[New Jersey's] $66 million fiscal slight to its state university ... prompted Rutgers' announcement that it would eliminate six varsity teams: men's tennis, swimming, heavyweight and lightweight crew, and men's and women's fencing. Rutgers did have a budget gap to close and hard choices to make. However, in the case of athletic department cuts, wielded with a hatchet rather than a scalpel, deleterious consequences will result not only to the 153 eliminated athletes but also to Rutgers and the state.

These six teams have long had exemplary athletic and academic records, which the football team, the sacred cow of the athletic department, can only hope to emulate. These teams have been repeatedly recognized by the university as having the highest GPAs and setting the standard for Rutgers' other varsity athletes. They have fostered nationally and internationally ranked athletes, numerous NCAA champions, All-Americans, Olympians and a disproportionate number of Academic Big East and Academic All-American awardees.

Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick vowed to address the brain drain problem, acknowledging, as reported in Rutgers Targum, that the university is "losing the brightest men and women in the state." Yet the eliminated athletes are the epitome of the type of student that the university and state should want to attract rather than drive away. While they may not produce revenue, they bring prestige and honor to a university that should strive to be a bastion of excellence.

The football team, with a roster more than double that of pro teams, and despite producing a multimillion-dollar deficit annually, will see its budget increase in an amount essentially equivalent to the $1.2 million purportedly saved by axing these six teams.

The football and basketball teams consume nearly half the $36 million athletic department budget and together produced a reported deficit of $8 million last year. In contrast, the eliminated teams are low-budget sports, several having budgets under 1 percent of the overall department budget. Sacrificing these teams saves a mere 3 percent of this budget.

These six teams have a per-athlete expenditure of approximately $7,843 ($1.2 million divided by 153 athletes) in contrast to the per-capita expenditure on the football and basketball teams of approximately $128,000 (some $17.5 million divided by 137 athletes).

These six teams do not need the multimillion-dollar academic hand-holding expended on the football team, nor do they need that team's plasma TVs, high-tech stereo systems, expansive coaching and support staff rosters, half-million-dollar playing fields or recruiting budgets far exceeding the budget totals of several of the affected teams.