Alumni have come to the rescue of baseball at Bowling Green State University.
Just a couple of weeks after the university announced it would discontinue its baseball program, BGSU officials reversed course and said the $1.5 million raised will fund the program through the next three years.
What happens after that remains an unanswered question, but at least the Falcons will not lose another varsity sport.
The plan to eliminate baseball was part of a larger budget-cutting process as the university wrestles with the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis. BGSU aimed to cut $2 million from the athletic budget to help address an expected $29 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.
Along with cutting a sport, the athletic director announced administrators and coaches, even those under contract, will take part in the university’s furlough plan, starting with 20 days for the department’s highest earners. University president Rodney Rogers announced a 15-percent pay cut, while other senior administration will receive 10-percent decreases.
More than 100 university employees were laid off or were informed their contracts would not be renewed.
The need to make deep cuts may have been understandable, but that didn’t mean it would sit well with baseball fans and alumni. A fund-raising campaign quickly raised enough to support the $500,000 a year cost of fielding a baseball team for three seasons.
This is an imperfect solution. After all, that level of fund-raising isn’t sustainable, nor would it be fair to fund one sport indefinitely through contributions while other sports are funded directly by the university.
But it is a workable temporary solution, and in these unusual circumstances, that is enough. As The Blade’s reporting has shown, when a university cuts a sport, it almost never revives it. So, keeping baseball going, even in the short term, with contributions from alumni and other supporters, can preserve BGSU baseball until the university can field a team on its own again.
Much has been lost as the pandemic’s impact lands on the economy, at least BGSU baseball can be spared.
First Published June 12, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
