Initial email sent to alumni explaining the challenges facing the crew team

Dear Bucknell Crew Alumni,

The purpose of this e-mail is to inform you of the present situation which the men's program finds itself in and to solicit your help in preserving the status of the team. Below this introductory section you will find a detailed description of the situation explaining the background and present status.

There is a group of us (Victor Arcelus '96, Michael Marquis '96, Brad Peterson '96, Brian Burke '95, Tim Keen '95, and Jimmy King '90) who have begun the process of investigation and discussions with university officials. We have been having weekly conference calls as a group and last week some of us met with the new athletic director. He have been collecting information on the Bucknell situation, what other universities are doing to address the same problem, and general information on Title IX. The reality is that the status of the men's crew program is on very shaky ground. The university will very soon be deciding on whether or not the team will go from varsity status to club status.

This decision will have significant implications on the future of the program due to many factors, but for obvious reasons the financial burden is the most concerning.

Michael and Victor just met with the new athletic director, John Hardt, and he is aware of our concern.Our group will be presenting to him several proposals outlining ways to meet the needs of both the men's program and the university. We also hope to meet with trustees when they come to campus for their fall meeting.

At this stage of the game we are asking that you sit back for a few moments and think back on your Bucknell career and consider the role that the team played in you collegiate experience. It is important that Trustees who will ultimately be involved in the decision become familiar with our concern for the future of the team, as well as our positive experiences and devotion for the collegiate rowing experience. We also ask that you think about people you know who may be willing to support the team financially. Many men's programs which have moved to club status have remained alive and strong because of alumni efforts to raise and donate money towards endowing the program.

When we were at Bucknell the men's and women's teams worked very closely and spent a lot of time together on and off the water. This is again one of those times that we all need to cometogether. This is not a problem that the men's program can solve alone. It will be important to have the whole team men and women alum supporting the cause.

We have begun a good working relationship with the university, therefore it is important that we all not try to scream the loudest. We need to be even-keeled and simply share our positive experiences and explain why the team is such a valuable part of the Bucknell culture and the collegiate experience. As I stated above, you will find below a detailed description of the situation. Attached to this e-mail you will find the names and addresses of the Bucknell Trustees. We encourage you to please contact the trustees and tell them a little about your rowing and team experience. This is possible through letters or feel free to get in touch with some of your friends in your area and make an appointment with trustees to meet in person.

If you have any questions please contact one of us using any of the following e-mail addresses or simply reply to this email (bucrewalum@hotmail.com). We ask that you please keep at least one of us informed of your efforts by letting us know what you are doing to support this mission to keep the team alive.

Sincerely,

Victor Arcelus
Tim Keen
Brian Burke
Michael Marquis
Brad Peterson
Jimmy King

THE BACKGROUND:

NCAA, Title IX and Gender Equity. The NCAA governs all intercollegiate athletic programs. Title IX was the ruling that said opportunities for men and women have to be equal. Gender Equity is used to describe the goal of Title IX. It is a hot topic around the country. You have probably seen plenty of articles over the past ten years about mens sports (like wrestling, gymnastics, rowing) being cut because of Gender Equity, or perhaps lawsuits such as the ones at Brown, regarding the equality between the mens and womens swimming teams.

Well, a number of years ago, Bucknell was notified that they would be under review by the NCAA. Every university is reviewed at one time or another.

Part of this review deals with Gender-Equity. The simplest way to understand Gender Equity is this: the university must provide the same number of varsity opportunities for both men and women.

In preparation for its NCAA review, Bucknell had to put together a five-year plan to reach gender equity. If the university doesn't volunteer a plan, the NCAA will give you one. No university would ever want to be at the mercy of the NCAA, so a plan is usually developed ahead of time, as Bucknell did.

Bucknell is now two years into that five-year plan. The university is required to submit a third-year report. This is basically an update on how well the university is reaching the goals of the five-year plan. This report is due in the next couple of months.

Bucknell has not done a very good job in the first two years of the plan and they are scrambling to make some adjustments in order to submit a respectable third year report.

There are a few components to the Bucknells plan to reach gender equity.

First, two womens sports (golf and water polo) were added in order to increase numbers on the womens side. Second, existing womens teams were asked to keep more women on their squads than they had in the past. Womens tennis and basketball were even asked to maintain a full JV squad, something that had not been done in the past. Finally, mens teams were asked to keep fewer team members than they had in the past.

