Stopping the Games

As unimaginable as it is, Sheridan and Gillette's community colleges have decided to completely eliminate their National Junior College Athletic Association Division I athletic programs.

Or rather they have. They did it yesterday.  Just wiped them out.

Both schools were part of the Northern Wyoming Community College District which announced that it took the step as part of a $3,960,000 budget cut.  The District attributed the move to the Coronavirus pandemic and funding cuts from the State.  While I certainly have no reason to question the reasons, I have to think it was more tied to the funding cuts than the virus.

This is a mistake.

Wyoming is facing a budget crisis, to be sure, and the two schools that made this move are in the epicenter of it to some extent.  Both Gillette and Sheridan, and Gillette in particular, are cities in the state's coal belt and they're well aware of what's going on in that industry.  Coal, as we've discussed here, is undergoing a century long decline and will continue to, absent a true technological revolution.  Be that as it may, coal enjoyed a major boom in Wyoming starting in the 1970s and the state became dependant upon it for funding.  Now the state's in economic trouble as the state's budget hasn't been adjusted to a post coal scenario.  Just recently the Governor, in light of grim economic news brought about by a price collapse in the oil industry and the Coronavirus Recession. ordered every publicly funded institution to find a way to cut back. So this is part of that response.

Now, it may seem odd as I'm not a big sports fan of any kind, but I don't think this is a good move.  Indeed, I don't think cuts in post K/12 education are a good idea at all. We continually hear how the state needs to economically diversify.  Cutting education works against that.  So does cutting college level sports.

The impact of this will be to drive the students away who were there as student athletes, and at the junior college level that's arguably a more representative title than than it is at the university level.  So those students will, to a large degree, depart the campus for other schools. 

Local college boosters, and there are always local college boosters, who are athletics focused, and there are always such boosters who are athletics focused, will lose interest in their local schools.  Interest in the schools in general will decline, and the schools are likely to decline as a result.  Not all at once, but not as slowly as might be imagined.  In the announcement a spokesman already stated that this move didn't represent that the schools were failing, an announcement that acknowledges that it gives that signal unintentionally.

Students that pick up on that vibe will go elsewhere, or in some cases they won't go to school at all.  Some will go to UW, but a lot of them won't.  Those that go elsewhere stand much less of a chance of staying and building the economy here than those that attend school locally.  It hurts the long range planning for the state.

Now, all that, it could be said, pretends that there's money where there isn't.  But the problem with across the board cuts is that they're across the board.  If you cut your own family budget that way, for example, you'd cut out something you didn't need and you'd cut out luxuries, probably.  But you'd cut out necessities as well.  Prioritizing budgets might make more sense. 

That might require the state to look at some things that its understandingly wished to avoid and likely still does.  Funding options are one, but in terms of cuts, it might be noted that the State has highly understandably taken over some enforcement tasks here and there which the Federal Government will undertake if the state's don't.  That wouldn't be great for the state, but none of this is.  And that's just one example that comes to mind.

Of course, I don't have to balance the state's budget, for which I'm quite glad.