6B / **SPORTS** / THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COLLEGE SPORTS
Cal slashes athletics budget, drops four varsity programs
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
Cal's administration included baseball among the five sports affected Tuesday while slashing $4 million from the athletic department's future budget. The 2011 season — the school's 119th since the program was born in 1892 — will now be the Golden Bears' last.
"Berkeley prides itself on having perhaps the most diverse campus in the country, and now it has shut down America's pastime," said Kevin Maas, a former Cal player who spent five seasons in the major leagues and now resides in Castro Valley.
In addition to baseball, Cal eliminated men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse, all effective beginning with the 2011-12 school year. It reclassified the hugely successful men's rugby program as a varsity club sport.
Coach Jack Clark, who has directed 21 of Cal's 25 rugby national championships, was confused by the new designation, but he is willing to await further explanation.
"I was speechless," said Jeff Kent, a potential Hall of Famer who played at Cal and was the National League MVP with the Giants in 2000. "My initial thought was more of a disgusted feeling. I came from that program, and there's absolutely no way in the world I'd be sitting where I am now if it wasn't for that program.
"For that to be eliminated, I'm kind of embarrassed, too. I'm hurt."
As pitcher Tyson Ross, who played at Cal from 2006-08 and finished this season at Triple-A Sacramento, called the news "heartbreaking."
Cal baseball coach David Esquer has vowed to stay on through the
final season.
"I love the university, love what it stands for," Esquer said. "But this is tragic, and I don't agree with it. I don't like it."
Cal players were not made available for comment, but Esquer said, "They're angry and scared and nervous."
and net roots.
Athletic director Sandy Barbour,
who appeared at an afternoon
news conference with Chancellor
Robert Birgeneau and Vice-
Chancellor Frank Yeary, called it
"a difficult and painful day."
The cuts became necessary after Birgeneau decided the university would provide $5 million annually to intercollegiate athletics. In recent years, athletics has needed as much as $9 million to $13 million from the school to augment its $70 million overall budget.
Birgeneau said no more teams will be cut and believes the changes will allow Cal to land on a
financially sustainable path by 2014.
2014. Cal baseball won the first College World Series in 1947, then won it again 10 years later. But the Bears haven't captured a Pac-10 title since 1980, and Barbour said the program had the highest net cost to the university among men's programs.
The other nine Pac-10 schools all have baseball teams. Conference newcomer Colorado, which arrives next fall, does not field a team, but Utah, the other incoming member of the Pac-10, does.
Longtime Stanford coach Mark Marquess said Cal's decision will cause ripples beyond Berkeley.
"Obviously, it affects Stanford, because it's our traditional rival. We are big rivals, but we have a lot of good friends there." Marquess said in a statement.
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