On July 14th, 2006, the Athletic Director and the Rutgers University Board of Governors announced that the university will be eliminating men's tennis after the 2006-07 season. The Rutgers Men's Tennis program has been an integral part of our University since at least 1925.

Men's tennis (9 athletes) was one of six intercollegiate sports slated for elimination. The others are: men's swimming (30 athletes), men's and women's fencing (24 athletes), men's heavyweight and lightweight crew (90 athletes). A total of 153 athletes will be affected by the cuts.

The decision to eliminate the programs was said to be part of the University wide effort to cut costs in the wake of the reduced funding in this years state budget. Robert E. Mulcahy III, Rutgers Athletic Director, issued a statement that the decision to eliminate programs was based on a number of factors including conference affiliation, facility restrictions, and compliance to the guidelines of Title IX.

Based upon the enumerated factors, Men's Tennis should not have been eliminated.

1. CONFERENCE AFFILIATION: Men's Tennis is a Big East sport and has participated in the Conference Championships every year since Rutgers entered the league in 1996. In 2005, the team made it to the finals losing to nationally ranked Notre Dame. Seven out of the eleven years the team finished no lower than 4th place. Mickey Cook was named Big East Coach of the Year in 2004-2005.

2. FACILITY RESTRICTIONS: The women's tennis team (thankfully) was not eliminated so the tennis facility will remain intact. In the past 10 years, Rutgers has spent in excess of $100,000.00 upgrading our tennis facility by: resurfacing the upper courts, installing new upper and lower court fencing, deck repairs and refurbishing the tennis house.

3. TITLE IX IMPLICATIONS: The tennis team has a roster of 9 and a team budget of approximately $150,000. The overall athletic budget is at least 36 million dollars. Therefore, our budget is less than ½ of one percent of the entire athletic budget. Furthermore, the Athletic Director elected to increase the football budget by one million ($1,000,000.00) dollars as opposed to increasing funding for the women's sports. Lastly, the Athletic Director cut a women's sport.

The glaring omission from the enumerated factors was academic performance. This is shocking since college athletics is all about academic and athletic achievement. It is also in direct conflict with the mission statement contained on the Athletic Department website which states that the department "will operate all of its programs in a manner consistent with the pursuit of intellectual inquiry, educational discovery and academic success."

The men's tennis team has had a long tradition of academic achievement. We have traditionally been the number one academic men's team at Rutgers and have been awarded the Director's Award for the Highest G.P.A .of all sports (men and women) four times in the last ten years.

Five out of the eight team members were named to the BIG EAST All ACADEMIC TEAM (All Stars) in 2005-2006 (G.P.A. 3.0 or better). We were one of just 30 men's tennis programs to earn ITA ALL ACADEMIC TEAM HONORS IN 2005. (For having a Team G.P.A. of 3.2 or higher)

The athletic department holds an MVP/Scholar Athlete Brunch each year to celebrate the academic and athletic achievements at Rutgers. Over 300 athletes, parents, alumni, and administrators at Rutgers attend the brunch. On several occasions, Robert Mulchay, the Director of Athletics, threw down the "gauntlet" to the other 29 teams to beat or match our academic success. The Athletic Director has now cut the program he challenged others to follow.

You can change this horrible decision. You can and will make a difference. Please click on the "How to Help" page for further information.