indiana state suspends men's, women's tennis programs

[TJames]

Indiana State Suspends Men’s, Women’s Tennis Programs

TERRE HAUTE, IND. Due to budget reduction measures occurring throughout the university, Indiana State University has announced the indefinite suspension of its men’s and women’s tennis programs, effective immediately.

“This was a very difficult and much discussed decision. I want to thank our Student Athletes, Coach Malik Tabet, and Coach Martha Montoya for their efforts and dedication to Sycamore Athletics and Indiana State University. We wish them well as they pursue other opportunities,” said Ron Prettyman, Indiana State University Director of Intercollegiate Athletics.

“This decision was a budgetary decision that yielded the necessary budget cuts that are proportionate to reductions being incurred by other areas of the University. It allows for maintenance of operations budgets in other sponsored sports which is critical to our future success. We reviewed several options before reaching this conclusion”, said Prettyman.

With the suspension of the men’s and women’s tennis programs, Indiana State will now offer 14 intercollegiate varsity sport programs, 6 men’s and 8 women’s.

All student athletes who have remaining eligibility will be granted immediate eligibility for competition if they choose to transfer to other schools.

The University will honor all scholarships as agreed to for the 2009-2010 academic year for tennis student athletes wishing to continue their studies and complete their undergraduate education at Indiana State. The Athletics Department staff will assist student athletes with decision-making and transitions to other universities.

[SycamoreStateofMind]

Not so much....

This does not suprise me what so ever... That's really to bad though. Atleast they won't put up to much of a fight when they build the new indoor track and have to tear out the tennis courts to make room...

What about cutting the football program???


lol Ok just kidding... I was looking for a reaction. But I really don't want to open a can of worms before the weekend!

[RafterRat]

Too bad this had to happen...

[SycamoreStateofMind]

Well lets be real here... It's not like they had any local kids and trust me if they wanted to get talent right here in the state of Indiana they could have found it. They had foreign coaches that recruited foreign players. Granted they were decent players but who is going to support a program like that? That's why you don't hire foreign coaches in the first place... This is the United States of America, I am not going to go all patriotic on this but come on.

Is this a positive thing? Not suggesting that.

Will we even care about this decision in 2 years? Doubtful

Are any local kids getting hurt because of this? Nope they were not being recruited by I State in the first place.

Overall good decision by the Administration....

[ISUCC]

if you look at all the rosters of the MVC teams (mens and womens), and most collegiate teams, most are made up of foreign players.


Well lets be real here... It's not like they had any local kids and trust me if they wanted to get talent right here in the state of Indiana they could have found it. They had foreign coaches that recruited foreign players. Granted they were decent players but who is going to support a program like that? That's why you don't hire foreign coaches in the first place... This is the United States of America, I am not going to go all patriotic on this but come on.

Is this a positive thing? Not suggesting that.

Will we even care about this decision in 2 years? Doubtful

Are any local kids getting hurt because of this? Nope they were not being recruited by I State in the first place.

Overall good decision by the Administration....

[SycamoreStateofMind]

Really well good observation then thank you for bringing that to my attention. Cut the entire sport from NCAA Athletics then... Sorry to offend any Tennis freaks out their. Don't make me pull out my 8th grad #4 Singles Vigo County Champion ribbon.

[TJames]

yes, i know that it's just a matter of semantics....but it does leave the door open for the programs to return at some later date....and it wouldn't surprise me if they did come back in a few years....

[4Q_iu]

Disappointing in that State has had success in tennis; disappointing because it lowers ISU's profile, esp overseas BUT hard to argue with the decision, esp. with as it brings in little to no revenue.

But then I'm disappointed that State no longers has wrestling or gymnastics; esp. that two of the world's finest in those sports are State Alumni.

[ISUCC]

I was just stating that alot of teams have foreign coaches and foreign players Morgan. It's just common amongst NCAA teams, that was all.


Really well good observation then thank you for bringing that to my attention. Cut the entire sport from NCAA Athletics then... Sorry to offend any Tennis freaks out their. Don't make me pull out my 8th grad #4 Singles Vigo County Champion ribbon.

[Pomeroy Fan]

Golden took a whack at this in his blog.

http://blogs.tribstar.com/downinthevalley/

He raises a good point, how many cared about this until it was eliminated?

[SycamoreStateofMind]

Golden took a whack at this in his blog.

http://blogs.tribstar.com/downinthevalley/

He raises a good point, how many cared about this until it was eliminated?

The real question is how many still care? When in doubt start a poll... I don't think it makes anyone think any lesser of Indiana State we have other programs to thank for that. I don't think it really means to much at this point.

