It probably hasn’t registered to many outside the land of enchantment but New Mexico athletics is facing a pretty big budget crunch at the moment that has already led to the cutting of several sports completely in Albuquerque.
Whenever there are cuts, especially at this level across a broad number of programs at a school, attention inevitably shifts to the bigger line items for an athletic department and nobody has a bigger one for the Lobos than the football program (some $8.2 million last year). While the team did suffer some reductions in terms of financial support, it’s not a significant enough dip for some at UNM who were counting on that money to keep sports like soccer going. Despite that, head coach Bob Davie isn’t feeling guilty at all that his program survived relatively intact while others are looking for new schools or jobs.
“No, not guilt at all,” Davie told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “I feel bad. I feel extremely bad. Nobody knows more than another coach of what coaches invest in their program and how much pride you take in it. Nobody knows more than a player what other players put into it. You leave home, you set up, you have a plan, you have a course. You put everything into it and it gets taken away. But guilt — absolutely not. Absolutely not.”
Interesting comments from Davie considering he was suspended for 30 days without pay earlier this year after several allegations about how he ran the football program.
Cutting sports is expected to save New Mexico some $1.2 million going forward while Davie himself made over $823,000 last year according to USA Today.