Fresno State's athletic department called a press conference for today to announce plans to drop men's soccer — one of the country's best-supported programs — and three other sports — men's cross country, men's indoor track & field and women's swimming, effective next school year.
Fresno State is the third school to drop its Division I men's soccer program in the offseason, following the lead of Charleston Southern and TCU. FIU was given a reprieve after protests about the decision to drop the program.
Fresno State finished second in average attendance in 2001, drawing 2,485 fans per game. The crowd of 12,224 for the Fresno State-San Francisco game in 1987 is the largest regular-season crowd in last two decades.
Like FIU's men's program, Fresno soccer has played an important role in the community. It was one of the first programs to attract a significant number of Hispanic-American players.
According to published reports, Fresno State, which will be adding women's golf, will have a $600,000 deficit in 2002-03, the eighth straight year of losses. All California state universities have been hit hard by the state's budget crisis.
Fresno State spared men's wrestling — a sport that has been hit hard by cutbacks — and men's track & field — whose coach, Bob Fraley, will reportedly forfeit his $93,000 a year salary.
The Bulldogs, who joined the Pac-10 for men's soccer last year, went to the NCAA Tournament 13 times — including six appearances in a row in the late '80s and early '90s — and produced seven All-Americans. But they had back-to-back losing records in 2001 and 2002 and below-.500 records in three of the last four years.
They had only four coaches in the program's 33-year history: Bob Bereskin (1970-79, 59-62-10), Jose Elgorriaga (1980-90, 170-58-20), John Bluem (1991-96, 86-27-12) and Dave Chesler (1997-2002, 51-48-21).