Sandy Barbour: Ignorant wanker, or simply an asshole?

25 NCAA Championships.

Let's type that again:

TWENTY-FIVE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS!! And a program that pays for itself.

That's a program of athletic dominance that any varsity should be celebrating and shouting from their rooftops - and Ivory Towers.

But sadly, California Golden Bears Athletic Director Sandy Barbour wants to cut the program.

Cal rugby refuses to go quietly after termination of their program

One day after Cal cut five sports from its intercollegiate athletics menu, there was no surrender among those affected in rugby or baseball.

... Rugby coach Jack Clark went on the offensive Wednesday.

Clark, who has directed 21 of Cal's 25 national championship teams in the sport, said there is no reason the university needed to cut rugby, saying it's largely financially self-sufficient thanks to private donations.

He said he proposed to athletic director Sandy Barbour and the university administration adding a women's varsity rugby team, which would balance gender equity issues mandated by Title IX federal law.

More here.


And Nina Sasso writes a letter to Barbour.

Cal Rugby is paying the price for your incompetency and inability to comply with Title IX.

With your salary of over $470,000, you honestly can't come up with a more imaginative solution to Title IX compliance? Instead of targeting rugby, why not distribute the cut and implement a department-wide squad size reduction across all men's sports? Your uninspiring decision to eliminate rugby is a discredit to this university that values innovation.

This letter is a call for your accountability regarding the rationale behind cutting rugby. Terminating rugby under the guise of a budget cut is dishonest and deceitful.