Maybe One More Run for Their Money : Reaction: Dustin James may make field at NCAA championships, but he’d be last man to race in UC Irvine uniform. Others plan to transfer or end athletic careers.

The last pitch has been thrown, but the last race might not have been run. Not yet.

If Dustin James, UC Irvine’s outstanding sophomore sprinter, makes the field for the 400 meters at the NCAA championships, there will be at least one more.

James is expected to find out by Saturday if his provisional qualifying time of 46.02 seconds will earn him a trip to Austin, Tex., next month for the NCAA championships.

If he makes it, it will be one strange trip.

“It would be like knowing that is the end,” James said. “I’d be the last man, probably, (to race in an Irvine uniform.)”

James’s chances of reaching the NCAAs are “borderline,” he said. Decathlete Matt Farmer is technically still in the running, but he says he has conceded.

As of Tuesday, Irvine officially hung up the cleats on its men’s track team, along with baseball and men’s cross-country, dropping the programs because of a budget crisis and concerns about gender equity.

Tuesday marked the end of three teams and all their histories. The baseball players still had gloves in their hands and the runners still wore jackets with UCI insignia as they sat at a news conference, sometimes joining in the questioning of Irvine administrators.

But already they must think about their futures. Many said they will transfer. Some, those closer to graduation, will stay at Irvine and give up their athletic careers.

It will probably not be easy for any. Because the announcement comes late in the year, most other colleges have issued their available scholarships. Some players who walked on at Irvine may have reached the end of their athletic roads.

“It’s going to be tough for me to move on,” sophomore pitcher Ernie Ramirez said. “Someone like Jon (Van Zandt) will have it easier; he pitched 99 innings this year, I got in, like, seven. . . . I walked on here. They promised they would fix me up with a scholarship, then the tightenings happened and they said, ‘Well, next year.’ Obviously, that’s not going to happen now.”

Even Marieke Veltman, a woman long jumper who has qualified for the NCAAs, said she will probably consider transferring because of the effects of the elimination of the men’s team.

With the shake-up in the track program, Vince O’Boyle, a middle-distance specialist whose title is director of track and field, will be the only remaining coach.

Danny Williams, a sprints coach who officially has been head of the women’s program, and part-time assistant Kevin McCarthy, a field events coach, will lose their jobs.

“It’s going to be pretty hard to run the program,” O’Boyle said. “You can do it with one person, but if you do it’s going to be like Stretch Armstrong--stretched from one point to the other.”

McCarthy, who will accompany the Irvine contingent to Austin, expects an awkward trip.

“We’ve got to step foot on that plane and compete for Irvine, when everyone who’s going probably won’t be here next year,” he said.

There are rumblings of protest, and proposals to raise money to fund programs.

But Mike Gerakos, baseball coach, went through that last year, and it proved not to make a difference.

Is there any inclination left to fight?

“Not for me,” Gerakos said. “You just get to a point where you’ve hit your head against the wall, and that’s it. You’ve got to listen to the headache.”