University of Alaska ski teams on chopping block due to budget cuts
It’s official: After 40 years, the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) ski team has been selected for elimination due to a lack of funding. The 2016-17 NCAA season will be the team’s last.
The announcement was made at a press conference on Thursday by UAA president Jim Johnsen – a shock to many including UAA alpine ski coach Sparky Anderson.
“We were told it’s a fait accompli,” Anderson told Alaska Dispatch News (adn.com). “I’m extremely disappointed that the most Alaskan sport is the first to go. I think that’s a giant mistake.”
The UAA president has requested an NCAA waiver that would reduce the number of teams required at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and UAA to qualify as NCAA Division II schools, allowing them to cut the alpine and Nordic ski teams which cost the schools a total of $1,000,000 per year to fund.
What happens if the waiver request is not approved? Johnsen told the ADN, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” He added that if the waiver is rejected, he will direct UAA to eliminate three of the four targeted teams, so the school (UAA) is over the 10-sport minimum.
The ski team knew for some time that they were under consideration due to the the loss of $50 million in state funding for the school this fiscal year – much of which was due to falling oil prices.
“I was under the impression we still had time to fight,” Anderson told Alaska Dispatch News. “We had put together a significant campaign to meet with members of the [state] Legislature. It feels like a disingenuous process. It almost felt like they put this out there [Thursday] to fast-track some of these decisions without a lot of thought.”
The ski team was not identified alone for the chopping block as UAA’s indoor track and field program and UAF’s Nordic ski team have also been cut.
The UAA Nordic ski team found out about the announcement during a training session Thursday.
“It’s kind of like learning about a death in the family,” UAA Nordic Coach Andrew Kastning told ADN. “It’s devastating. I was brought to tears and looked around and other people were crying. Tissue boxes were being passed around. It was hard to know what to do or say.”
Waiver or not, the UAA team has a new goal for the 2016-17 season: Ski fast enough this winter so that the 19 athletes with eligibility can land on other NCAA ski programs for the 2017-18 season.