Limited funding prevents official soccer at MHCC

One would think that the world’s most popular sport, soccer, would already be in full swing at Mt. Hood Community College, but according to Associated Student Government officials, it’s only still on the menu.

MHCC Athletic Director Kim Hyatt said that currently providing for an extra competitive program would either require additional funding, or cutting an existing intercollegiate sport, such as track and field, or baseball.

“We will continue to look at options to find additional funding to propose the addition of these two sports (both women’s and men’s soccer) as additional resources are established,” said Hyatt. The overall athletics budget at MHCC has been reduced by 37 percent in the course of three years, she noted.

Funding for co-curricular and athletic programs is directly affected by student enrollment. A decrease in enrollment decreases the amount of money, and consequently, the ability to raise a new program. That’s the current situation at Mt. Hood.

But what if soccer was not just another burden?

In fact, could soccer be the cure to a steadily dwindling supply of student fee money?

Fellow NWAC athletic rival institution Lane Community College is putting a men’s soccer program to the test for the 2016-17 academic year. In an email to the Advocate, Lane’s athletic director, Greg Sheley, said that soccer would benefit that college and its area in many ways, such as boosting enrollment, improving community relations, and satisfying the local demand for the sport.

“Facilities were already in place to house these teams, (and) we were bringing back sports that were previously part of our athletic offerings,” he said.

LCC will add women’s volleyball in addition to the men’s soccer team this fall, according to NWAC.com. Since Lane is re-implementing these programs, the cost of restarting the soccer program would be “between $15,000 and $20,000,” said Sheley. Maintaining the program would take an estimated $43,000 annually – the largest expense being travel.

According to Hyatt, more goes into adding a new athletic program than one might think.

“To meet Title IX requirements (which require gender equity, including scholarship and roster counts) we would need to add a men’s and women’s program, so you would need to double that (cost),” she said. “These numbers also wouldn’t even begin to factor in the additional expenses to maintain and prepare the facilities for events/games or the labor required.

“Additionally, we would need to assure that our fields would meet the NCAA requirements for hosting official home games,” Hyatt said.

Work is currently being done to see the soccer dilemma through – at least at the intramural level.

ASG conducted a poll over the month of March and found that 83.9 percent of Mt. Hood students and faculty who responded support the idea of intramural (organized sport within an institution) soccer, and 30.7 percent of students who took the poll said they would be interested in participating.

Friday around 2 to 4 p.m. would be the most popular time for soccer scrimmages, according to the poll, but due to different scheduling conflicts, the actual potential intramural time was adjusted to Tuesday, from 1 to 2 p.m. Times are still being adjusted, said Santiago Velasco Lopez, ASG Senator of Finance and Legislation at Mt. Hood.

(For more information about intramural soccer, contact Brian Urzua, ASG Senator of Athletics and Aquatics, in the Student Union.)

Lopez said both the MHCC athletics department and ASG believe that establishing the soccer scrimmages are a step in the right direction to garner more support for a new soccer program.

“We would certainly propose the addition of men’s and women’s (soccer) if we had the appropriate funding to move forward and had student support but the final decision would be made by the president and the District Board,” said Hyatt.