports scholarship numbers. More and more, the best opportunities to play those sports in college will come on the Division II and III levels, where schools that stay out of the big-time rat race aren't hunkered down with feeding the monsters of big-time football and basketball.

Rutgers isn't the University of Texas, but its athletic department was carrying more varsity sports than that kind of a monstrous state university. To hear these athletes tell of the way their hearts were broken Friday, that their dreams were dashed, tugs at your heart. It's a shame, but it's no justice. This is the business of big-time college sports, and the business is lousy.

But it hasn't been about those kids in crew and swimming and tennis for a long time, and never will again."