It went with hardly a whimper.

Men’s soccer at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock joined a cemetery that opened two years for Division I men’s teams.

It includes North Texas, Central Michigan and Illinois State, and in each death gender equity could be blamed to some extent.

But in Little Rock, the program was so unhealthy that gender equity may have had less influence than in the other three cases.

UALR athletic director Rick Mello said “one of many” considerations in dropping the men’s soccer team — while maintaining the women’s team that Scott Westbrook also coaches — was having “to enhance financial aid to the women’s side.”

“This was not a gender-equity issue,” he said.

One of the unfortunate consequences of Title IX enforcement has been that instead of boosting women’s athletics, universities have cut from the men’s side to balance the scale.

Mello said that the school could not afford to upgrade the men’s program, which was in dire shape.

“At my high school, a couple hundred people would go to games,” said freshman Travis Rose of Niceville, Fla. “It was discouraging to arrive at a Division I program and see five or six people at games.”

Rose was one of at least six players who requested releases last December, in order to transfer. They did not know of the program’s demise at that point. Mello said the requests did not influence his decision.

UALR, largely a commuter school, does not have on-campus soccer facility.

“We practiced on a community field,” Rose said. “When we did sprints or laps, we would have to dodge people jogging or speed walking.”

Westbrook said he would not comment, but said “no” when asked if there was an outcry when men’s soccer, along with swimming, was cut April 19.

Mello said UALR could not afford to continue supporting 17 sports. It has no football team, and basketball is its only revenue-producing sport. The Sun Belt’s weakness as a soccer conference and a dearth of Division I opponents in the area contributed to his choosing men’s soccer.

Meanwhile in Arkansas, Central Arkansas and the University of the Ozarks are adding Division II and Division III men’s soccer programs. The Arkansas Youth Soccer Association was the fastest growing youth association in the south — 6,000 to 15,000 players — in five years and recently received a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Soccer Foundation to hire a full-time coach.

by Soccer America Senior Editor Mike Woitalla