A Little Pasta Can Help Make Ends Meet : Budgeting: UC Irvine coaches know all too well how to stretch their budgets. Spaghetti feasts and rooming in homes on the road are among the cost-cutting measures.
The UC Irvine men’s tennis team is ranked No. 9 in the country, but when it comes to funding, the Anteaters are a Bottom 10 contender.
Coach Greg Patton’s already austere budget has been cut this year, part of an attempt to balance the department’s budget.
“I’m down to the bone,” he says.
So, how does the ninth-best collegiate tennis team in the nation make ends meet?
“We cook up a bunch of spaghetti and have a spaghetti feast,” Patton said, cheerfully. “My budget has always been small, so I don’t think I’ve been cut as much as some other sports. But I’ve sure had to tighten the belt and creative fund-raising is more important than ever now.
“The kids have to perceive that things are first-class, so it just means I have to do my homework and see that things appear first-class. We’re going to Kentucky and they will provide housing and (meal) per diem. Or a school like Miami, they’ve got so much money, it’s a drop in the bucket for them to fly out a UC Irvine.
“I’ve made a lot friends in coaching and we get a lot done on the good-ol’-boy system. We don’t stay in hotels, we stay in homes. Our per diem is about $15 to $18 this year, but we don’t have to hitch-hike to meets or anything.”
The UCI athletic department’s 1989-90 operating budget is approximately $2 million. The school has 19 Division I sports and under NCAA rules, could offer as many as 160 full scholarships. It currently funds 65, most of which are divided up by coaches and shared among student-athletes.
Over the past six or seven years, UCI’s athletic department’s deficit has reached $1 million. But it’s not as if Joe’s Sporting Goods is notifying a collection agency. The money is owed by the university to the university and a five-year plan to pay off the debt from general campus funds has been instituted.
It’s not as if past administrations were corrupt or even inept, however. More than half ($650,000) of the deficit came from payments athletics was forced to make because of cost overruns during the building of the Bren Center, which was supposed to cost $10 million but came in closer to $15 million.
The administration could decide to cut some of Irvine’s sports--they need only six men’s and six women’s sports to remain in Division I--but most of the sports are so poorly funded that dropping them would be, well, a drop in the bucket.
“We’re totally underbudgeted, in any and every area, from staff to personnel to facilities,” baseball Coach Mike Gerakos said. “You could even cut some sports and not save much money, the sports are so under-budgeted and coaches are underpaid. The crux of the matter is there isn’t enough money in the pot and I don’t see how it can get any worse. You can’t get water out of a rock.”
Let Vince O’Boyle, track and cross-country coach, illustrate:
“Let’s say they decided to drop both men’s and women’s track and field and men’s and women’s cross-country,” O’Boyle said. “You cut out my $35,000 salary, (women’s track coach) Danny Williams’ $28,000, one assistant at $10,000 and the other at $5,000. Then you save $45,000 total in scholarships and $43,000 total in operating budgets.
“That means 102 student-athletes are out of luck and you’ve saved a grand total of $166,000.”
The university decided to move into Division I in 1977-78, but it didn’t increase funding or make plans for future financial increases.
“The coaches didn’t necessarily want or make that decision,” O’Boyle said. “So, well, if you’re going to do it, support it. I guess that has to come from the top down. But help us out a little bit.”
Horace Mitchell, vice chancellor for student affairs who is the acting athletic director, and Otto Reyer, who is actually running the athletic department until a new athletic director is named, hope to boost the coffers through stepped up fund-raising.
But even they admit that if Irvine is to keep its budget balanced, it will have to raise more money than ever just to stay even . . . which basically means broke.
“I think what we’re saying as an institution is that we will evaluate where we are when the new A.D. is in place and where we want to go,” Reyer said. “That evaluation hasn’t been done. And it needs to be done.
“The university has said there will be no more deficits. We’ve guaranteed that won’t happen again. But we’re not providing what it takes to compete in Division I right now.