Men’s baseball, soccer face elimination
This season may be the last for Towson’s NCAA Division I men’s soccer and baseball teams.
In a release sent from the President’s office, University President Maravene Loeschke stated that after auditing the Athletics Department, Director of Athletics Mike Waddell recommended the elimination of the two programs, as well as the reinstatement of men’s tennis and roster expansion for select women’s teams.
“I respect the thought and care Mr. Waddell and his team put into this recommendation and its alignment with the athletic challenges that institutions of higher education across the nation continue to face,” the release reads.
Director of Athletics Mike Waddell said that he recently spoke with coaches and players. It was the first time the student athletes and coaches had officially heard that there was a chance their teams would be cut.
“We thought it was very important to meet with the student athletes immediately after meeting with the coaches and do it first thing of the day because it was important to me that they heard this news directly from the mouth of the first party,” he said. “The way they reacted was about how I had would expect them to react. If I was 18-22 years old and was told what they were told today, I would be upset, I’d be hurt, I’d be frustrated and I’d be looking for definitive answers.”
The release said that these changes are being considered to maintain the athletic department’s financial solvency and the ratio of female-to-male athletes, which complies with Title IX.
“I would say that our process was geared around the three major pushes for our department,” Waddell said. “We need to be more overall competitive across the board. We need to have a strong financial game plan, not only for now, but for the long term. But if you’re going to have a viable strategic plan, you need to be stable financially, and we also need to be in compliance with federal law in ways that are sound with the first two components which is being competitive and also financially stable.”
An executive summary on the Athletic Task Force website states that the elimination of two men’s teams would shift major funding to women’s programs. Athletics would also increase the coaching staff of women’s cross country/track and field, as well as swimming and diving.
The summary states that the net savings from the program cuts would be an estimated $800,083 by the 2018 fiscal year.
The complete budget for men’s baseball and soccer, including salaries, operations and scholarships totals almost $900,000. A men’s tennis program would only cost the department around $100,000, after a transition period of up to four years.
Waddell does not project any increase in student athletic fees.
“The athletics budget, and President Loeschke and I agree, where our budget is right now, we need to see additional resources and the best way for us to generate those resources will be to do it through corporate sales, through fundraising and ticket sales,” he said. “At the present time, there is no way that athletics can get additional funding from student fees and that we need to be more reliant on those three areas of corporate sales and raising money through donations and work with our development office and also through the ticket sales.”
David Nevins, chairman of the Towson University board of visitors, will head a task force to further examine this recommendation, as well as ask for feedback from Towson students, faculty, staff and alumni.
Loeschke will be announce her final decision in mid-November.
This announcement comes hot off the heels of Towson’s football match vs. LSU, in which the athletics department received $510,000.
The Towerlight will update this story as more information becomes available.
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I’ve always wanted to have a Towson Crew, perhaps that’s somewhat more practical?
Here is another example of Mike Waddell acting like an idiot. He does not think anything through, and acts like a punk kid most of the time. Every administrator and professor on campus hates him and pokes fun at him. I guess this will give them more ammo! Good Luck Jerk!
If the AD spent more time doing his job and less time chasing tail at the Towson Center, we would not have this problem. They are not even going to honor previous scholarship commitments. FU MW
It’s rather difficult to fathom how a university which alleges to wish to become a more prominent sports program can eliminate major sports teams like baseball and soccer.
This is what Title IX and its feel-good nonsense has wrought – the crippling of prominent men’s sports just to accommodate silly women’s sports that no one cares about.
I have been very disappointed with Mike Waddell as an athletic director. He loves to use marketing ploys to mask the troubles he has created within the department. Lets hope that the president can control is erratic behavior until she can find a competent director.
As an alumni of the baseball program i am very disheartened by this decision. I have many fond memories of our great program. A few months back Mike Waddell gathered the baseball alumni and told us that if we write checks he would keep the program. Well, we all wrote checks and now he cuts the program. I now realize that the meeting was just a cash grab before they wrote us off for good. I will still support my school but will not write another check or go to another game until Mike Waddell is gone. As most on this page seems to agree, hopefully that day will be soon.
I hear President Loeschke wants to start the Towson Pantomime and Basket Weaving Teams… Come on, lets remember she is a theater major with no real qualifications to be president. She was hired to stunt Towson’s growth and bring it back in line as a liberal arts college. Towson’s best hope was Bob Caret, and now we have a theater major.. Ugh..
