According to a notice sent July 31 to affected UTD athletes by outgoing UTD president Richard Benson, UTD is reversing its decision to cut its track and cross country programs.
On July 28, Director of Athletics Angela Marin sent an email to UTD track and cross country athletes stating the men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field and men’s and women’s cross country programs would be discontinued for the 2025-2026 academic year. Marin said the decision was “not made lightly,” citing ongoing budget constraints and a lack of on-campus facilities for the programs as they entered NCAA Division II.
“As we have recently joined the Lone Star Conference and continue our transition to NCAA Division II, we must be strategic with our resources,” Marin said in the email.
The abrupt decision to axe the athletic programs caused an uproar among athletes and alumni who were on the track and cross country teams. One alum started a petition to demand UTD reinstate the cut programs and improve communication between the university and athletes, garnering over 2,500 signatures within days of being proposed.
In the July 31 notice sent to the former track and cross country athletes, Benson said that because of the community response and feedback from the UT System administration, UTD was reversing the decision to axe the programs. The reinstatement of the track and cross country programs will allow the athletes to compete during the 2025-2026 academic year.
The cut would have prevented 66 student athletes across both programs from competing, many of whom were specifically recruited by UTD for their athletic prowess. The late notice also made it almost impossible for student athletes to transfer to other programs if they wished to compete during the fall 2025 semester. The new coaching staff hired for the track and cross country teams’ transition to NCAA Division II were also set to lose their jobs due to the cut.
This is a breaking news story. The Retrograde will provide more details as new information emerges.
5 Comments
So glad to see these programs were reinstated! I hadn’t been following the Retrograde and only knew that UTD had made the cuts. So stupid. Get started in D II, and the first thing you do is start eliminating sports programs??? Cross country, in particular, is about the cheapest sport ever. It doesn’t need “facilities.” You just go out and find a large park–of which there are many in the area. I don’t know where the track & field athletes train. But many of the high schools around here have football/track stadiums better than those at a lot of D II schools. So happy for the athletes and the coaches for whom, as you say, the abrupt termination was so unfair.
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