The Laf

Issue date: 5/8/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Meredith Skiba Lafayette varsity sports teams will have to trim their budgets by turning away games into day trips instead of overnight ones and scheduling out of conference games with teams in closer proximity.

The athletic department is reevaluating travel expenses in response to the college's call to lower budgets. According to Director of Athletics Bruce McCutcheon, coaches from all 23 varsity sports were asked to examine their budgets and resubmit the figures without "diminishing the experience for students."

For the majority of programs, travel was the first place to cut corners, reducing the size of travel teams and the number of contests played in any given season.

McCutcheon said he believes the overall budget of the athletics department remains largely unchanged from the 2006/2007 report, which had the department making up between six and seven percent of all Lafayette College expenses. It is an amount McCutcheon said was a small slice of the pie, but nonetheless "no insignificant amount."

Several sports teams eliminated specific contests outside of their conference schedule, while others limited out-of-conference play to regional matches. Games that absolutely do not need to be made into overnight stays will be one-day events, eliminating hotel costs. McCutcheon would not reveal the programs forced to make these schedule changes, nor would he give any specific criteria the department used to make cuts from program to program.

Head Women's Soccer Coach Mick Statham said he was given a percentage to cut before resubmitting the women's soccer budget, but the choice of where to take that money from was up to him. Women's soccer was among the sports that had to augment their schedule, losing a road game in Virginia. The team was able to replace the game with a different local team, but Statham said it was something they "would have rather not done."

Several other coaches relayed similar stories of being asked to resubmit budgets with a percentage cut out. The way in which the budget was altered appears to have been left up to the discretion of program coaches.

Head Football Coach Frank Tavani confirmed that his department was not immune to these budget slashes, but football was not among the sports forced to eliminate out of conference play. This is in large part because the schedule is made years in advance.

Continued...

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