Jones is a fake. That is Mike Waddell posting. He just said the exact words in the lobby of the Auburn House. I may only be the mail guy, people need to know that Mike Waddell said those things about the president and he is posting on this page as someone else!
None of you have any clue what you are talking about.
Men’s basketball and football are the ONLY programs at which will raise the profile of Towson University athletics.
Since Mike Waddell has been hired:
1. Athletes GPA’s have improved
2. Outsourced sponsorship’s to CBS Collegiate Sports Properties which led to a net profit for the first time in several years.
3. TowsonTigers.com web traffic has increased dramatically
4. Won a conference championship in football
5. Made the playoffs in football
6. Had one of the best non-BCS recruiting classes in men’s basketball
8. Football single game ticket sales and season ticket holders have increased dramatically
9. Made improvements to Johnny Unitas Stadium
10. Will soon open a brand new athletic arena
11. Towson has won conference championships in three other sports outside of Football.
The guy has been with the school for over two years and is doing an incredible job.
By the way I completely agree with Jones.
Maravene is cutting athletic programs so more money can be spent on her one man shows with her husband.
Huge mistake hiring a theater major as the president of a major university.
If Mike Waddell actually said those things about the theater major that only makes me like him more.
@86 Alum
Men’s soccer and baseball are not major sports by any stretch.
As I have said before. Maravene wont be here long, so the damage she will do to the school will be kept to a minimum. Hopefully….
TU Alum 2006 must being drinking the Mike Waddell cool aid. He made a list of 11 things Waddles has done and only 1 item was his actual doing and that was the outsourcing of corporate sales. Everyone on campus knows that Waddles is a piece of trash that only cares about himself!
The campus is buzzing with rumors about why these cuts were made. The only thing I can think would cause this is greed and mismanagement. Didn’t the athletic department make over a million dollars this year from football games (LSU, Kent State)? I can only image the cronyism going on. Every other day we hear about a new consultant being brought on to study this, that, and the other thing. It sounds like Mike Waddell is lining the pockets of his friends in hopes of landing a job after Towson. I feel bad for the 60+ men who will lose their scholarships because of this behavior.
This was bound to happen. Both teams just kind of float by year in and year out. They haven’t really received much funding in the last decade and only had a handful of scholarships. It’s clear the major sports in Waddell’s eyes are football, lax and Basketball. These sports were bound to get the cut, when you consider over 60 percent of the student population is female.
@Know Your Facts
He can’t take some of the credit for the recent success in football and basketball even though he was the one who hired Rob Ambrose and Pat Skerry? I would say that covers 4, 5, 6, and 7.
He also created a program which requires all student athletes to attend classes unless they have an excused absence. You wouldn’t correlate better classroom attendance to better grades?
If you don’t think he gets the credit for #3 and #9 then who do you think should?
Keep using exclamation points and conjecture in your comments though.
Also, why isn’t Maravene getting some of the blame here?
I wasn’t seeing any sports programs being cut when Caret was president and that was during one of the worst economic policies this country has ever had.
It’s nice that the Towerlight writers refer to her as “the grandmother I never had” because she offers milk and cookies when you visit her office but Towson University doesn’t need that. Are you kidding me with that stuff?
What Towson needs is a hard working President who is out raising money for the school and raising it’s profile.
I meant to say economic downturns in my comment above.
Interesting that Maravene throws Waddell under the bus in her press release.
But according to the Towerlight she offers snicker-doodles when we go visit her office though so it’s all good.
The students from the cut teams will NOT lose their scholarships, actually. They’ll keep them for the 4-year-term of their undergrad here and they’ll be allowed to transfer to another team if they wish.
PDF of recommendation can be found here:
http://www.towson.edu/president/athleticstaskforce/documents/092612-Report.pdf
Maravene cut sports, then reduced faculty at her last job at Mansfield University. I think the faculty there had a vote of no confidence in her.
Considering Men’s basketball and soccer haven’t won more than a couple of games a year for, what, the last 10 years or ,maybe they should be cut and the baseball team that can actually win – and has sent at least one player to the major leagues – should be kept.
Cut basketball. The whole team and the new Towson Center is a waste of money considering their horrible record. Not to mention the attitude and social problems those free loaders cause. Keep the teams people actually support and get rid of the crap!
