Pima College football coach Jim Monaco, center, said in 2018 the school shouldn’t get rid of other sports just to save his. “We’ve all been put in a terrible situation,” he said.
Pima College has a yearly athletic department budget of $2.6 million for 16 sports. The school pays $818,000 annually for operations (salaries) and equipment and about $1.8 million for sports that involve 366 student-athletes.
That’s about as bare bones as a NJCAA athletic department can get.
On June 13, chancellor Lee Lambert is expected to announce budget cuts, and the only sport that has been openly discussed is football. The Aztecs have budgeted $407,000 for football in 2018.
If Lambert eliminates football, it won’t be a surprise. It’ll be wrong, but not a surprise.
At last week’s public forum to discuss the future of PCC’s football program, school officials said no sport is safe from budget cuts.
It said decisions will be made based on (a) interest level, (b) league viability, (c) liability risk and (d) sustainable budget opportunities.
Some suggested that other sports be cut to save football. That’s ridiculous because, for example, men’s and women’s tennis and men’s and women’s cross country have yearly budgets of just $33,000 each. Men’s and women’s golf both use just $39,000 each year.
No one’s wasting any money at Pima. Other than football, the most “costly” sports are men’s soccer at $152,000, women’s basketball at $143,000 and softball at $142,000.
Brian Peabody’s men’s basketball team, No. 2 in the nation last season after losing in the national championship game, received just $89,000 from the PCC budget.
To his credit, football coach Jim Monaco isn’t trying to save his program at the expense of others.
“I told (athletic director) Edgar Soto to kill football before killing or cutting six or seven other sports,” Monaco said.
“We’re all struggling and I care about all of the kids here. We’ve all been put in a terrible situation.”
