Due to budget cuts made within Marquette Athletics, the Marquette men’s and women’s tennis and men’s and women’s track and field programs will be converted to non-scholarship programs by the 2025-26 academic year.
Marquette Vice President and Director of Athletics Bill Scholl and Deputy Athletic Director Mike Brooker confirmed this with Marquette Wire.
“We are in the third year of a multi-year process,” Scholl said. “UnfortunatelyAnd The realities of the budget forced us to make some moves and these are some of the moves we made.”
The NCAA allows partner institutions at the Division I level to apply 4.5 scholarships for men’s tennis and eight scholarships for women’s tennis. while, for track and fieldAnd It provides 12.6 scholarships for men and 18 scholarships for women.
Despite the initiative, SchUll said the department will continue to honor commitments made to those currently on those teams along with upcoming first-year classes for each program.
“We didn’t take anything from anyone,” Scholl said. “If we commit to a full four-year journey, they’ll have a full four-year journey.”
With athletic aid completely eliminated by 2025-26 for tennis and track and field, student-athletes aresick still able to receive academic and financial aid.
Scholl said he reported this to the tennis program nearly two years ago.
For the track and field program, Scholl said he delayed that announcement until over the past few months as the pieces are still being put together.
Back in March 2020, the NCAA lowered its distributions to schools by $375 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scholl said he did not want to use the economic setback brought before COVID-19 as an excuse the budget Cuts, but it was a worker. The Marquette Wire inquired about the exact budget numbers, but Scholl and Broeker declined to comment.
“We’re always looking ahead and trying to anticipate what the future will look like for us. I would say it’s really a collegiate process because we’re not the only ones who’ve had to tighten our belts over the past couple of years,” Scholl said.
But more important than that is the effort to get our budget to a position where we feel it’s sustainable and for the future. … One of our thought processes was, that we didn’t want to do something that couldn’t be changed again in the future. Obviously, if the economy allows us to re-grow it, adding scholarships again won’t be difficult.”
Since it was a college decision, Scholl said the Big East Conference was A little bit of not sharingNT on this.
“Our peer group for sports like tennis and track and field is the Big East,” Scholl said. “In tennis and track, they are everywhere on the map. There are some that are not scholarships. There are some that are fully funded. We will not be the only bouncer in the conference when it comes to being non-scholarships.”
Of the 11 Big East schools, three men’s teams are currently at 4.5 and four women’s teams are currently at eight. There are three schools without a men’s tennis program: UConn, Providence, and Seton Hall.
In order to build the sustainable model the ministry envisions for its future, Scholl said there is no way to avoid these budget cuts.
Brooker, who He manages day-to-day operations with a direct focus on external operations and revenue generation within the department, and said no additional program cuts were maderun ms and spending budgets.
“You have three levers to pull financially. You have an operation, you have employees and a scholarship. And scholarships Brooker said. “We are stretching the limit on the operating side and on the personnel side with our cuts.”
“We’re in a situation right now with some programs where that’s an athletic componentIt was ENT shrank. We can still go out and recruit our best student-athletes. But the assistant changed so the swing moved a bit.”
He said two priorities or commitments in the process are protecting opportunities for athletes and making sure their experience at Marquette is not undermined.
“yesAnd We are phasing out scientistships, however “We’re protecting the kids’ chances of coming to Marquette,” Broeker said. “Maybe he’s a different athlete than he was in the pastAnd But their experience should be the same. Our commitment to their academic support, our commitment to sports medicine, and our commitment to strength and solidarityoning, noNortheast of this change.”
Athletes in these sports come from all over the county and some come from abroad.
“It’s likely to affect our ability to recruit international kids because they’re usually looking for a very important athletic scholarship to come here,” Scholl said. “It doesn’t mean we can’t get them and we will continue to pursue them but in general, at least the most talented will usually look for full trips. That will be harder.”
Broeker said programs will now need to work with the aid group from Marquette’s office of international education when it comes to recruiting international athletes.
“There is more work to be done on recruitment efforts both externally and internally,” Brooker said. “You’re going to have to work a little bit in the future to get readings from them. You have to work a little bit in the future with financial aid. … Because if you’re not a full-scholarship kid, that extra help is the engine of the decision maker.”
Scholl said he has spoken with both coaches Steve Rodicap and Bert Rogers about how this will affect general recruiting.
“They know their landscape better than anyone and understand why we had to take some of the steps we had to take,” Scholl said. “And they’re ready to enlist under a different set of circumstances than they’re used to, but they’re moving forward at full speed.”
Another change can be seen in the strength of the schedule for both sports.
“Your roster determines how you schedule. You see this in sports, whether funded or unfunded, you schedule differently. Both of those programs are no different,” Brooker said. “But the beauty of our industry is that we can schedule competitively in a way that gives kids the opportunity to be successful.”
With no official Big East conference schedule and just a conference tournament to participate in, the programs are free to choose their own schedule and opponents.
“But what cannot be lost is that children still have the opportunity to come to Marquette University to compete in a sport they love. And then we still have an obligation as coaches, coaches, athletic trainers, and academic advisors to maximize their God-given ability.”
This article was written by John Lotzi. It can be accessed at [email protected] or on Twitter @JohnLeuzziMU.