TU Grad.. Gary Neal
Good point – I was thinking Gary Neal came out of UMd. ok, one good basketball player….
TU ALUM 2006 – You are an idiot. Rob Ambrose was hired by Mike Hermann. Pat Skerry has one win as a head coach. Student athletes have always been required to attend class. Waddell made this recommendation to the president, not the other way around. Waddell was discussing this with his boosters before the president even stepped on campus. Read the Baltimore Sun article. The soccer alums were asked last year to donate money to save the program. The new president was not even on campus. Check your facts before you speak. You make all Towson alumni look dumb!!!!
@2012TigerGrad: I like what you just said!
These defenders can make excuses for a lot of Waddell’s actions, but the reality is that if you take out the thousands Waddell has paid to add positions, to upgrade facilities, and spent on branding consulting, you would come much closer to closing the financial gaps that have led to this recommendation. You also can’t ignore that Mike Waddell made these recommendations, not Pres. Loeschke.
The reality is that Mike Waddell is a short-sighted, spineless, soulless, heartless coward. He is going to lose his job when his one-year “extension” runs out. When he is not berating his staff for not achieving enough, despite most administrators/coaches being set up to fail, he is using the media and his staff to push out these BS talking points.
Waddell is responsible for a handful, at best, positives within the Towson Athletic Department: upgrading the web site, bringing in CBS, upgrading development staff, making things easier for marketing/media relations, and upgrading academic services. However, he wasn’t the first to ask for these improvements. Caret refused to provide those upgrades for Waddell’s predecessors. Mike Hermann is responsible for working with Caret on building the football program, hiring Ambrose, and for building new facilities. Waddell inherits no credit for their success.
Waddell’s “great” coaching hires have respective 1-31 and 7-8 records (although I think Nadelen has a lot of potential). He is cutting sports despite NEW locker rooms, and aesthetics all throughout the department. A friend in the department told me he spent over $10,000 to reupholster the trainer’s tables in black. He’s also spent money to repaint opposing locker rooms pink. He’s even tried to take credit for stealing the over ten year old “Restore the Roar” catchphrase. He took money and resources away from programs that support student attendance at athletic events and has reallocated them to other departments. Waddell once referred to students, in front of one of my friends in the department, as “toss-offs” in event attendance.
Also, he was in attendance, and was supportive of the homecoming regulations only to have his minions blast fellow administrators behind their back to fans. Very classy of Waddell to be silent in defending a decision that HE helped make, while throwing Student Affairs under the bus. He has fired or forced the resignation well over 40% of the staff that preceded him, and that will now likely include 2 of Towson’s longest-tenured and successful coaches.
As for “these improvements,” ticket sales were up in football only (and I think any logical person would agree that this is a result of their success). In fact, after doing some research, ticket sales appear to have been down at least 60% in other revenue sports overall even with Towson Football’s great run last year during the 2011-12 academic year.
But you Waddell defenders are right, we should just ignore all of this, and we should ignore his awful reputation amongst other AD’s, college administrators (at Towson and FAR beyond), as well as many potential donors and sponsors, because he came up with clever Twitter tags and is “fun” on Twitter.
Reality Check for you defenders – #MWmustgo
I agree with everything Reality Check just said. Great post. #MWmustgo
This was posted in the comments on the CBS page. All I can say is wow. How does this guy still have a job.
“The athletic director at Towson has done a wonderful job of turning people away from the university, Mike Waddell has had an incident of violence at Wells liquors, a sexual harassment charge, 5 cases of wrongful termination and countless NCAA violations. This is just another day at the office of bad decisions. He will be gone shortly and the university will hopefully fix his wrongs.”
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/10/02/2-sports-could-soon-be-eliminated-at-towson-university/
I had heard about Mike Waddell throwing a punch at the wine guy at Wells but I had no idea about the sexual harassment charge. I can’t believe she still works at the school. must make for some awkward meetings. #OneTowson my ass
Great post Reality Check.
I love this paragraph:
“The reality is that Mike Waddell is a short-sighted, spineless, soulless, heartless coward. He is going to lose his job when his one-year “extension” runs out. When he is not berating his staff for not achieving enough, despite most administrators/coaches being set up to fail, he is using the media and his staff to push out these BS talking points.”
I think the AD hopes to keep his job by giving the new president what she wants. They had the same process and result at her last school, Mansfield. She is a strong aupporter of the Theater Department.
