Axing sports not answer > Trimming is survivable

The difficult decisions have come home to roost in the office of first-year University of Maine athletic director Michael Ploszek.

Word this week that the UM swimming program is poised on the budget chopping block, awaiting only the blow from Ploszek’s axe, proves the new AD’s honeymoon is over. If he wasn’t sure of it when he took the job as Kevin White’s successor back in August, Ploszek now knows Maine athletics, like the rest of the University System, not to mention the entire state, is in trouble.

It would be easy to consider Ploszek as simply another link in the chain of command. If, as 21-year coach Jeff Wren suspects, the UM swimming program is to make the ultimate sacrifice to pay the athletic department’s anticipated share of a projected $3.34 million campus cut, the order will come down like this:

State Legislature tells UMS Chancellor how much to cut. Chancellor tells campus presidents. Campus presidents tell department heads. Department heads, shrugging, swing their axes.

If swimming is cut, the tendency will be to excuse Ploszek as simply a soldier following orders. No one blames the executioner. It’s the “system” that makes the decisions.

The truth is, however, Ploszek is a good deal more than a link in the chain of command. As head of the $4 million-a-year UM Athletic Department, he was hired to make decisions. He may be carrying out policy, but he has some leeway in which to work.

Which brings me to today’s point.

I asked Ploszek this past week, when news of the swimming program’s imminent demise leaked out, what his personal philosophy was on how a department should survive in the face of budget cuts.

I asked him if he believed the so-called “non-revenue” programs like swimming should be lopped off, in order to keep the “revenue-producing” programs (hockey, football, basketball, baseball) healthy. Or if he believed in “across-the-board” cutting, a “we’re-all-in-this-together” approach in which everyone suffers, but everyone survives.

Ploszek’s response:

“I have some definite ideas about that, but I don’t want to get into a discussion on it right now,” he said. “I’ll be happy to talk about it at a later time.”

I have a hunch I know when the later time will be. I also have a hunch I know which philosophy Ploszek adheres to.

Before we get to that discussion at the press conference announcing the elimination of men’s and women’s swimming at the state university, I want to advise Ploszek of what I believe to be the average Mainer’s philosophy on the subject.

We’d rather our kids have the opportunity to swim competitively and let the “revenue-producers” struggle along for awhile.

The problem with eliminating programs is it’s a permanent solution to what is a temporary problem. I may not have a degree in economics or athletic administration, but I’ve lived through at least three recessions and seen this state and this country rebound each time. Good times follow bad and vice versa. Certainly, the University System has seen this as well.

With Maine boasting the No. 1 hockey team in the nation, a baseball team that hosted an NCAA Regional, and a men’s basketball team that advanced to its conference final, all in the past calendar year, it’s hard to believe each of them is operating at the edge of financial ruin or even at the bare minimum. If a savings of less than $200,000 is required to comply with the current projected cut, I submit those three programs could foot the bill, then go screaming to their various community support groups about how awful the university is, with palms extended.

If the support groups can cough up the extra cash to keep the big boys happy, great. If not, hey, I venture to say most Mainers can live with the No. 10 hockey team in the country and .500 baseball and basketball teams for a few years, while their kids swim.

I’ve heard the argument against it, the one that goes if our revenue-producers are hurt, they’ll lose. And if they start losing, the fans stop coming. And if the fans stop coming, other “non-revenue” programs will be cut and eventually the whole department will collapse.

I don’t buy it.

Most of these 19 athletic programs have lived through lean times before. If the AD’s willing, they can all do so again.