By: Juan Saucedo

Daily Titan Staff Writer

Managing the budget for Cal State Fullerton’s athletic department has never been easy.

Just ask Robert Scialdone, associate athletics director of Business Affairs, who has seen the balancing act get even tougher due to the state’s budget crisis.

“We’ve been cut along with every other department on campus,” Scialdone said during an interview at the Titan House.

On the chopping block this year are the fates of at least two programs, while cuts have already occurred in areas such as travel expenses and scholarships. Layoffs also seem like an additional future possibility.

This year, the department’s budget was slashed by more than $225,000, from $7.8 million to $7.65 million. The budget cuts come as the California State University is reeling from declining state aid.

Yet the budget crisis had been looming in the horizon for some time.

During the 2007-08 school year, the athletic department had to cut both the women’s and men’s fencing programs so that they could save money for other sports, Scialdone said. 

This year, two more programs are in danger of losing their funding, which has resulted in some coaches having to spend a lot of time raising large quantities of money just to keep their programs around, he said. 

“Gymnastics and wrestling have to raise a large portion of their budget,” Scialdone said, adding that all the programs have been affected in one way or another. “This is something new this year.”

When last semester ended in June, the CSUF head gymnastics coach, Jill Hicks, was told that she would have to raise $90,000 by Aug. 1 if she wanted to keep her program afloat. 

At first the idea of raising that much money in a few months was overwhelming, she said. 

“Coaches do raise a certain amount of money through their careers but never that much that fast,” Hicks, who has worked at CSUF for five years, said.

At a gymnastic coaches meeting in Seattle, Wash., Hicks announced that she had to raise the money to save her program in attempt to garner support, she said.

Thanks to the support of fellow coaches and acquaintances, Hicks was able to raise the money in time and was able to keep the women’s gymnastics team intact for one more semester, she said.

“It’s been 99 percent of what I’ve been focused on so it’s very challenging to get the team prepared,” she said, adding that the announcement practically killed her chance to recruit athletes because they know the program might not be around next year.    

CSUF gymnast Alaina Baker said Hicks has tried to remain positive by not showing the team how stressed out she is with the fundraising.

“It’s a lot harder on her because she has to coach us and take care of that aspect as well,” Baker said in a telephone interview. “We’re all really thankful for everything she’s done.”

Baker, a junior who’s in her third year with the team, said she’s not worried about whether she could lose her scholarship next season because she’s focused on gymnastics. 

“It’s not really our job to think about that,” she said. “Our job it’s do gymnastics.” 

However, Baker said the team has had to adjust by finding competitions that are local because they don’t have the money to participate in competitions that are taking place in distant places. “We can’t really travel far away,” she said.  

Baker said the team has been getting better every year but that it gets frustrating because they can’t recruit the best gymnast, which will help them take it to the next level.

While some programs struggle to survive, other programs have faced smaller budgets than in years past.

Scialdone said almost every sport has been given less money in areas such as travel expenses than in years past as a result of the budget crisis.

“We’ve cut travel because it has been tough. We had to be creative,” he said. “There hasn’t been any increase, so internally, we’ve cut some money; and travel has been one large part that we’ve had to cut.” 

Scialdone said they also cut the amount of money being allocated for scholarships for programs, while increased in others.

When it comes to scholarships, it can get really tricky because the department needs to make sure some programs meet NCAA and Big West Conference regulations, he said.

For example, the basketball team is required by the NCAA to get 13 scholarships, while baseball should get 11.7. There are also similar conference requirements, he said.

“The NCAA also puts certain restrictions per gender equity,” he said. “Women’s basketball gets 15 (scholarships) and men’s basketball gets 13.”

He said balancing the budget gets even more difficult when tuition goes up because now they have to make up the monetary difference in each scholarship to cover the increases.

“If we’re being cut X amount of dollars and the scholarships go up X amount of dollars; then that just means there’s that much of a bigger amount of money that we have to figure out what to do,” he said.

“Whether we take it internally as a cut; cutting sports is a possibility, which we have talked about; and fund raising; and all that other stuff, are ways that were looking to increase money.”    

If the department doesn’t get more money for scholarships, then they have to find other ways to cover the increases, which results in other areas receiving less funding.

“Fee increases and tuition increases really hurt us because it increases the cost of our scholarships that we have to do, so whether or not we have to cut scholarships to make up for those increases in other sports or every sport,” he said.

“It’s tough because there are certain restrictions that we have to abide by.”  

Steve DiTolla, CSUF’s senior associate athletics director for Marketing and Promotions, said that if the university continues to lose scholarships, then the athletic department will begin to lose its best marketing tool, which is winning sports programs.

“It’s difficult to market anything unless you have a good product,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you spend in marketing it.”

He said that the cuts have been made in an attempt to squeeze money out areas that have excess funds.

“Not having money at Cal State Fullerton is not a new issue,” DiTolla said. “We have dealt with that for along time.”

He said CSUF is located in the greater Los Angeles basin, which is the second largest media market behind New York City.

This makes it hard to promote and field competitive sports teams. 

The competition makes it difficult to compete so it’s essential to put more money into the sports program. “It’s a catch-22,” DiTolla said.  

He said the scariest thing about the situation is the unknown because they don’t know if the budget issues are going to increase or decrease.

If the staff knows what’s going to happen, then they could prepare for the situation in advance. 

“How much worse is it going to get?” he said.  

Scialdone said although at the moment the department hasn’t laid off any staff members, it’s uncertain whether there will be more budget cuts in the future that will cause them to look at that as a possibility.

Last spring, Scialdone saw a proposal to increase student fees fail. The increase would have gone towards renovating the east side practice fields.

He said the most concerning thing about the failure of the proposal was the apathy towards voting for or against it.  

“It was going to significantly help us out by providing us with budget and better facilities,” Scialdone said, adding that it failed because of the timing and students weren’t too keen about more increases.  

If things keep going the way they are at the moment, Scialdone said the lack of funding will begin to affect every aspect of the athletics on campus such recruiting, how well teams perform and the level of teams they play. 

But he said he’s keeping a positive outlook despite the bleak situation.

“We’re still going to field quality teams,” he said. “That’s our jobs and that’s what we’re going to do.”  

Senior CSUF gymnast Kori Underhill said she wouldn’t like it if this was the last year the university fielded a gymnastics team.  

“I’m hoping it stays around for a few more years so that I could go to the alumni meet,” she said. “On the track that we’re going right now with the fund raising, it’s possible that it could stay around.”       

Underhill, who’s in her fourth year with the team, said the team has been actively promoting and fund raising for the program since their coach broke the news to them.

“It’s a bit discouraging hearing that your program will be cut,” Underhill said, adding that the news motivated everyone in the team to help raise funds.   

“A lot of us wanted to keep doing gymnastics so it kind of opened our eyes a bit,” she said. “I didn’t want my senior year to be the last year of gymnastics”      

She said that it’s been hard on her and her teammates because they have to practice and they also have to worry about classes.

Yet, Underhill said that Hicks has done a good job of not letting the issue interfere with the team’s preparation.

She’s also thankful for what Hick’s done.    

“I wouldn’t be doing gymnastics for another year if it wasn’t for her,” she said.