This is a good step towards removing athletics from the school altogether. There is no reason for a school to spend 18 million dollars on athletics that have absolutely nothing to do with education. TU Athletics costs as much as the whole College of Science and Mathematics and it won’t ever pay for itself.
They started a facebook page to save soccer and baseball.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/391321957607488/?fref=ts
they are selling shirts that have great prints like: #MWmustgo and Waddell LIES
Contact Kara Siegert or a womens lacrosse player to get the shirts.
Very sad to see soccer and baseball go. i am an alum who played soccer for Towson in the 70′s. Those were some great times. I thought Towson had turned the corner with this new athletic director. I keep seeing commercials, billboards, poorly produced tv shows. i thought “wow someone finally figued out how to make it work”. I guess in Mike Waddells vision advertising bad basketball beats tradition and and student experience. Sorry Towson but you will not see anymore money from me. I will not pay for that terrible tv show.
@2012TigerGrad
Wrong. The former AD does not hire the guy who will be replacing him. Also, Mike Hermann resigned in June 2010 and it wasn’t until almost 4 months later that the school hired Waddell. I can’t believe this is even being discussed. Think about stuff before you type it.
Regarding student attendance you are also wrong. This is what is shown on TowsonTigers.com:
“Academic Achievement was one of the very first areas that Waddell focused his attention. Almost immediately upon arrival HE BEGAN the implementation of what has become one of the nation’s most comprehensive class attendance policies. The policy mandates that student-athletes attend every class unless they have an excused absence.”
I am just using the facts that Towson University has presented to the public though.
This is terrible. How do they allow this guy to get away with such financial mismanagement. i just listened to Waddell on WNST and he sounded so smug. not once did he feel bad for the students, no mention of trying to save the programs. I am ashamed to be an alumni of any university who would hire and retain such a bad man.
To the AD and President, start the budget cutting with your own salaries FIRST to set an example before vicitmizing the student–athletes.
Also, why cut the baseball team after building their own facility? Will it now turn into a eye-sore full of weeds and overgrown brush and grass?
I agree with 1983 Alum. Lets look at all the salaries over in the athletic department. According to the states salary database Mike Waddell, Devin Crosby, and Mike Harris combine for about $500,000 a year. that includes only the top 2 people and an assistant AD. I have to imagine the the 8 person executive staff receives almost $800,000 a year in salary. I found your budget issue, and it is all public record!
Word is Waddell is having an “emergency meeting” with his advisers tonight.
Let’s all hope these advisers rein him in.
#MWmustgo
I have no faith in anyone who considers themselves an advisor of Mike Waddell. They did not advise him very well on the current situation.
Two weeks ago Terry Hall was getting ripped up in the comments and the administration came to her defense. Has anyone noticed that not a single person has stepped up to defend Mike Waddell. Not even on the mail stream media. I guess two years of being a dick has come full circle.
Great lesson: all the people you screw over on the way to the top are waiting for you on the way down MW.
Mike Waddell has sent a message (through our coaches) telling us not to support all the protests. We are advised not to buy/wear the Save Towson…. Tshirt, and not to be involved in any of the protests/support events. The fact that Mike Waddell is threatening us with punishment and pulling of scholarships is bull shit. Is he going to have his goons out patrolling campus to check what shirts we are wearing? This guy has gone too far!
idiot moron soccer players
Kara Siegert has ordered all the shirts and the first 100 will be in tomorrow. Follow the Facebook page to get your shirt (just don’t let MW see you wearing it).
https://www.facebook.com/groups/391321957607488/?fref=ts
it took about 10 minutes for someone to break the rule. They said do not participate in protests, do not wear the shirts, and DO NOT speak to anyone other than your coach. Now some dumb ass writes on here breaking the rules. Thanks, we are all going to be doing stadiums now!
Classic Waddell move: silence anyone disagreeing, threaten everyone and create conflict. Good work now your student-athletes are out there ripping each other. #OneTowson? More like #GoneTowson
Its a business decision. It costs a lot less to run a tennis team than it does a baseball and soccer team. We can’t cut women’s sports that nobody cares about because of Title IX, so the only logical answer is cutting baseball and soccer. We can’t cut Football, Basketball or Lacrosse and the only other men’s sport is Swimming/Diving which hardly eats into the budget.
The situation sucks but this was the only solution.
