Editor,
On April 24, the Faculty Senate will consider a resolution in support of the reinstatement of three UNM men's intercollegiate athletics programs that were cut in 1999: gymnastics, swimming and wrestling. The Faculty Senate should vote against this resolution for at least three reasons.
First, the UNM faculty has taken the position that "UNM should cease to participate in intercollegiate athletics." This policy was adopted at a special meeting of the full faculty on March 29, 1994. It has not been rescinded or revised since then.
As a body that represents the faculty, the Senate should work toward the elimination of Lobo athletic programs, not toward their increase.
Second, the so-called "Olympic," or minor, sports are subject to the same pressures toward professionalism and commercialization that have corrupted the international Olympic movement and intercollegiate basketball and football.
For example, in 1991 UNM women's gymnastics coach Pete Longdon arranged for a ringer to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test for an academically challenged recruit he wanted for his program. If such scandals are fewer in the minor sports, it is only because the economic stakes are lower. The minor sports are inherently no purer or closer to the amateur ideal than are the major sports.
Third, who really cares about the minor sports? Golf, gymnastics, skiing, swimming, tennis, wrestling and the others draw few spectators and do not support themselves economically. To be sure, they provide expensive subsidies for a handful of students, coaches and administrators.
They also improve the image of the UNM Athletics Department by raising the grade-point average and diluting the arrest statistics amassed by participants in the major sports. In addition, the minor sports give the athletic's department some place to putp in-state students who, by mandate of the State Legislature, must be given 25 percent of the University's athletic scholarships.
Nevertheless, the main reason why the athletics department maintains 18 or so different sports is simply that the NCAA requires the University to do so as a condition of Division I status. If this artificial demand did not exist, the athletics department would have dropped nearly all of the minor sports long ago. Nor would they be much missed.
If the Faculty Senate wishes to encourage the amateur ideal of student participation in competitive physical activity, it should advocate the termination of intercollegiate athletics and a redirection of resources toward intramural programs and facilities. By no means should the faculty advocate the reinstatement of men's gymnastics, swimming and wrestling.
If the Hydra voluntarily dropped three of its heads, would Hercules vote in favor of re-attaching them?
Hugh Witemeyer
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Professor
English Department
