June 6, 2004

The demise of Men's T&F not a National Trend! A recent article in the NCAA News points out that the decrease in Men's Track & Field teams is only a recent phenomenon and is attributed to only one conference. If you eliminate the MAC (Mid-American Conference) from the data, the number of NCAA schools with Men's T&F programs has grown every year in the past 20. Only in the last year did the number drop when you add in the MAC data where next year only 7 of the 13 MAC schools will field a Men's Team.

The future of Women's T&F is ironically very bright even in the MAC with all 13 schools fielding teams. Nationally the sport has shown consistent growth over the last 20 years to put the total number of women's teams at 294 or 90% of all NCAA schools. That equates to 30 more women's teams than men's teams! So why would that be? It is certainly not because of lack of participation at the Boy's high school level. Read our Article on Title IX!

University of Akron's coach, Dennis Mitchell, attributes it to 3 causes, "...There's always the gender-equity issue, there are finances, and there's also what I'd call an emphasis on being successful in football."

Despite the growth in the sport in the last 10 years, there are still concerns that the isolated case of the MAC could become a national trend. The USTCA recently formed a task force to study reasons for recent cuts in track programs, and to suggest ways of combating further reductions. USTCA is also preparing a "to-do" list titled "10-Lane Track to Victory."

Read entire article!

Pause for Thought! On May 23, 2004 a full page ad appeared in the Kalamazoo Gazette promoting a partnership between the community and WMU to jointly arrive at solutions to Save Men's Track and Synchronized Skating. Over 75 businesses and 40 churches agreed to have their name list.

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Formal Alliance of BBT with WMU Synchronized Skating Club Inked! The sychronized skaters have formally organized as a WMU Club Sport. On June 3, 2004 the Board of the new Club officially joined the BBT group by signing an agreement. The two organizations had already been working together in an informal fashion through "Save Our Sports." [more on agreement...] [more on Synchronized Skating...]

More Radio Time! On June 1 the BBT President was a guest of Ryan McGuire on 1660 Sports Talk Radio.

Synchronized Skaters Organization In April 2004 the remnants of the WMU Synchronized Skating Team formed a Club and elected as President, Leslie Graham and as Vice Presidents, Katie Breitzman and Lindsay Meriage. They have a total of 7 board members.