AN OFF TRACK : Price of Glory Is Too High as Money Runs Out at San Jose State

Speed City, which admittedly had become increasingly difficult to find in recent years, is now no longer on the map at all.

San Jose State remains, of course, but the track and field program that inspired its famous nickname has been vaporized, and for the usual reasons.

The shifting priorities of Division 1 athletics doomed it. That and a continuing lack of resources. It sounds cold, but here’s the economic reality:

The program that produced such dazzling athletes as Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Lee Evans, Ray Norton and Ronnie Ray Smith--these four won more medals in the 1968 Olympics than 75% of the countries competing--has been traded in for a strength coach and two academic counselors.

Doesn’t sound like much of a deal, does it? In fact, four sports were traded in. Also disenfranchised on May 11 were cross-country, wrestling and women’s field hockey. What price heritage? About $107,000.

Athletic Director Randy Hoffman, who said, “I would have preferred this decision had been made prior to my coming here,” started off by saying that heritage is heritage: “That goes back 10-15 years.”

San Jose State hasn’t had any big team success in at least that long. It has been 18 years since the Spartans won the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. team title.

And for all the outrage the school’s decision provoked, San Jose State track and field drew minimal attention. And for all the outcry, there had been little public support of a program that, by its nature, is very expensive.

And apparently San Jose State has been wallowing in nostalgia, not reality. The track facility, which Coach Marshall Clark said “was the Cadillac of tracks” when it was installed in 1968, had long since become substandard. The Tartan surface was the first installed west of the Mississippi River, but replacing or refurbishing it would cost $230,000. The facility itself would require another $270,000 in improvements.

San Jose State track and field had already been operating on a Spartan budget. The $107,000 allotted was mostly devoted to coaches’ salaries. The actual operating budget, about $20,000 for travel and expenses--there are no full scholarships--is about one-fifth of that allowed Fresno State, which has long since replaced San Jose State as the track-and-field power in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.

“Our budget has been thin,” Clark admitted. “I kind of think that’s been used against us.”

Certainly, there weren’t many money-saving steps available to the program. And revenue was a distant prospect. Until the state came in with the money, Clark admitted, the track facility would be too shabby to even hold meets there. Not that many would come anyway.

But the problem at San Jose State is not really about track, or field hockey or wrestling or cross-country.

Hoffman said: “The crunch came up when I got here (two years ago) and was asked to do a five-year plan, a review of the sports programs. And I identified a number of different weaknesses.”

Hoffman, who came from Maryland, was surprised to learn that there was little academic support given the athletes.

“I was not pleased with the retention and graduation rate of athletes,” he said. “There was nothing in drug education. We just weren’t doing things other universities were.”

Worse, as far as he was concerned, were comments from outgoing athletes that they had been used, run through the mill.

“Quite frankly, there were too many students who came through and left and felt they’d been used by the system,” he said.

Hoffman said that it was necessary to bring in two full-time academic counselors. As for adding a strength coach, it sounds kind of trivial except that the NCAA has a rule forbidding coaches from working with athletes during the off-season.

“We couldn’t open the weight room because of liability,” Hoffman said.

Were there alternatives to dropping sports programs?

“None that were appealing,” Hoffman said.

The university was already contributing $2.6 million of the $4.6-million athletic budget.

“That’s considerable already,” Hoffman said.

Increased fund-raising appeared out of the question.

“It’s been fairly consistent here,” Hoffman said. “About $400,000 a year. The average nationally is $1.2 million. So that didn’t seem a short-term solution.”

A third alternative, student support, was ruled out, too, when the Associated Students shot down a proposed 6% hike in fees.

“The last thing we looked at were the sports programs,” Hoffman said, all 18 of them.

In the review process, which took eight months, track and field appeared most vulnerable. Expensive by its nature--just the travel for 20-plus athletes, as opposed to, say, a tennis team--and badly in need of expensive facilities, while not receiving much support, track and field was a loser.

“We bit the bullet,” Hoffman said.

Last person out of Speed City, hit the lights.

The reaction was predictable, if insufficient. Media outcry was particularly quick.

Yet, for all the letters Hoffman got, he said there were no blank checks. “It’s resources that fund programs,” he pointed out.

The students scheduled a rally, but the turnout was about the same as for a track meet, neither being very impressive.

One former athlete told a Bay Area reporter that Bud Winter, who created the championship program, was spinning in his grave. But mostly, the outrage was modulated by a sense of the inevitable.

USC Coach Ernie Bullard, who succeeded Winter at San Jose State, was more sad than shocked.

“I think that program, from Bud Winter on, was accomplished in spite of the administration,” he said. The decline “was engineered over a long period of time. They just felt there weren’t enough influential people interested.”

Bullard noted that track and field in 1968 enjoyed an operating budget of $18,000 and an additional $16,000 for scholarships. When he left in 1984, the operating budget was $11,000, and scholarships were funded outside the program.

This, he admitted, is the wave of the future. Oregon State has dropped track and field. So has Northwestern. Bullard wonders about San Diego State.

“When you have so many people fighting for dollars . . . Well, this is just one little incident pointing the direction of track.”

Pointing away from Speed City.