Santa Clara, a football power during the...

Santa Clara, a football power during the 1930s and ‘40s, is dropping its football program as part of across-the-board cutbacks throughout the university.

Athletic department employees and players got the first word of the decision Wednesday morning, even though the university’s board of trustees voted Jan. 28 to terminate the program. An NCAA rule change requires schools playing at the Division I level to do so in all sports. Santa Clara had been Division II in football and Division I in all other sports.