Bridges defends basketball decision

TIFTON — Speaking at the Tifton Kiwanis Club’s meeting Friday, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College President Dr. David Bridges defended the school’s decision to discontinue its basketball programs.

On Tuesday, Bridges announced that both the men’s and women’s basketball teams would be disbanded, effective immediately.

“Contrary to the rumors and what you may have read in the newspaper, this decision was not made lightly,” said Bridges. “This was something that began over a year ago.”

He continued, “We do not spend state money on athletics. The money comes from athletic fees paid by our students — a fee the students are not given a choice on paying.”

On Friday afternoon, the school responded to an open records request by the Gazette regarding the school’s basketball budget for fiscal 2008. According to the documents released by the school, the salaries and benefits for then-coaches Todd Sheppard and Julie Conner were a combined $130,240.

Bridges said at the Kiwanis Club meeting that money came from the state, as Sheppard and Conner were both hired as teachers, and not coaches.

The money from the total athletic budget — which Bridges said at the meeting was a little over $500,000 — given to each program was $60,000, for a total of $120,000.

In a budget category called Athletic Revenue/expense, there was $2,256 listed. A note on the listing for this number mentions that figure comes from the ticket revenue for all sports, although basketball was the only sport at ABAC that required a paid ticket to attend.

Training expenses for the basketball program were listed at $8,000. The final number listed in the basketball budget was Bus expense/depreciation, which came to $3,600.

All totaled together, the figure for basketball was $264,096. With the state supplying the salaries for the coaches, the total that came out of the

school’s athletic budget was $133,856. Besides money issues, Bridges also cited lack of student interest, not just in basketball but in all sports.

“If you look at the numbers, students don’t really support intercollegiate sports anymore,” said Bridges. “And the community doesn’t come out,

(either). There simply isn’t broad support anymore. Unfortunately, the biggest benefit (of athletics) right now is public relations.”

After saying he felt the school was not big enough to support eight intercollegiate athletic teams, Bridges said, “We want to be able to excel

at whatever we do.

“Our tennis team was perhaps one player away from winning the national championship this past year. But, we didn’t have the money to put up for that extra scholarship, because the money is too thin.”

As far as the basketball players are concerned, Bridges reiterated what he had said earlier in the week about all of the players being granted

releases, if they chose them, from their scholarships in order to play with other schools. He also said all of the basketball players would have their

scholarships honored, if they chose to stay at the school.

He did add something he had not said earlier: “Our coaches have given out tapes, and stats to players, to help them find another place to play. But we are limited in what we can do, because we don’t want them to lose their eligibility.”

With the loss of basketball, Bridges is hoping for the school’s other sports to do well on a state and national stage.

“I met with the coaches, and I told them to make me proud. I want us back on top,” said Bridges.

Later answering questions from the audience, Bridges again said the process began a year ago.

“You don’t know how many gyrations, me or my senior administration has gone through. You hear about politicians flip-flopping, all of us have done a lot of that,” said Bridges.

“I do want to emphasize that we didn’t make the cut due to a forthcoming cut in the state budget.”

The president then went to indicate that little thought was given to part-time coaches, because, “our athletics people said we could not run a credible program with part-time coaches.”

That issue has been brought up by proponents of playing one last season of basketball. Several individuals have indicated they would have worked as volunteer coaches.

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