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St. Cloud State cutting football, making other changes

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — St. Cloud State University is cutting its football and men’s and women’s golf teams will add a men’s soccer team beginning in the fall of 2020.

The university announced the moves in a news release on Tuesday, Dec. 10, to comply with Title IX and for budgetary reasons.

St. Cloud State coaches met with St. Cloud State President Robbyn Wacker at 2:30 p.m. and with the university’s athletes at 3 p.m. on Tuesday. The university has been experiencing budget problems because of declining enrollment in recent years and Wacker was named president in 2018.

“We have made this extremely difficult decision because St. Cloud State faces a convergence of circumstances that required us to change our athletic offerings,” Wacker said in the release. “This will have a profound impact on our dedicated coaches, and the passionate alumni and supporters who have followed our programs throughout their proud histories.”

The university is addressing an Aug. 1 Federal District Court Title IX ruling. In 2016, St. Cloud State cut six sports: men’s and women’s tennis, women’s Nordic skiing, men’s cross country and men’s outdoor and indoor track and field. That led to a lawsuit by athletes, claiming that the university had violated Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs funded by federal dollars.

The university was ordered to fix the imbalance.

St. Cloud State also has an athletic deficit of more than $1.6 million from the past four years. St. Cloud State has 18 varsity sports this school year, including seven men’s sports.

The addition of men’s soccer allows St. Cloud State to comply with NCAA sports legislation. With football gone, soccer will be the lone men’s varsity sport offered in the fall season.

In 2010, St. Cloud State considered cutting football. St. Cloud State is a member of the NCAA Division II Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, which has 16 members. The NSIC had it written in its bylaws that institutions have to field a football team to be a member of the conference. The NSIC recently approved a change in its bylaws that football is no longer a requirement.

St. Cloud State has been a member of the NSIC since the 2007-08 season after the North Central Conference was disbanded. The Huskies were a member of the NCC from 1983-2007.

In its record book, St. Cloud State has football records that go back to 1919. The university has had a football team every year since then, except for 1943-45 because of World War II.

St. Cloud State had 98 football players on its roster, six paid coaches, three graduate assistant coaches and one student coach in the fall of 2019.

The Huskies went 4-7 this fall with average home attendance reported as 2,768 for its six home games. St. Cloud State’s home games have been played at Husky Stadium, an on-campus facility, since 2004. Reported home attendance for football games has been better than 4,000 two years (4,004 in 2008 and 4,112 in 2009) since the move.

The last three seasons, reported football attendance has been less than 3,000 per game (2,942 in 2018 and 2,679 in 2017).

On the field, St. Cloud State’s football team reached the NCAA Division II playoffs three times from 2010-13 and had a record of 38-12 from 2010-13. The Huskies also made national playoffs in 2004 and 1989.

Crookston also drops football

Fellow NSIC North division foe Minnesota Crookston will also be discontinuing its football team, the school announced Tuesday.

UMC, 2-64 in the last six years, was 0-11 in 2019 and hasn’t won two games in a season since 2013.

“Discontinuing the football program was not an option we wanted to pursue, but as we worked through the process, it became evident that it was the right decision for the long-term health of our athletics department,” UMC athletic director Stephanie Helgeson said. “This will move Golden Eagle Athletics into its strongest possible future, one in which we can better support all of our athletics programs and provide an outstanding collegiate experience to each of our student-athletes.”

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