All of this was under the direction of our previous athletic director, Rick Hartzell. Very little effort was made by Hartzell to bring about the roster size changes. The womens teams that were asked to keep JV squads were not given additional support. Thus, most of these attempts at inflating womens rosters were unsuccessful. Also, on the mens side, there was never any incentive for the mens programs to keep smaller squads as it was not a mandatory edict from above.

The point is, not much changed, except for the addition of two womens sports, both of which don't really carry large squads anyway. Now, the new athletic director is faced with the task of reporting significant progress to the NCAA. So, he is going to have to act fast.

In the initial five-year plan, the university noted that if the roster size changes could not be reached, the elimination of mens sports would have to be considered. That is where we are right now.

Hardt is faced with the problem of having to show significant progress towards gender equity and he has to do it fast. At the same time, he has another set of issues to deal with Bucknell has experienced a lot of change recently. With a new Athletic Director, President and VP for Administration as well as VP for Development, there is a completely new leadership on campus. Plus, the capital campaign over the past five years included a very big component for athletics and construction is about to begin on a new pool, stadium and general athletic facility. In the midst of all this change, Hardt has also reorganized his support staff in the athletic department. We have three new assistant or associate athletic directors.

Hardt believes that there is a window of opportunity for athletics to garner more financial support from the university. With all the new leadership around campus and with a lot of focus being placed in our direction with the new construction, he thinks this is a crucial period of time.

In his first six months, it was Hardts intention to get to know the university and athletic department better and see what possibilities were in the future. Next, he is supposed to put together a five-year plan for athletics. The idea is that he will be able to put together a proposal for the university which will justify more financial support for the entire department.

It is obvious that the hallmark sports (football and basketball) will continue to be the key. However, he realizes that the middle and lower level sports are embarrassingly under funded. He sympathizes with the coaching situation for mens and womens crew. As utilitarian as it may be, he agrees that one coach for two varsity sports is inadequate, let alone the fact that the coach must fund raise half of his salary.

Hardt is intent on improving the quality of support for all the sports on campus. Even if he only seeks to provide the basics (a full time coach for each team, assistants for sports with the need, etc), that will be a significant improvement. After all, if he doesn't do it now, he would have a much harder time doing it in the future. In fact, he says that the five year financial plan that Bro Adams had passed involved significant cuts for the department.

Hardt's Plan & Reasoning

Hardt has two issues gender equity and improving support for all teams. Men's and Women's crew provide an opportunity for him to address both.

If he cuts mens crew back to a club, he is obviously addressing the gender equity issues. Instead of a mens and womens crew which basically cancel each other out in terms of numbers, cutting mens crew essentially creates twenty to thirty new opportunities for women.

At the same time, support for the women is increased dramatically without having to use any new funds. Specifically, the coach that had been responsible for both mens and womens crew is now only responsible for the women. The same goes for the $30K operating budget. Now, the womens crew would be better funded than before. And this doesn't cost Hardt a dime. If he was to keep both mens and womens crew, he would need to not only fund the other half of the position of head coach, he would have to provide an additional salary for mens crew. And, there would have to be budget increases for each sport.

This increased funding will further aid the first goal, increasing womens numbers relative to men's. With more funding and coaching, Hardt believes that we could raise the womens squad from 20-30 women to 60-75 women. This obviously makes a big difference for the issue gender equity at a very low cost for the department.

Why men's crew?

None of the "Patriot League Sports" will be touched. As you know, crew is not an official part of the Patriot League. (There has to be at least six teams with a varsity team in order for that sport to have an official league championship and to count towards the Presidents Cup points. The only other varsity programs are Colgate, Holy Cross and Navy.) That leaves wrestling, mens water polo and mens crew. Between these three sports, crew is at the top of the list for a couple of reasons. Hardt believes that the mens crew wont miss a beat and will be able to continue to operate as a club. Crew is the youngest mens sport on campus. In contrast wrestling and water polo have a very long history at Bucknell. Finally, if crew were kept, it would be one of the sports that would be in desperate need of budget and staffing improvements in order to bring all sports up to a similar level of support as Hardt hopes to do. He wont want to spend that much money on crew, mens or womens.

It is clear that some thing is going to have to change with the status or funding of the team. We need to work with the department to find a middle ground where the needs of both parties are . We also need to consider the financial component of the team and consider if there are ways to fund the team if the varsity status is changed.