When the Gophers athletics department proposed ending the men’s tennis program last year and asked the University of Minnesota’s Board or Regents to determine its fate, leaders of the Baseline Club set out to save their beloved team.
Gophers Athletics Director Mark Coyle’s presentations to the board to dissolve three men’s teams — tennis, gymnastics and indoor track and field — said it was due to two factors: significant department-wide revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus pandemic and to meet Title IX gender-equity requirements.
In October, the Board of Regents voted 7-5 to cut those three sports after their 2020-21 seasons.
The Baseline Club, a non-profit booster club, didn’t take that as the final answer. The organization worked to understand the U’s reasoning and provide solutions.
The club’s endowment fund, which stood at $1.2 million, has received additional pledges of more than $1.3 million. The group says this could pay for the non-revenue-generating team for four years.
The Baseline Club asked Title IX attorney Arthur Bryant to research whether the U’s tennis team had viable claims to reinstatement under federal law. Bryant’s research memo said yes based on the Gophers’ recent U.S. Department of Education numbers.
Bryant wrote in February that the U’s Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) report showed the athletic department, after the three men’s teams are eliminated, “will not meet that test” of having participation opportunities for male and female students that are substantially proportionate to their undergraduate enrollment.
“Instead,” Bryant said, “it will have a gap disfavoring men larger than the size of the men’s tennis team.”
Members of the Baseline Club board met with Coyle on March 1 to lay out their proposed financial solution and Bryant’s analysis of the U’s compliance with Title IX.
Tobias Wernet, a former Gophers tennis player and current Baseline Club board member, said they were grateful that Coyle took the meeting. He asked Coyle what he was trying to get out of the meeting, and Coyle said he was willing to listen.
“I followed it up with besides listening, ‘Is there anything else that you are trying to get out of it?’ ” Wernet said. “He made it pretty clear, and that was no news to us, that there wasn’t really willingness from him or the department to collaborate with us.”
TITLE IX ISSUES
On March 22, the Gophers athletics department responded in a letter to Baseline board members. The U’s letter, signed by Coyle, said Bryant’s memo “does not take into account the Athletics Department’s overall plan to address Title IX concerns and ensure Title IX compliance.”
The letter said the U’s Title IX numbers are based on different federal rules and criteria by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and that the U’s “roster management plan will result in participation numbers at or near exact proportionality and in full compliance with Title IX in 2021-22.”
“What I find striking is that AD Coyle does not claim that the University of Minnesota’s elimination of the men’s tennis team complies with Title IX,” Bryant responded in an email.
The Gophers’ letter included these Title IX participation numbers:
— In 2019-20, there were 437 male student-athletes and 425 female student-athletes. That breaks down to 50.7 percent male and 49.3 percent female, which is not in line with the U’s undergraduate enrollment of 46.4 percent male and 53.6 percent female.
— The U’s “projected” numbers for 2020-21 were 425 male (50.5 percent) and 417 female (49.5).
— The U’s “proposed” numbers for 2021-22 — after the elimination of three men’s teams, plus roster reductions for some women’s teams — are: 319 male (46.4 percent) and 368 female (53.6).
— The U said its men’s tennis team has 10 participants. Of the nine on the team, three are set to graduate in 2021, one redshirt freshman came aboard in January aware of the discontinuation and five are directly impacted.
Coyle and the U said the school will help those athletes find programs to transfer to or they can finish their degrees at Minnesota.
With roster sizes and enrollment numbers regularly fluctuating, the U said future circumstances could lead to some adjustments in their numbers. “In my judgment,” Coyle wrote, “the plan places the University in a legitimate position to comply with Title IX within an overall program mix that is appropriate for the University of Minnesota.”
Bryant responded, “That is not reassuring. Title IX is the law. The University needs to comply with it, not be ‘placed’ in a ‘position’ to comply with it in the future based on ‘proposed numbers’ developed from numbers that ‘regularly fluctuate’ and ‘could require some adjustments.’ If that’s the best the school can do, it should not be eliminating the men’s tennis team.”
FINANCIAL SHORTFALL
The Gophers said in October the COVID-19 pandemic would cause the department to deal with revenue shortfalls of at least $45-60 million. The U’s annual budget has been roughly $120 million and the cost savings from cutting those three teams was estimated at less than $2 million.
But Bryant said a financial facet of the U’s decision-making on cutting sports is “irrelevant.”
“It’s not a valid defense in any way to a Title IX claim,” Bryant said in an interview. “You can’t discriminate to save or make money.”
Wernet called it “gut-wrenching” to watch a live video stream last fall of the Regents’ meeting to cut a program that brought him to the U.S. from Germany in 2007.
“I’m part of a Gopher chat with a bunch of other alumni, and we just all couldn’t believe it,” he said in an interview.
The Baseline Club’s fundraising efforts roughly doubled their endowment to $2.5 million, which they said could be used to fund the tennis team’s operations for four years.
“We felt like we had a reasonable solution pulled together,” Wernet said. “Why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you give a program four years, where you don’t have to worry about it as an athletic department?”
The men’s gymnastics program previously proposed a fundraising plan to make it self-sustaining, and Coyle has declined to pursue that route. Coyle was not made available for an interview for this article.
In the letter to Baseline, the U said, “Requiring or expecting a team to support itself through fundraising is inconsistent with the Department’s philosophy. Team budgets are recurring, annual obligations as the Board’s discussions over endowments amounts highlights. Funding additional opportunities for women would also need to be considered. Past experiences shows that fundraising campaigns can be uncertain.”
Another potential issue is whether the Baseline Club can use its endowment for annual funding of the program. The U has discussed it with the club but “no final determinations have been made,” a school spokesman said March 23.
The U’s letter added that the athletic department plans to use capacity in the Baseline Tennis Center, where the program practices and plays home matches, to “generate additional revenue for the department.”
Wernet took issue with that line in the letter. “The Baseline Club and supporters of the program played an important role in funding the construction of the Baseline Tennis Center,” he wrote in a text message.
Coyle has routinely said that this has been a painful decision, and he reiterated that in his letter to the Baseline Club.
“Please know that I also appreciate how difficult and upsetting all of this is,” read the letter signed by Coyle. “It is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to face in my years as an Athletics Director. We have worked hard to create a nimble Athletics Department, one that is self-sufficient, competes at the highest level, and provides a first-class experience for our student-athletes. While the decision was certainly unfortunate, I continue to believe it was necessary to ensure the stability and allow the Department to continue to move forward.”
The Baseline Club has said it will be “pursuing all avenues available to us with the grit, resilience and determination we acquired being part of this exemplary program.” That, Wernet said, could pursue a Title IX lawsuit.
“As it stands with the Baseline Club, we want the University to comply with the law,” Wernet wrote this week. “We’re in the process of taking a hard look at that and how we hold the administration accountable.”