Hawaii Athletics Caught in a Budget Squeeze

From the Honolulu Advertiser:

“Sometimes people ask me, ‘Can you cut a sport?’ ” Donovan said. “Because of Title IX and gender equity, we can’t cut a women’s sport unless we cut football. And if we cut football, we couldn’t stay Division I. So that would leave on the table for us (men’s) swimming, tennis, golf, baseball and volleyball.”

Of those men’s sports, Donovan said, “the biggest (financial) loser for us right now is baseball.”

Baseball had a $659,899 shortfall for 2007-08, the most recent year for which complete numbers are available.

“So, if you were looking at it just from a fiscal standpoint, you’d pick baseball,” Donovan said.

“But then, we’d have seven acres down there (on the lower campus) that would have a stadium and wouldn’t have a sport in it. And I would claim we’re pretty much a football, volleyball and baseball state. So, there aren’t any easy choices.”

Cutting the other men’s sports, Donovan said, “might result in a $250,000 savings a year for any one of those sports, so it wouldn’t make a big impact on that ($2.6) million.”

We first wrote about this situation a full year ago, and it hasn’t gotten any better.