[BlueSycamore]

Never went to a match, never planned to, don't watch the pro's on tv...................don't really care.

[SycamoreStateofMind]

Thank you BlueSycamore... Now post 6 more times so we can have the same # of career posts! I will wait on you to catch up but hurry. Tom James is trying to find a way to get me to argue with him any second now! lol

[Daveinth]

The tennis team deserves as much respect from you as you expect from others when it comes to track ,baseball, cross country or basketball .Just because this sport is not important to you doesn’t mean it is not to someone else. I don’t likethe sport but they are all still athletes and to do away with either sport is sad. It’s not like these teams have not been successful in the past.

[TJames]

i don't argue...now do i??? lol.......as for tennis, i still remember the day when i worked at isu....and the men's tennis coach at the time came into our office and needed help trying to fax some scholarship papers to a kid in the ukraine...or was it sweden...i dunno...lol....one of those countries....and because of the time difference, he asked me to sit there in my office and try to fax stuff....to some weird number...lol.....i was there til like 1:30 a.m.....trying to get the darned thing to go through...and then we still didnt get the kid....his grades didn't match what he needed to have in order to enroll at isu and be eligible....

[SydCamore]

Rick Semmler from WTWO sent me a text message early in the day to tell me that this was happening. It makes sense. It is unfortunate that things like this happen......... This is the world of non-revenue sports though......

Would you rather they eliminate men's and women's tennis or take money out of the budget for every other sport???? I would vote the same way that Ron Prettyman did.

By the way, I believe that the Men's team did have a local player. Blake Douglas from Terre Haute North......

[BlueSycamore]

Hey Morgan.................didn't notice the post count thing but I guess we have disseminated a lot of crap over a short period of time? You will most likely pass me by and then I will probably make a run when basketball heats up again.

[bent20]

I don't really care that they eliminated the program. I feel bad for the coaches and players (and I actually like to watch professional tennis), but it doesn't mean much to me. If we ever do have the money to bring the sport back I'd rather they consider starting a program for a different sport first.

[4Q_iu]

State's suspension of their tennis programs were the focus of SI's Point After;
I'll keep looking for the link but the text (w/ apologies to the copyright lawyers...)

Break Point in College Tennis

In the folksy reaches of Terre Haute where Larry Bird became a star and the Coca-Cola bottle was designed-understanding the native tongues of Indiana State's top tennis players this year all but required those clunky headphones mothballed in a United Nations closet.
A Swede, a Serb and a South African wore the Sycamores' royal blue, a reflection of the global reach of collegiate tennis. Ofthe top 25 men's and 25 women's players in Division I, as ranked by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), more than half were born outside the U.S. That's led to more than a few jingoistic remarks from the moms and dads of American tennis hopefuls who have watched precious scholarships go to foreigners,
many of whom enter college in their 20s. "If parents invest $50,000 a year into their child's
tennis career, some feel they're owed," says David Benjamin, executive director of the ITA. "But it's not in the Constitution that if you spend a certain amount, you'll get a scholarship to the school of your choice. Intellectually, a family understands this, but emotionally it's difficult to accept. That's where you get the anger." It's the land of opportunity-why wouldn't there be an open casting call? Chris Finney, for one, didn't have to go all Patriot Act. Rather than feel squeezed out, Finney, a freshman from Scranton, Pa., nudged his way into the Benetton ad, determined to play among the best in the world. The top player at Wallenpaupack Area High and a district doubles champion, he walked on to an Indiana State team that improved as the season progressed. College is where the Bryan brothers got on the fast track to doubles fame. Where James Blake developed a swashbuckling forehand straight out of a Johnny Depp scene. Where the landscape is more competitive than ever, but increasingly threatened too. Around 7 p.m. on May 14,Finney, having just finished his semester, was dining out with his family when he picked up a call from his coach, Malik Tabet. The signal was clear; the words were a jolt: The men's and women's tennis programs had been the first casualties of budget cuts in what athletic director Ron Prettyman called a "difficult" but "necessary" decision. "Everyone was left high and dry," says Finney. "What am I going to do now'? That's the question we have. I don't know if I want to go back to Indiana State. I don't know what I'd do without tennis. It's been my life." Tennis career crises are an NCAAepidemic. The international stars are handy when schools need to fill the trophy cases, but they make teams vulnerable when money gets tight; boosters aren't likely to phone in protests from Barcelona. Since April, tlle men's programs havebeen slashed at Soutlleastern Louisiana (nine of 10players were foreign-born), Tennessee-Martin (four of seven) and Southern (fiveof five)on top of a half-dozen Division I programs cut in 2008. "What is happening now," says Benjamin, "is like going from a normal flu season to a pandemic." AD's don't merely shutter tennis programs because of Title IX (the oldexcuse)or foreign players (the new excuse).They do it to preach tlle gospel of revenue-producing sports without disclosing the secret-that few of them turn a profit-to football-obsessed boosters. "We've got kids who are completely disgusted," says Tabet, who was born in France and played at NAIAMobile (Ala.). He was tlle Missouri ValleyConference coach of tlle year in 2008 after tlle Indiana State women's
team, composed entirely of foreign players, went undefeated in conference and won the title. This year he coachedtlle men, too.Whiletlley struggled to rebuild, they have been dominant in the past, winning 60 straight conferencematches from 1999 through 2004 witlliargely international talent. "Wewere getting closer as the year went on," Finney says of his teammates. "I'd made plans to share an apartment with [Serbian] Milos Pavlovic next year." Isn't this what the modern college experience is all about'? Networking in a global marketplace'? There is a paradox to the purging: Tennis is in a recession-era revival. In March The WallStreet Journal ran a story-IS TENNISHIPAGAIN'?-tllat was almost as stunning as tlle numbers to back it up. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association
rated tennis as the fastest-growing sport in the country, with participation jumping 9.6% in
2008 while golf,baseball and football lost bodies. The sport is cathartic to play ("People in these hard times have found hitting a ball therapeutic," says Benjamin) and cheap to start (Wilson'sRoger Federer signature beginner's racket retails for $19.99 at Target). Even on the college level tennis is a bargain. Averageoperational cost (equipment,travel, insurance,
etc.) of a men's or women's team: $15,000 a year. Costof competing in a football arms race (air travel, spa tubs, flat screens, etc.): endless. These days in Terre Haute, there is talk of upgrading the locker room for the Sycamores' football team, which has gone 1-44 since 2005. So here's a question, in plain English: Which sport was ripe for the ax'?

