Advice to Prep Standouts: Get Out of California, Fast

Steve Scott, a national- and world-ranked 1,500-meter runner for 16 years, worries about the future of college track and field.

“In this country, it’s going nowhere,” said Scott, an All-American at UC Irvine in the mid-1970s who is trying to make his fourth Olympic team this week in New Orleans.

Irvine’s decision to drop its men’s track and cross-country teams follows a cost-cutting trend in California and the West. In recent years, Cal State Long Beach, Oregon State, San Diego State (men’s only) and San Jose State also have dropped programs for financial reasons. (Long Beach later reinstated its program but at a lower level of funding).

The last-ditch efforts by athletes to raise enough money to save Irvine’s program may be a case of too little too late, according to Scott.

“So much damage has been done,” he said. “(Even if it’s saved) it could destroy the school’s program for a year, maybe two. Something has to be done.”

Scott suggests that a sure-fire way to make college administrators reconsider their actions is for athletes and coaches to claim decisions to drop track programs are racially motivated.

“Track at most schools is mostly a black sport,” he said. “That’s one way to stop the trend. They’re denying a certain race a chance to compete in college athletics. They’re keeping tennis and water polo, which are white, upper-middle class sports.

“Most of this is Title IX initiated. They’ve got to cut men’s sports to get them equal to women’s, which is a bunch of B.S. Title IX needs to be rewritten. If it isn’t, say the cuts are racially motivated. Emphasize that.

“It’s really a sad state of affairs for the poor, minority athletes. The schools with the fully funded programs should be the Long Beach States, the San Diego States, the San Jose States. They’re the magnets for minority athletes. They all should have the full 14 scholarships.”

Scott said he would not advise a California high school track and field athlete to attend a school in the UC system.

“I’d say establish yourself at a JC, get good marks and get a scholarship to a school outside California,” he said. “There’s absolutely nowhere to go here.”