Division I athletic departments becoming creative with the use of conjunctions
Increasingly, sports like track "and" field are becoming track "or" field
The NCAA has long sponsored championships for track and field and swimming and diving. They are among the few championship sports with the word “and” in their name (acrobatics and tumbling was recently recommended for championship status). Increasingly, however, some NCAA institutions are replacing the “and” with an “or”, as in track OR field.
Earlier this month I wrote about Radford University’s decision to discontinue men’s and women’s tennis while “adding” men’s indoor and outdoor track. I emphasize “adding” because the school is, for the time being, using its cross country athletes to compete in distance track events. No field events. No sprints. Just distance. Two new teams.
Trading two tennis teams for two track teams, even if adding the track teams does not really add many athletes, allowed Radford to continue meeting the minimum number of sports (14) needed to compete in Division I. In addition, Radford, in its own words, wanted to “appeal to a greater number of student-athletes.” Translation = grow enrollment.
Since I wrote that article about Radford, Washington State University announced it was also “shifting to a distance-focused approach” for its track teams. This means no longer competing in field events and limiting opportunities for sprints and hurdles.
By not completely discontinuing its track teams, the Cougars continue to support 17 sports (men’s baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s football, men’s and women’s golf, women’s rowing, women’s soccer, women’s swimming, women’s tennis, men’s and women’s indoor track, men’s and women’s outdoor track, women’s volleyball), one more than the NCAA minimum necessary for membership in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of Division I (Bylaw 20.9.9.1).
On its face, this decision by Washington State allows the school to save money (fewer athletes, less travel, fewer coaches) without cutting a sport since WSU is only one sport above the minimum number required. And, it occurs at a time when the Cougars, like many, are searching for a spare $20.5 million.
Decisions made by Radford and Washington State support the conclusions from academics Craig Morehead and Nicholas Swim who shared findings of a recent study of track and field for an April 11, 2025 post on Extra Points with Matt Brown.
Morehead and Swim expressed concerns over the House settlement’s impact on track and field specifically, writing, “For Olympic sports like track and field, we suspect that only a handful of schools nationwide would increase their number of scholarships.”
Based on open-ended questions to 88 DI track and field coaches and administrators, Morehead and Swim foretold the changes, both positive and negative. On the one hand, “Although recognized as distinct sports for sponsorship purposes, many schools operate with one co-ed staff. This allows schools that meet sport criteria for each gender in each season to count up to six sports (WXC, MXC, WIN, MIN, WOUT, MOUT) toward NCAA DI sport sponsorship requirements with efficiency.”
However, real concern exists over roster management and lost opportunities for athletes in certain “event groups.”
Meanwhile, the University of Virginia announced in March a “divestment” of its men’s and women’s diving programs, while keeping its swimming programs. In so doing, Virginia has, just like Radford and Washington State, turned the AND in swimming and diving into an OR.
Virginia has a storied history in the sport, winning its fifth straight women’s NCAA title this past March. Its margin of victory over runner-up Stanford was 127 points (544 to 417). And the Cavaliers amassed that score with little contribution from divers. Of the 17 swimming events at the women’s championship meet, Virginia won 10. Olympic star Gretchen Walsh participated in seven of those 10 championships. Ten Cavalier women’s swimmers earned first team All-America status. The only diver, however, to receive second team All-America honors was Lizzy Kaye who placed 11th in the 1-meter springboard competition, contributing just six points to the 544 team total.
Money and personnel were factors in these decisions as The Cavalier Daily reported the school has had three diving coaches in the past three years.
And then there is the University of the Pacific, which is working in the opposite direction by “adding” sports. Friend of Glory Days, Matt Brown, purveyor (shout out D1.Ticker) of Extra Points with Matt Brown, wrote about this at the end of May, quoting Pacific Athletic Director Adam Tschour, “Every school has different challenges and different situations, but if we can help encourage one school to add rather than subtract, then I’ll be very happy.”
Pacific is able to add immediately because the sports they chose to grow already had existing infrastructure. The Tigers had women’s cross country and track teams, but they will now add men’s teams in both sports and use the same coaches. The school will also “expand women’s field events.” Little additional overhead costs, but more student-athletes.
Additionally, Pacific will add diving to its existing swimming programs. This does not really count as adding a new sport, but it does add more student-athletes (translation = grow enrollment). In fact, the school projects 82 total new athletes to campus as a result of these additions. Based on the school’s EADA report for 2023-24, that would be about a 25 percent increase over the 313 reported athletes.
However, the claim of 82 new athletes appears dubious as the school only reported 22 women’s track and 16 women’s cross country athletes in 2023-24 and it is likely many of those 16 cross country athletes also competed as track athletes in distance events. It is hard to see 82 new, unique athletes filling the rosters of new men’s cross country and track teams, and the expanded diving and women’s field events teams.
Collectively, these four cases are intriguing examples of how athletic departments might manage programs in the post-House world. The commonality among Radford, Washington State, Virginia, and Pacific is the creativity they are each employing with their respective track and field and swimming and diving programs in order to either a) reduce costs and/or b) increase enrollment - all while maintaining Division I status.
As a participant in Morehead and Swim’s study intimated, the importance of growing enrollment while reducing costs, particularly at smaller schools, is acute.
I admit to being a curmudgeon re: the 'lost' roster spots debate. There is no fundamental 'right' to play college athletics -- in principle it should be an 'extracurricular activity' @ <20 hours total per week. To the extent new rules limit D1 football walk-ons (who spend 40+ hours (virtually year round) on sports with essentially 0 chance to play in a game) this might give them a chance of acquiring a meaningful education. The numbers of spots lost range from a few thousand to 10 thousand, but remember there are 500,000 college athletes overall.
That being said, for schools in that 1000-5000 enrollment window, the business proposition of attracting non-scholarship athletes is certainly an important one.
With the new roster limits Pacific should have no trouble adding 82ish athletes to their rosters. Where will they come from? All the other D1 track programs who had to cut by 10,20,40 athletes per gender to get below the cap