According to captain of the Brandeis golf team Lee Bloom '10, Athletics Director Sheryl Sousa '90 informed the team that there is a possibility that it could fit back into the University's budget if the University budget deficit decreases. In response to Bloom's comments, however, Sousa told the Justice that the budget for fiscal 2010 has already been fixed and will not change.According to Bloom, Sousa told him that "if the economy improves and the budget deficit decreases, then there is a possibility we [the golf team] could be fit back into the budget." In contrast, Sousa said, "At this point I have no information to suggest that that will happen. Our fiscal year 2010 budget has been set up, and at this point there is nothing to suggest that it will change."

Sousa said that the suspension of the golf program was part of sweeping cuts that were made across the Athletics and Physical Education departments. Last year, led by team captains Aaron Hattenbach '09, Alex Podell '09 and Ralph Harary '09, the golf team raised roughly $25,000 in order to maintain the team for the 2009 to 2010 academic year. In a message to the Justice, Hattenbach wrote, "Reflecting upon the issue as a graduate, I do feel that we established valuable relationships with donors this past year. We succeeded in raising the necessary 21k, and even exceeded this goal by raising a surplus of roughly 5k more."

Bloom said that the University had not given a definite deadline but that the team was told that it needed to raise enough money to endow the team within the first couple of years; however, Sousa said that the University has not officially asked the golf team to raise the money to endow the program.

"It's the golf team that has the initiative to endow the program, and if they were to do that and follow through with that, there would be no reason for us to suspend it, but they haven't been asked to do that by the University," Sousa said. According to Sousa, endowing a team involves collecting enough money through specific gifts to be put in an investment account and earn income. The team would then be run off the income raised. The cost of endowing the golf team is between $300,000 and $400,000, Sousa said.

Much of the $25,000 raised in the last year was given by alumni, family and friends of team members, said Bloom. Bloom added that family and friends accounted for a small percentage of the funds, so he expected that the team would have to rely heavily on alumni to raise the much larger sum needed to endow the program.

Bloom said that he hopes that either the team will receive enough money to endow the program this year or that benefactors will effectively endow it by pledging to pay the $20,000 dollars every year for the next 10 years. He said that the team is focusing on alumni but has not yet decided how to contact them. Bloom said that he assumed they would do something similar to their fundraising effort for this year: send a letter that explains the situation and asks for help or donations.

Sousa indicated that the University was unwilling to allow the golf team to continue to operate on a year-by-year basis because of the amount of planning involved in running a varsity sport and the difficulty of recruiting prospective students to a program that is in limbo, saying, "All the planning ... needs to be done ahead of time. ... You're competing against other universities, so you have a commitment to set your schedules up at least a year in advance and in terms of making arrangements and travel arrangements and that sort of thing."

Head coach Bill Shipman said, "The plan is, they were given one year, they saved the money for one more year thanks mostly to the players who were on the team, and after that they would have to raise enough money to continue the team for some time."

Brandeis has indicated that the swimming and diving program will be eliminated at the end of this year. Sousa said that the situation differed from that of the golf team as the University's decision to suspend the swimming team was due to the failure of the Linsey pool. "If the pool were still operating in a proper way, we would not be looking to suspend our swimming program," she said.

Sousa said that the annual operating costs of the swimming program were between $100,000 and $150,000, but added, "At this point it's not about their annual operating costs. It's about . how difficult logistically and how challenging it is to run a program in magnitude of a varsity swim program off-campus. It's just really taxing on everyone involved."

Both the men's and women's swimming teams are currently fundraising in an effort to raise "as much money as possible," according to men's team captain Jesse Hershman '10. The teams are selling Nike-brand Brandeis apparel and plan on contacting alumni and holding more sales over the course of the year.

Women's swim team captain Siobhan Lyons '10 said that to her knowledge the swim program will be cut at the end of this year. She added that although the teams are fundraising, the University has given them no concrete dollar figure or deadline to aim for.







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