All, this was a hard decision, but one that needed to be made. The Athletic department cannot sustain the 20 sports and be competitive in them all with the budget the university has. Due to Title IX, no womans sports could be cut due to the 60/40 women/men enrollment at TU. To be able to sustaine the revenue sports and make them competitive, this was the only option. 80% of the Athletic budget comes from student fees. To be able to keep the 20 team, studntn fees would have to be significantly raised. This was not an option as TU already has high student fees. It would not be fair to raise them any more than they are right now. I know this is not popular, but it is the right decision. Mike Wadell is not the enemy that everyone is making him out to be. This was a sound business decision.
This is the official word on the shirt that has been created. The message that is being communicated is positive and supportive of the players and teams that are affected by the turn of events concerning Towson’s Athletics.
The shirts were made to generate awareness, which is why the only message that is displayed on the front of the shirt is:
SAVE TU BASEBALL/M.SOCCER
#savetubaseball #savetumenssoccer
The women’s lacrosse program supports all its teams and the institution it represents and will continue to do so. The message communicated on behalf of myself, my company, and my former team as an alum has been and always will be of a positive and supportive subject matter.
please disregard all other threads concerning the shirt – they are inaccurate and are a misrepresentation of all efforts that were contributed.
Ah yes the Title IX excuse, which is invalid because Towson can easily comply without cutting sports. This about pumping even more money into basketball and football. By the way, you “business decision” defenders don’t realize that this is more than business and even if it was, this gap would be closed by cutting upgrades to the Unitas turf, renovating locker rooms, not running off employees with huge severance packages, adding new positions, adding pyrotechnics, and not paying for all of the branding consulting. These were all aesthetic issues that will now mean that two very good coaching staffs will be gone and many student athletes will lose their opportunity to represent Towson in competition.
Mike Waddell is a good AD. He has been a mover-and-a-shaker since he’s been here, an imporovement over Mike Hermann. The problem here is that the current TU President Maravene Loeschke doesn’t know anything outside of Fine Arts; she has no experience in athletics. Maravene Loeschke was a disaster and a failure at Mansfield University. She cut athletics at Mansfield University also. We can only hope that she won’t be at TU very long and we will get a real president here.
Mover and shaker? What does that mean? Do you mean how he has lied to donors and alumni, or has offended Under Armour, has overspent leading to this mess?
Kara Siegert – $15 a shirt??? – shirts cost $5 or less. Where is the other $10 going? Are you making the money on the backs of your friends? Come on, $15 is crazy!
No, it means that he is shaking things up which the lazy TU establishment resents. Look where that idiot Mark Temmel landed. Case example.
Unfortunately, when I graduate, Maravene will be signing my diploma. So much for me framing it and haning it up.
By being a mover-and-a-shaker that means he is shaking up the lazy TU establishment, and they resent it. Look what happened to that idiot Mark Temmel.
Unfortunately, Maravene will be signing my diploma when I graduate. I guess that means I won’t be framing it and hanging it up.
Why should we reward Waddell for firing people? By the way, all of those severance packages go a long way for these expenditures.
We’re still on this story about Pres. Loeschke cutting sports and being pro-arts, and I don’t buy it because Waddell made these recommendations and he had to because he misspent the ridiculous budget he has been given on aesthetics and administration, rather than spending money on teams and coaches. That’s the biggest problem.
How many people (and who) has Waddell fired in two years?
If you include the upcoming coaching cuts, it’s around 40 employees in only two years. If you factor in administrative shuffling and reassigning employees, about 50 people have been fired, forced into resignation or retirement, or have been moved out of their positions. He’s had the potential firings of far more shot-down for lack of cause or contract issues.
That’s a pretty terrifying record, and is even scarier when you look at how much “better” his coaching hires have been, and how those coaches’ searches have been botched in many cases.
By the way, all of this is on top of the number of run-ins with Towson administrators, other school administrators, potential donors/sponsors, and community members. It is also in addition to absolute financial mismanagement.
#MWmustgo
Mike Waddell has done a bunch of good things for Towson. We appreciate all of his efforts but it is time for him to move on. The campus administrators and students have lost respect for Waddell. Anything he does going forward will be scrutinized and he instantly becomes ineffective. Put the “for sale” sign on the lawn and pack your bags while you still have a decent reputation. This situation is not getting better in the next two years.
Where can I get the Fire Waddell or hashtag shirts. I really want one. The girls lacrosse team is selling some, but they are all sold out.
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