Rejected

The basketball program at Minneapolis Community and Technical College is on the chopping block.

The program has grown from a run-of-the-mill junior college program into a national powerhouse among two-year colleges, under the leadership of coach Jay Pivec.  He’s got plenty of experience turning obscure colleges into basketball powers; if memory serves, he came to MCTC in ’89 or ’90 from (I hope I remember this correctly) Havre, Montana – whose college he also took to the bigs.  And before that, he coached my alma mater, Jamestown, turning it’s hoops program into an improbable success.  Jay also coached my one phy-ed class – Tennis, I think – where our only real subject in common was Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.  We have more in common now, of course; his wife, MLP, writes the excellent blog  Casual Sundays with Mr. Curry; his sister-in-law, Katie McCollow, ran the late, lamented Yucky Salad With Bones.

At any rate – MCTC’s basketball program is to college hoops what junior/community college is supposed to be for college; a place for students who are late bloomers or who slipped off “the rails” in high school to get their act together and move on to “regular” college, or at least down some path with a better education.  Unlike so much in public education, MCTC’s program (actually programs – the women’s program does the same thing), it works:

Most MCTC players lacked grades or money. Some of the players live at home to save money; some have kids of their own. Lindahl said he holds practice between 6 and 8 a.m. because he knows his players have other responsibilities, and Pivec and Gates are widely known for salvaging the careers, if not lives, of at-risk players…Last year, the men’s coaches helped Cortez Wallace land a scholarship at Western Missouri. Pivec and Gates found Wallace, who dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, playing AAU ball. They pushed him to get his GED, recruited him and gave him a future.

“Coach Gates and coach Piv have done so much for me, helped me get jobs, helped me get work-study,” said women’s player Natalye Horne. “Coach Piv and coach Gates especially treat me like a second daughter. This program is like a family, and now they’re breaking it up.”

Guard Sondra Jones said: “For a lot of people, this is a stepping stone to something bigger. But the administration looks at this as an option instead of a priority.”

Freshman point guard Freddie Burton could have left the program once he found it was doomed but said, “I’ll just try my luck here. I like the program. I really don’t know what I’m going to do next year.

“Damn that Pawlenty and his LGA cuts!”

Well, no – it was a fairly capricious-looking decision by the MCTC student senate – the DFLers of tomorrow:

Last year, the school’s Student Senate and Student Life Budget Committee decided that basketball was not a high priority, and school President Phil Davis accepted the recommendation to withdraw funding for the program. That silly process — letting students who will spend a maximum of two years on campus decide the fate of a traditionally powerful program run by two dedicated lifelong coaches — leaves the Mavericks renowned yet doomed.

The crazy part? The program is excellence on the cheap:

While some players are circulating petitions to fund the programs, Davis has made it clear that the program would have to be financially independent, requiring $118,000 a year.

$118K?

There are Twin Cities’ corporations for whom 118 large is a week’s philanthropic giving.  Given the amount of money society as whole saves – I’m saying this with absolutely no intention to condescend – on future social costs for the people the program turns around – it’s a bargain.

There are Timberwolves players with $118,000 under the seat cushions in their Bentleys.

You’re going to tell me someone out there can’t cover that?

11 thoughts on “Rejected

  1. Cool…. I suppose the theater department will now have to be completely self supporting, as well as the art department, speech/forensics, and don’t forget womyn’s studies….Yeah, that will happen…..

  2. Chuck, Bill – Hah!

    Zip – I’m not sure that MCTC has a speech team. Most of their students aren’t from the “speech team” set. Or the “womyns studies” set, for that matter.

    Bubba – heh.

  3. On the off chance that Pivec hasn’t thought of it, the people I’d approach are the Dunkers Club, the well-heeled alumni/fans of the Gopher basketball program. They could fund MCTC easily and keep a program that can directly benefit the Gophers (and has, if I remember correctly) running.

    These kids who come to MCTC to play basketball will end up someplace else, like some dismal juco that’s not much more than a Quonset hut out in the middle of Iowa or Kansas. Instead, they could be here, where they get an actual education and the chance to make contact with hundreds of potential future employers. It’s an amazingly short-sighted decision.

  4. Did MCTC blow all their money on foot washing stations, or did those funds come from what had been budgeted for the old Xmas tree fund?

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