UMass Cuts Successful Water Polo Programs Due to Costs

Last week, the University of Massachusetts announced that it will reduce its number of intercollegiate sports by seven next year—from 29 to 22—due to recent budget cuts. Among the teams marked for elimination are men’s and women’s water polo, men’s gymnastics and women’s volleyball.

From a Harvard sports standpoint, the axing of the water polo teams will have the greatest impact. Both the Crimson men’s and women’s squads have improved substantially over the past three years, but UMass—its rival in the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s Northern Division—has always presented a stiff challenge to Harvard’s postseason prospects.

Dating back to the 1998 season, the Minutewomen have defeated Harvard in 15 straight games, most recently with a 7-6 double overtime win on Mar. 9. The Harvard men’s team, meanwhile, snapped a multiyear losing streak of its own against UMass this past year in the third-place game of the Northern Division Championship.

“I have complete sympathy for everyone involved,” Harvard Coach Jim Floerchinger said. “It’s a tragedy for our sport. When something like that happens in your sport, you feel the loss.”

In a sport in which the nation’s perennial top ten teams are from California, UMass had been one of the few eastern teams to leave a lasting impression. In 1993, the men’s team became the first eastern team to defeat a West Coast team at the NCAA Championships, finishing in sixth place overall. The tournament field has since been reduced to four teams with one East Coast representative, and UMass has filled that Final Four slot three of the past four years.

“U.S. water polo has, as a goal, the East Coast schools earning the respect and interest of East Coast spectators and becoming more competitive with the West Coast schools,” Harvard men’s co-captain Mike Crosby wrote in an e-mail. “This goal becomes more difficult to achieve when schools like Villanova, Boston College and now UMass drop their varsity programs.”

Villanova and B.C.’s teams each lost funding in the past two seasons, and currently only carry club teams.

The women’s team had been a Top-20 team in each of the past five years.

“I am baffled that they would cut the water polo team because they are consistently one of the top 10 teams in the nation, including the UC schools,” junior women’s team member Jane Humphries said.

The elimination of UMass will likely create an easier road to the Final Four for future Harvard teams. UMass had been one of a small number of Eastern schools—including Princeton, St. Francis (NY) and Queens College that were ranked in the top 20.

“There was only one other team ahead of us this year, so in the future we won’t have to worry about the strength of UMass preventing us from making the Final Four,” co-captain Gresham Bayne said. “There are some great players on that team, and I guarantee they are starting to look into how to transfer somewhere else this week.”

But Floerchinger said that UMass’ loss hurts Harvard more than it helps it.

“You always want the best competition,” Floerchinger said. “Yeah, it’s one less quality game on the schedule, but you want as many quality games as possible. You don’t want someone to look at us and say that we’re coming out of a wimpy conference. And it’s never a cause for celebration when you have kids with a great program who can’t play anymore.”

The team downsizing comes in response to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ decision to cut funds to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst by $17.1 million this year—part of a $28.5 million budget cut burden thrust upon UMass’ five campuses during the state’s current economic crisis.

According to UMass Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Nick Joos, the athletic department considered a number of factors when deciding which teams would be eliminated.

“The rationale [with water polo] was mostly two things,” Joos said. “A lot of people here don’t even know that we have a program, and that hurts in obvious ways. But also, facilities were a concern.”

UMass lacks a true water polo facility and has played its home games at nearby Amherst College.

“The decision with each sport rested on several factors,” Joos added. “The national and regional health of the sport, in-state vs. out-of-state competition, Title IX considerations. Sometimes these criteria conflicted, and the success of the sport was outweighed by other factors.”

The cuts, which will save an estimated $1.1 million a year, affect 10 coaches and 136 athletes, according to the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. According to the Collegian, the UMass Faculty Senate had recommended budget cuts in larger sports—including the school’s football team, which published reports in the Daily Hampshire Gazette indicate lost $2.5 million in 2001.

But instead, the athletic department cut several sports that were among its most competitive. In addition to its nationally ranked water polo teams, its men’s gymnastics team currently ranked No. 9 in the nation.

Rumblings on online message boards, including www.usawaterpolo.com, have suggested that alumni and parents may try to save the teams by funding them independently. Also the prospect of continued political pressure on the state has given hope to proponants of UMass water polo.

“The reduction will have a negative impact on the quality of the league,” Humphries said. “We are hoping that they raise enough money to play next year. They are one of the teams we point towards to validate East Coast water polo.”

If these last-ditch efforts to salvage UMass water polo are unsuccesful, one of the nation’s premier water polo teams will have met an untimely demise.

“They’re under a lot of financial stress, and I appreciate the situation,” Floerchinger said. “But it’s terrible for them to lose something that they could really take pride in.”