The Nordic ski team will compete in three more races as a varsity team before being demoted to a club sport next year, the Athletic Department announced in a press release Feb. 5.

Director of Athletics Irv Cross cited budget cuts and the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s (MIAC) elimination of skiing as a conference sport as reasons for the downgrade.

The team was notified of the decision Feb. 3 during an emotional meeting with Cross, Assistant Director of Athletics Vanessa Seljeskog and ski team Head Coach Morrey Nellis ’72. The meeting left many of the skiers and their coaches angry, sad and bewildered.

“We feel slighted,” skier Ari Ofsevit ’06 said. “Instead of involving the community, the decision didn’t involve our coaches or skiers.” Many of the school’s decisions about program cuts are made in the open, Ofsevit said, “and this one [wasn’t].”

Cross decided cutting Nordic skiing would be the best decision for the student body in light of budget constraints. “I assume responsibility—I’m responsible for these decisions,” Cross said.

Nellis said he was first informed of the decision on Jan. 27, five days after he turned in the budget for next season. Before Jan. 27, Nellis said he had “no inkling” that the Athletic Department planned to eliminate the team’s varsity status.

“As a staff member, I’m a little surprised because it’s a dramatic change,” Nellis said. “It was never discussed during a staff meeting.” According to Nellis, Seljeskog rebuffed an offer by Nellis to reduce the team’s costs in return for maintaining the team’s varsity status.

Cross said he is surprised by the reaction of coaches and team members. “Our change with Nordic skiing should not have been a surprise,” Cross said. “All the staff people knew about the changes in the [MIAC] conference.”

The Athletic Department’s decision to eliminate the team on the varsity level is the latest in a series of blows to MIAC skiing, which first held conference championships in 2000. Six men’s and women’s varsity programs competed in the first MIAC Nordic skiing championships. Since then, Carleton College and St. Mary’s University cut their varsity programs in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

According to MIAC Executive Director Carlyle Carter, MIAC requires six member colleges to have varsity teams in a given sport before the conference will sponsor championships in that sport.

After Carleton dropped the varsity program, the conference’s coaches petitioned to keep Nordic skiing a MIAC-sponsored sport while they searched to add a sixth team. Nellis was present at a Feb. 28, 2002 meeting held at Macalester that granted MIAC’s five remaining teams a two-year waiver.

The waiver stipulated that in order for MIAC to hold championships beyond the 2004 season, six MIAC member colleges must sponsor varsity Nordic skiing teams. The departure of Macalester’s varsity team leaves only three MIAC schools with varsity teams.

Cross said that, in an effort to maintain the conference championships, he actively encouraged MIAC schools to sponsor varsity Nordic ski teams. However, he said, none of the other schools showed interest. With a dwindling number of teams in the conference, Cross said it would be more difficult for Macalester to find nearby competition.

Gustavus Adolphus College Director of Athletics Alan Molde echoed Cross’s comment. “I am disappointed to learn another MIAC institution is dropping [its] Nordic ski team,” Molde said. “It will make it even more difficult for those of us who are still trying to fund teams and make schedules.”

Nellis said that the Athletic Depart-ment blaming the end of MIAC skiing championships was “misleading if not disingenuous.”

“Mac varsity women’s water polo was added with no conference-sponsored competition in existence,” Neills said, “and Macalester deemed MIAC competition not important for its football program when it went independent two years ago.” He added that the championships are only one weekend of racing on the team’s schedule.

“It’s a financial situation for the institutions,” Carter said. “Institutions make a decision primarily from a financial standpoint, whether or not they can support teams on a varsity level.”

Next school year’s budget cuts mark the third consecutive annual budget in which many departments have been asked to make cuts. The Athletic Department’s 2002-03 operating budget was $655,825; less than $575,000 will be appropriated in 2004-05.

To make up for the six percent decrease in funds, the Athletics Department asked each team to make cuts where possible. Assessing another department-wide cut would have been extremely detrimental to all the athletic teams, Cross said.

“Our approach here has always been to offer as many sports as possible,” Cross said. “On the varsity level we’ve been very aggressive in adding to our base until we’ve gotten to 21 [varsity teams]. We’re slowing down right now.” Despite the downgrade to a club level sport, Cross believes Macalester’s skiers will still be able to compete in intercollegiate competition.

But Nellis and his skiers worry that the end of the varsity team will be a death knell for the Nordic skiing program, which has been on a varsity level since 1997. Carleton’s club team currently has only two or three competitive skiers. MIAC’s four varsity teams each have ten or more skiers.

The 2003-2004 budget allocated $28,000 to all ten club sports teams. The same budget allocated the Nordic ski team $27,150.

“I feel let down by Macalester,” skier Emily Stafford ’06 said. “I came here planning to ski on a competitive team for four years. I’m not going to give it up, but it’s hard to imagine such a huge area of my life gone. Next year it will be really different.”

Skier Julia Parke ’07, whose sister was a junior at Carleton when the varsity program became a club team, said a team outside collegiate sports would be a better option for her than to continue skiing for Macalester’s club team next year.

“I came here because Mac is pretty much the only Division III elite school in an urban setting that has [varsity] skiing,” Parke said. Parke noted that the decision came after most college’s transfer application deadline, preventing ski team members from applying to transfer to colleges with varsity teams.

“When I visited, I asked both Admissions and the Athletic Department about the future of skiing because Carleton had just cut their program,” Parke said. “They said ‘we won’t ever cut skiing.’”

President Brian Rosenberg said he is concerned that the Athletic Department and administrators in other departments did not inform students about the possible change in status for the team prior to the decision being made. “In retrospect it would have been better if students had been more fully informed sooner,” he said.

Rosenberg estimates he’s received about twenty e-mails about the issue. “The students who have written to me have been terrific,” he said.

Responding to requests from skiers Amy Voytilla ’04 and Renee Schaefer ’04, Rosenberg plans to meet with the team to discuss ways in which he might be helpful in the transition from a varsity to a club sport.

Ultimately, though, Rosenberg sees the change to a club sport as the best solution to a tough problem. “Every time something goes on the block, it’s important to someone,” Rosenberg said. “But at some point you have to say ‘we’re not going to do “x” and dilute the quality of other programs.’”

“I’m sorry we didn’t handle the communications to the team members as well as we might have,” Rosenberg said. “Sometimes when you make a mistake of that sort you have to admit it.”

But for some of the skiers, no apology will help them deal with these changes. “Usually we’re all pretty happy at practice because we really like to ski,” Ofsevit said, “and now you’re almost wondering why you’re there.”