Budget Cutbacks at UC Irvine Imperil Baseball, Other Sports : College: Athletic Director Tom Ford sees few options other than cutting certain programs.

UC Irvine, facing a budget deficit of more than $500,000 by the end of next year, will have to cut some of its 19 sports programs unless the athletic department receives “a major windfall,” Athletic Director Tom Ford said.

“Nothing is sacred,” Ford said. “My mandate is we’ve got to balance the budget. The hard part is that it’s going to affect people, especially young people.”

Irvine, operating on a deficit this season because of shortfalls in basketball revenue and the effects of a sluggish economy, faces university cutbacks next year as well as dramatically increased scholarship costs.

“There is no fat,” Ford said. “There’s some lean muscle, and we’ll be cutting into the bone.”

UCLA and Cal State Long Beach already have announced the discontinuation of some sports this year, and Irvine coaches are bracing for the worst.

Mike Gerakos, coach of Irvine’s baseball team, met with his team and with players’ parents this weekend to update them on the situation.

“As of right now, UCI has a baseball program, and I’m the baseball coach,” Gerakos said. “What happens next is in someone else’s hands.”

Baseball is considered vulnerable because it is an expensive sport, yet does not produce much revenue.

“You look at dollars and cents, and baseball sticks out,” Gerakos said. “Just look at the bottom line.”

The baseball team’s budget was approximately $200,000 this year, which Gerakos and Ford said is already minimal funding for the sport.

“If the program survives, I don’t know what type of ammunition we’ll have available,” Gerakos said. “Baseball being a visible sport, maybe I’m naive, but I didn’t think baseball had a worry. I’m a baseball coach, not a businessman.”

Ford, who might meet with Chancellor Jack W. Peltason to discuss options as soon as this week, said he is hoping to save all Irvine’s programs but that it will probably not be possible.

Men’s basketball is Irvine’s untouchable sport, although even its budget will be trimmed, Ford said.

The decision on which sports would be cut would be based in part on NCAA requirements for Division I standing, which mandate that a school such as Irvine field seven men’s teams and seven women’s teams.

Because Irvine currently has only seven NCAA women’s teams--basketball, track, cross-country, volleyball, tennis, swimming and soccer--the school could not cut a women’s sport without adding another women’s sport at the same time. For example, Irvine could cut a sport, but add golf, which would be less expensive.

Irvine currently has 10 men’s teams in NCAA sports--basketball, baseball, tennis, water polo, volleyball, track, cross-country, swimming, golf and soccer--and therefore could cut three and still fulfill NCAA requirements.

“I know it’s nervous-Pervis time,” said Greg Patton, tennis coach, who believes his team is probably safe because it helps pay for itself. “I think we all have to pull our share of the load. I am the eternal optimist. I never think I’m in trouble till I’m neck-high in quicksand.”

Irvine tried to forestall the crisis. Anticipating the revenue it would need to balance its budget, the athletic department set a fund-raising goal of $600,000, even though it had never raised as much as $400,000. The drive, which ends shortly, is approaching $300,000.

“If we had raised the $600,000, we probably wouldn’t be in the bind we’re in right now,” Ford said.

One coach, water polo’s Ted Newland, tried to spare his team the knife by donating $20,000 of his own money to the program this spring.

Even that kind of commitment can’t safeguard a sport, Ford said, while noting that a donor can restrict the use of his gift.

“If we were to drop water polo,” Ford said, “we’d give it back to him.”