Making a Last Stand : UCLA: Despite past successes, coaches of swimming, gymnastics are still fighting uphill battle to save men’s programs.

On a recent afternoon at UCLA, Coach Ron Ballatore stomped up and down the deck at the men’s gym pool--stopwatch in his hand, wool cap on his head--bellowing about nothing in particular until his face turned red to the amusement of his swim team.

A few hundred yards away, in UCLA’s Yates Gymnasium, Coach Art Shurlock leaned against a balance beam, quietly discussing a tumbling sequence with a member of his men’s gymnastics team.

These are two men who, combined, have dedicated nearly half a century to coaching at UCLA--with contrasting styles.

But today they are bonded by one factor: Their programs are scheduled to be eliminated after this season.

Citing an athletic department budget deficit of $900,000, UCLA announced last August it was dropping men’s swimming, and men’s and women’s gymnastics after the 1993-94 academic year.

About two weeks later, facing the threat of a gender-equity lawsuit, school officials announced they would reinstate women’s gymnastics.

But for men’s swimming and gymnastics, the athletes and coaches are preparing for the end.

The swim team will compete at USC today at 1 p.m., in the final dual meet between the schools.

The gymnastics team will compete in the 12-school UCLA Invitational tonight at 7 in Pauley Pavilion. It is the last time the Bruin men and women will appear in a combined meet.

For the younger athletes, who accepted scholarships to UCLA because of the strong traditions of these programs, there will be opportunities to transfer to other schools and continue in athletics. But for many, the decision to continue competing or staying at UCLA, where they have built college lives, is difficult. The athletes will be allowed to remain on scholarship through graduation if they decide to stay in Westwood.

And for Ballatore and Shurlock, the notion that it’s almost over is nearly unfathomable. Ballatore said he will look for a position at another school. Shurlock probably will stay at UCLA and run a club team, hoping to get money from UCLA’s recreation department and possibly from the U.S. Gymnastics Federation.

But Ballatore and Shurlock do not want to consider the worst right now because, along with alumni, they are trying to save their programs.

SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT

The traditions of these programs are something UCLA has proudly displayed over the years.

Shurlock won NCAA titles in 1984 and ‘87, Ballatore in 1982. Both programs perennially finish among the nation’s top 10.

The programs also have produced a combined total of nearly 40 Olympians, including gymnasts Peter Vidmar, Tim Daggett and Mitch Gaylord, who led the United States to its first gold medal in 1984 at Pauley Pavilion, and five-time swimming gold medalist Tom Jager.

“(School officials) will sit around and they’ll sure brag about that,” Ballatore said.

The decision to eliminate these sports, then, seems to send a message that success will not necessarily be taken into account when determining budget cuts.

Before last summer, few realized the programs were in danger.

Ballatore got his first hint in May when a booster offered to give $260,000 over a six-year period to the men’s swimming program, but school officials refused to give the donor a guarantee that the program would be around that long.

A week before the announcement, Shurlock got a call from a colleague at Ohio State who said he had heard UCLA was dropping its program.

“I said: ‘That’s ridiculous. Why would they let us recruit if they were dropping the program?’ ” Shurlock recalled.

Most were shocked when it was announced.

“I didn’t think they would drop a program of such tradition and caliber at this school,” said Sean Easton, a senior team captain on the men’s swim team.

Easton, whose eligibility ends after this season, said he is sympathetic to the underclassmen, some of whom he helped recruit.

“Of course, they’re really upset,” he said. “They say that they love school here and they don’t want to leave, but they also love swimming, and that’s what makes it really hard--that they have to choose between the two.”

There’s no need to tell Michael Andrews, a prep All-American backstroker from St. Xavier High in Cincinnati, how tough that decision is.

Andrews chose UCLA for its balance of athletics and academics. Now, a year later, he must reconsider schools that were his second and third choices.

“I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to quit (swimming),” Andrews said. “But the other teams I would be interested in, academically they just don’t have it.”

GENDER EQUITY

Financial problems were cited as the reason for dropping the programs, but many say there is more to it than money.

If the department was looking to save money, why did it reinstate women’s gymnastics?

The answer was simple--Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal legislation that bars sex discrimination in educational institutions. Courts have interpreted the law to encompass equal opportunity in athletics.

If the men’s swimming and gymnastics programs are not reinstated, UCLA will be close to complying with the law by the 1994-95 academic year. UCLA would offer 10 sports for men, 11 for women. But because so many athletes play football, men would account for about 57% of all participating athletes. This will bring UCLA within an acceptable range of equality.

Still, UCLA athletic officials maintain that the programs were not cut in an effort to comply with Title IX.

“The three sports we proposed to cut (including women’s gymnastics) had everything to do with finances and nothing to do with trying to get our numbers in line,” said Judith Holland, UCLA’s associate athletic director.

But at about the same time that the department cut the men’s sports, it added women’s soccer and announced plans to add women’s water polo next year and still another women’s sport by 1997.

TWO SOLUTIONS

Although UCLA officials say there is nothing they can do, Ballatore and Shurlock have taken steps to save their programs. Not surprisingly, the methods they have chosen are as different as their personalities.

Past UCLA swimmers have rallied to try to raise the $6 million the athletic department has told them they need to endow the program. They have set a deadline of March 31 for raising the funds so the program’s current athletes can decide whether to stay or transfer.

As of now, they are nowhere near their goal.

What’s more, even if they were to raise the money, gender equity might still stand in their way.

“Even if (men’s swimming) raised $6 million, there is no guarantee that it would be reinstated,” said Mark Dellins, UCLA’s sports information director, speaking on behalf of Athletic Director Peter Dalis.

Saying that trying to raise that much money would be futile, Shurlock said the men’s gymnastics team has retained a lawyer to sue the school for breach of contract and sex discrimination.

Ivan Halperin, a Los Angeles attorney who has donated his time to the team’s cause, sent a letter to Chancellor Charles Young on Feb. 7, informing him of his intention to file a suit, but has not received a response. Similar suits by male athletes have been unsuccessful in other states.

In the meantime, athletes and coaches in both programs are placing most of their hopes on winning national championships.

An NCAA title, they reason, might be like a lottery ticket, with the prize being reinstatement.