[SycamoreStateofMind]

And in response to that: Tennis - Boxing - And dare I say Horse Racing are DONE! These sports are all but done, dead in the water. I still think the right decision was made here.

I wish Universities could be held 100% accountable so we could know exactly how much money the football program makes or looses every year? I want to know what that figure looks like. (Not well they get paid so much to play in this game and that game) I don't care about that, everyone knows that stuff. I want to know when the season is over how much money does Indiana State Football bank? Also of these players on the football team how many are foreign born?

In turn how much money does Indiana State Tennis bank?

[4Q_iu]

State would still have a Wrestling and Gymnastics programs (as well as the aforementioned tennis programs) but w/ the exception of the Olympics, what's the revenure generated?!

Boxing cut it's own throat when it went almost exclusively to pay-per-view

Horse Racing -- takes some skill/talent to make some money as a bettor; HUGE outlays for the sport, always been the Sport of Kings, always will be

Tennis -- good numbers for the pros; has never been a revenue sport at the University level

[4Q_iu]

The Trib-Star responds:

http://www.tribstar.com/sports/local_story_148235429.html

[howfastisthatman]

Its hard to swallow something like this when the athletes of both the mens and womens tennis teams were pretty good friends with most of the cross country runners that lived up in Jones. You can say what you want about it does not matter too much about losing the programs, but some of us are losing more than that. We may never see these people again in our lives, which most of us would say that they were great people. It would have been a little better if the university would have made the decision to "suspend" operations before the individuals left campus and not have to find out while they were miles away from some of their luggage that they had left with others still in terre haute. Yea the proposed plan of the expansion of the indoor track facility probably didn't help the chances of the tennis teams staying around much longer, but i guess all the resurfacing of those courts went into good use for the last year.

[millwood]

It's Sad to lose the tennis programs. Now imagine if one of the all time greats in American Tennis, Agassi, Conners or Sampras was a former Sycamore. How sad would it be then? Thats the story with the former ISU wrestling team. Bruce Bumgartner a 2 Time Olympic Champion, Won 1 Silver, 1 Bronze, 3 World Cups, 3 Second place finishes / W. Cup, 3 Third place finishes/ W. Cup and an NCAA Championship For the Sycamores yet still the Wrestling Team Left the Campus. We could talk about another Sycamore Sullivan Winner in Kurt Thomas whos sport Followed wrestling right out of town. It's all sad. That Stupid money thing gets us every time.

[Jason Svoboda]

If people showed up in force to football and basketball games, this wouldn't be an issue. This is a self inflicted gunshot wound from students, alumni and fans.