CR looks to reinstate football in 2022
Like most public institutions and service providers, the budgets of many community colleges have been deeply affected due to the pandemic. Many university and community college leaders have had to make difficult budget-balancing decisions in order for their institutions to continue to provide educational opportunities to students. College of the Redwoods has not been immune to making necessary reductions in its general and categorical funds as a result of the state’s budget uncertainty.
It has been about seven months since we announced a reduction of our general fund allocation to the Health, Physical Education, Kinesiology, Recreation, Dance and Athletic Department by at least $475,000 and the associate faculty budget by about $570,000 to make sure that the college was positioned to address short- and long-term fiscal concerns. The reduction of the Athletic Department budget included the suspension of the intercollegiate football team. In a June 4 press release, I stated that the status quo of the Athletic Department was unacceptable in the midst of our need to reduce costs while at the same time making sure that the college is fiscally solvent. I indicated that we needed to address issues related to equitable opportunities for women athletes and that we needed to be better positioned financially to support the sports that remained.
The comments I received immediately following the announcement suggested that there had been some misunderstanding in the community as to the fate of the football program — it was never my intention to cut the football program, only to put it on hold while we ironed out the issues and got a clearer picture of our budgetary outlook. I envisioned bringing football back when the fiscal outlook of the college improved.
Today, I can say that I am optimistic that our fi scal conditions will improve next fall when CR returns to some semblance of normalcy in terms of class off erings, and the California economy continues to recover next year. In fact, confident that better fi scal times are ahead, several weeks ago I approved Athletic Director Bob Brown’s recommendation to reinstate football in fall 2022 because I believe that if we address the issues laid out earlier, a well-run football