Athletes are usually competitive by nature, which makes playing as a Triton all the more frustrating for Justine Fonte, a Revelle College sophomore and member of the women’s tennis team.
“We are a Division-I level school functioning as a Division-II school,” said Fonte, who serves as the 2005-06 California Collegiate Athletic Association representative to the NCAA.
As one of only two UC campuses not competing in Division I, UCSD remains a giant among its Division-II counterparts. Academically, the campus ranks 32nd in the nation, according to the U.S. News and World Report, with the next Division-II school, UC Davis, ranked 48th. UCSD’s student body of over 20,000 is much more than the 2,000-to-8,000 averages of most Division-II schools.
The allure of UCSD’s academic standing has made the campus an attractive sight for new recruits, according to Cal State Los Angeles Athletics Director Dan Bridges. In fact, CSULA needs to “give over $350,000 [per] year in athletic scholarships to stay reasonably competitive with UCSD, and even then it’s a struggle,” he said.
Bridges also said that although Cal State Los Angeles’ athletics program matches up pretty well to UCSD’s, “if UCSD ever decided to give out athletic scholarships, it would blow [us] out of the water.”
Cal State Los Angeles is in luck. UCSD remains the only school in Division II to offer no athletic scholarships.
While the Academic Senate is considering awarding the NCAA-mandated minimum amount of scholarships, $500 per student-athlete, athletes are getting restless with a school atmosphere they say has skewed priorities.
“[We have] no scholarships and little emphasis on athletics,” Fonte said. “It is really difficult for the athletic program to progress under these circumstances.”
Some athletes are more ambitious, pushing for the athletics department to move to the top NCAA tier. In 2000, administrators decided UCSD had outgrown its Division III standing and moved up to Division II. The same upgrade should be considered now, according to Thurgood Marshall College senior Kaitlin Foe, UCSD representative to CCAA and captain of the women’s water polo team.
Men’s and women’s water polo, along with fencing and men’s volleyball, already compete at the Division-I level.
An upgrade to Division I may be too heavy of a burden for UCSD, however, considering the athletic department’s current financial struggles, according to Senior Associate Director of Athletics Ken Grosse. The program remains underfunded, Grosse said, attributing the problems to UCSD’s large-scale program, which involves 23 sports.
“In our [conference] … which is mainly California state universities, you’re talking about 12 to 14 sports, and their budgets are probably the same as ours, operating-wise,” Grosse said.
At its current state, the athletics department would not be making a financially viable move if it decided to become a Division-I school, Grosse said, even if the university was comparable athletically.
“Division I has a minimum [amount of money that] we have to get, and … there is a wide gap between where we are now and where that is,” Grosse said. “Right now though, our focus is definitely on being the best in Division II.”
UCSD Director of Athletics Earl W. Edwards echoed Grosse’s concerns, saying that a move to Division I would be inappropriate not only financially, but also athletically.
“We’re not at that level,” he said.
Other student athletes want to deal with problems close to home before considering a Division-I upgrade. Reconciling the heavy emphasis on academics of UCSD with athletics has created a dilemma for many athletes, according to Ashok Pathi, a Revelle College junior and member of the fencing team.
Even the presence of athletic scholarships would not be enough to change the atmosphere of the school, Pathi said.
“It would take a long time to change our image to a pro-athletic school,” he said.
That idea might not even have the support of UCSD faculty.
A decision on athletic scholarships has been delayed by the Academic Senate since the end of last year, with multiple faculty members voicing displeasure with the possibility of introducing athletic scholarships. The scholarships would give every eligible athlete the minimum grant.
While giving scholarships to athletes would definitely give more financial power to the department, Grosse said that he was unable to comment on whether it would give the department enough financial power to move to Division I. For now, the main concern of a Division-I move lies in prioritization, Grosse said.
“We all want to win, but I’m not sure it’s something that you want to compromise the main core of the university mission for,” he said. “With the right kind of planning and approach we could be successful whenever the time comes.”
In addition, establishing a strong financial base should come before any talk of a Division-I move, Grosse said.
“Nobody is asking for a situation where we just throw money at [athletes] and then [they] can do whatever they want, as you see in other programs, but we just want resources,” he said. “And once we can be the best here and we have everything in line, then we’ll talk about the future.”
