Wisconsin College Baseball slowly dying

[RyDogg66]

Madison, River Falls and Eau Claire are already without teams and now UW-La Crosse has announced it is pulling the plug on its college program. This is really unfortunate as it will have an affect on the remaining WIAC teams, such as Whitewater, Oshkosh and Point.

 

Not a good trend.

[Godspeed]

The long Wisconsin winters (which necessitate more maintenance and traveling) coupled with a budget crunch was apparently the downfall. Granted, all the state institutions are facing the same obstacles here, but baseball at UW-L has always been more of a fringe sport, never reaching the levels of football or track in either interest or prestige. I graduated from there in '04 and the mere thought of attending a game never crossed my mind. It's a shame it's gone, but will 99.9% of the student body in La Crosse even notice?

 

I'd assume Whitewater & Oshkosh would hold attach a higher priority to baseball, perhaps at the expense of somewhere else in the budget, due to their relatively successful track record. The others, I have no idea.

[DHonks]

Stupid public schools. I teach in a public school district in Arizona, and I see the same idiocy out here. The Private schools cannot exist without donations, the private sector's support, and charging full tuition. They understand that the revenue pie can always increase in order to fix funding shortfalls.

 

Yet public schools--including my district and the Wisconsin schools--are viewing the revenue pie as limited, and deciding to cut rather than seek to increase the pie. In my district, they have virtually no system in place for adding donations. Yet private schools live off of that in order to subsidize their education costs. In effect, public schools are like many (not all) welfare recipients. They complain when money isn't there, but don't do much to increase their own opportunities.

 

Okay, there's my rant, given my 6.2% paycut this year

[davego]

I wonder if the WIAC Baseball conference will seek to do something different now that they are down to 6 teams? Maybe look to a merge or at least a scheduling agreement with the Northern Sun or whatever league that runs thru Northern Illinois.

[sargennm]

You can't forget about Title IX either. I know that was a huge consideration at UW-Eau Claire when baseball was dropped and was the reason given when others tried to raise private fund to essentially endow the program like a scholarship.

 

DHonks: As a public-school educated adult who works at a private college now, I totally understand your complaint. But there's also the issue of private school graduates feeling as they owe it to give back to their alma maters in some way. My employer lays it on pretty thick from the time the students are getting ready to graduate all the way up to the point that they are planning their wills. "Your predecessors gave to give you this opportunity, now it's your time to give to the next generation." Considering how overtaxed most people feel - fair or not - it's no surprise that they don't give to public schools. Most feel that they are giving to their alma maters when the get their property tax bill. I think the giving to the WIAC schools is pretty pathetic, like less than 5 percent of alumni contribute.

[lynchmobster]

Don't forget my alma mater, Platteville. I often remember seeing the ball field with puddles in the spring -- it didn't have good drainage and was very flat. Wisconsin spring baseball is hard for H.S. too. My brother's teams always ended up playing double headers the second half of the season to make up all the cancelled games.

[JMBehnke]

You can't forget about Title IX either. I know that was a huge consideration at UW-Eau Claire when baseball was dropped and was the reason given when others tried to raise private fund to essentially endow the program like a scholarship.

This was the main reason at UW-Madison as well.

[battlekow]

Baseball America points out that at least someone is trying to save UW-La Crosse baseball.