(Correction Dec. 21, 2016: This story originally misstated the price of athlete entry fees, severity of budget cuts, misspelt one name, and has been updated with comment from The New School’s athletic head.)

The cross country running team had just arrived at The Harry Murphy Cross Country Invitational — a 5-kilometer run that occurs in The Bronx every fall. Each athlete paid their own $13 participation fee and transportation costs. Nonetheless, they were eager to finally represent the university.

After 3 miles and a bucket of sweat later, the exhausted athletes crossed the finish line and returned to their coach who passed out bananas and granola bars from her purse. She bought them with her own money. Had this been a year before, the school would’ve paid for food for the tired runners.

If this had been last season, the team would have had transportation supplied by the school, the participation fee would have been paid prior to the race, and the athletes would have snacks for them in their tent. However, this season, the team had none of those things. Cross country coach Cerise Steel said that she was not given any concrete information as to why the team is not being funded anymore. She was only told that this season the team “wouldn’t be able to afford the $10 team meals after races, students would now have to buy their own unlimited MetroCard and that they needed to raise $500 to pay for races.”

“[The team] was signed up for more races, but they were cut,” Steel said.

This has been one of many incidents that have recently occurred within The New School’s athletics department. This season, two New School basketball coaches are going without salaries and athletes are using old sports pinnies they had to give back, according to Casey Barber, who works within The Athletics and Recreation department as social media coordinator.

This year, the athletics department has been hit with the most abrupt and drastic budget cut that the program has ever seen. With nearly zero funding, the teams have been scrambling to find money for practices, competitions, transportation, food, and anything else that they might need. Struggling to stay afloat, The athletic and recreation department has all but vanished, according to interviews with four coaches, one athlete, and two students who work within the athletics department.

“The abrupt budget cuts were made with no explanation from the department or school administration,” said head basketball coach, David Gilman. When athletes and coaches questioned how much was being cut, why it was happening, where it was going, what their new budget was, or how the teams could prevent the cuts, they were only given vague and cryptic responses from the school, Gilman said.

“I think athletics is an important part of The New School because it brings together students from all different programs and encourages people to be healthy, so I’m not sure why they would continue to make it so difficult for our team to race” said Steel.

New School Director of Athletics and Recreation Diane Yee is hopeful about the future of the running program. “We have a small, but dedicated cross country program. I’ve met with the student leaders of this team to establish a plan to keep them moving in the right direction. I’m excited to see what comes of spring training,” she said.

In a statement to The New School Free Press, Yee later added “The Athletics and Recreation Department continues to offer the same services and programs based on current interest and demand. The department is conducting a school-wide survey to ensure funding goes to programs that meet the interests and needs of our students. The survey link can be found on narwhalnation.com.”

The university’s senior director for student and campus life, Alisa Bayes, also helped shed light on the issue. “Athletics and recreation is an important program for our students. We are in the process of reviewing how the funds for that program are being used and distributed, with the goal of making sure the activities with the most number of students participating receive the appropriate funding,” Bayes said.

Bayes did not say how much money was cut, where the budget was redistributed if it stayed within athletics and what the future holds for the department.

However, there was some insight from Parsons senior and social media coordinator for the athletics and recreation department, Casey Barber.

“I am not sure why there were budget cuts. I was just told that we had to cut our budget quite a bit, which caused us to have replan our semester with significantly less trips and [cancel] some of our favorites,” said the department’s social media student worker, Barber. “I assume the money is being distributed elsewhere. … [But] I haven’t seen it surface elsewhere. A lot of the higher-ups don’t see the importance of our department and what it offers.”

Angelica Dios, a student who works for Yee within the athletic department, said that 30 percent of the budget was cut across the board for this school year. Yee disputed this, saying “the budget has not been cut by 30 percent,” but declined to say how much it had been cut by. But these cuts still threatened the department’s hugely popular outdoor trips, like an annual mountain trip to Vermont, workers said.

This season, the basketballs budget was cut from $17,000 to $12,000. In effort to secure funds, two of the coaches, David Gilman and Jules Neuman waived their salary. But even with two salaries in the pot, the team still needed to find funding to rent gym space, transportation, tournaments, uniforms, and anything extra such as food for after the games. In order to meet the team’s budget, the coaches and athletes sought outside funding from a generous parent who donated an additional $2,000 to the team. However, Gilman said that despite the sacrifices and outside funding, “the team’s budget will be sliced an additional 50 percent next season to around $6,000.”

The team practices only two times a week now instead of its previous three, which has consequently lead to the athletes being in poor shape, Neuman said. The team also hosts fewer games, which affects how many games they play in over the season.

When they asked Yee how they could keep the team alive, she told them to increase student participation. When asking for clarification such as how many students need to attend their games, how many students need to try out, or if they could do anything that wasn’t financially related to get the departments support, there was no answer. “With all of the budget cuts and no idea how to save the team, we will not have enough funding to continue a basketball team at the school” Gilman said.

“It seems that the administration does not know what they want from the program,” Neuman said. “Thus the teams cannot continue to survive or operate under current administration.”

The cross country team faces similar frustrations about the administration’s lack of communication and drastic financial cuts. This season, the team’s budget has all but vanished with no concrete answer as to why or how much. Cross country coach Steel said that she “isn’t sure who Yee’s boss is or who is actually in control of the budget for the athletics program. [She] actually doesn’t even know what the previous budget was, or what it is currently. Yee has never told [her] what our budget is, only that it was cut.”

Cross country captain and New School Free Press reporter Alice Ly said the budget cut has all but given the team, which has worked its way up to compete collegiately, an ultimatum to either find the money themselves or become apart of New York Road Runners, a nonprofit, independent running club that would exclude them from any affiliation with The New School. Despite the team “consecutively placing in the top 20 at collegiate races, the only money Yee offered the team was a $200 budget through New York Road Runners, which can charge up to $60 per person for a single meet” Ly said.

For the limited races the team does attend, there are still financial burdens. For one race, the Harry Murphy Cross Country Invitational, Ly said that Yee had the students pay $13 each for the race and then had the money reimbursed later. At a different race, The CSI Invitational, the team showed up only to find out Yee had not paid for the team to participate. The coach was left to pay the $75 fee.

For many of the athletes, the reality is that they just cannot afford to stay on the team, Ly said. The New School does not have an adequate running space, which forces the team to have early morning practices in The Bronx and competitions that take place all the way from Staten Island to New Jersey. Many students cannot afford to commute to practice multiple times a week on top of traveling to races. With no money for transportation, food, or enrollment for races, the team’s attendance continues to decline.

To keep the team alive, Yee suggested to Ly that the team seek outside donors, host charity based events, or have a bake sale. Ly, who joined the team for fun and to represent The New School, said that being team captain “has evolved into a huge undertaking and responsibility.”

Photo by Julia Himmel