Shoreline CC may cut tennis, replace it with cross country

Published 9:13 pm Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Shoreline Community College athletic director Doug Palmer wants to drop the school’s tennis program from next year’s college budget and replace it with cross country.

The proposal has the support of the college’s Board of Trustees and administration, Palmer said.

“I think over the long run we’ll save travel money and add more full-time students to the school,” he said.

Palmer said the school has to inform the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges by May 1 that it may make a change.

Palmer’s proposal goes to the Shoreline Student Body Association Senate which can decide to approve money for it or not. The Senate could make several decisions. It could accept Palmer’s recommendation and provide money for cross country and not tennis, decide to pay for both tennis and add cross country, keep the status quo and pay for only tennis, or even drop funding for both sports. Because student fees finance the athletic department the elected student senate approves the athletic funding in the budget before it goes to the Board of Trustees,

The budget for tennis is about $16,200 and the budget for cross country would be about the same, Palmer said.

There are 10 men’s and 10 women’s cross country programs at 13 schools in the NWAACC, Palmer said. There are five men’s and six women’s tennis programs in the NWAACC. The tennis team travels to NWAACC schools all over the Northwest in eastern and southwestern Oregon, Spokane and even Canada. Palmer said no overnight trips in cross country would be required until the postseason. Travel expenses for tennis makes up about a third of the budget, Palmer said. Travel would make up about a fifth of the cross country budget, Palmer estimated.

The tennis program has 14 athletes, eight men’s players and six women’s players. Palmer said the Everett Community College cross country team has about 14 to 15 men’s runners and 12 to 13 women’s runners. If cross country were added it would probably be a club sport this fall, with runners competing in three to four meets but they would not be eligible for a NWAACC title. It become a full-fledged championship sport in 2009.

Tennis coach Eric Moujtahid-Webster, a veteran coach who played at Columbia, was disappointed by the proposal by Palmer, who was hired last January.

“I think it’s a bad decision on his part given as I was brought in to rebuild the program here,” said Moujtahid-Webster, who was hired four years ago. “His premise is, I think, is the number of participants on the tennis team don’t justify the budget allocated for the tennis team. You can only carry and use so many players on a tennis team. I get what I need and go with that.”

Player Wes Abney said it would be shame to replace tennis with cross country because the program is finally starting to build up and some schools are adding programs.

“Two new programs are coming in next year,” to the NWAACC, he said. “We’re pushing for more schools.”

Abney also made note of the international flavor of the sport and of the team which includes four players from Asia.

“We got lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life,” he said “It’s frustrating for us to be sure.”

Palmer said sometimes booster clubs form when a sport is dropped to support a team, but in this case Palmer said, “I don’t expect that to happen.”