[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 7/25/02 ] Life University scrubs athletics programs By MARY MACDONALD Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer Related: Ä A mandate to save the school. Ä Without icon, Life U. likely to struggle. Ä Williams retires as Life U. president. Ä Panel ousts trustee. Ä Life founder vacates office. Ä Life mulls plan to team with chiropractic school. Ä Founder seen by some as problem for university. Ä Accreditation woes worry students at commencement. Ä Life reports sub-par scores on national board exam. Ä Williams says he will step down in March. Ä University leaders failed to establish proper environment, agency says. Ä Life U. loses chiropractic accreditation. Life University has killed its acclaimed athletics program and is on the verge of abandoning its wildly popular Christmas lights display. The cuts are an attempt by Life officials to save its original niche, chiropractic education. The elimination of basketball, soccer, rugby, ice hockey and track will allow the university to redirect $1.8 million to core academics, including a chiropractic program that has lost accreditation. Additional cuts are expected, probably including the Lights of Life, a $350,000 Christmas display that attracts 2 million people a year to the Marietta campus. The university also may close one of three public clinics where patients are treated. These budget decisions are expected in the next few weeks. Interim President Michael Schmidt recommended eliminating competitive athletics, and his decision was supported Tuesday by the school's 14-member board of trustees. Despite the impact on the students and staff, the decision to get rid of the Running Eagles wasn't that hard, said trustee James Sigafoose. "The budget needs to be cut," he said. "We're more interested in chiropractic than we are in sports or Christmas lights." A dozen coaches and their staff were notified Tuesday night and Wednesday they would lose their jobs, but have not been told how long they will be kept on the payroll. Severance terms are still being worked out, said Will Hurst, a university spokesman. The drastic cut came two weeks after the forced retirement of founder and President Sid Williams. A former star athlete at Georgia Tech, he introduced the sports program in 1990 to complement the chiropractic and undergraduate programs. Reached in California, Williams said he is upset and disappointed. "I can't believe they would be so short-sighted," he said. "The people who are in charge now don't realize the significance of these programs, how important it is to the community." The basketball teams, in particular, brought favorable publicity to Life, with the men winning three national championships in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The track and cross-country teams also won national championships. The school can regain its accreditation without resorting to such actions, Williams said. "I'm disappointed in [their] taking such drastic steps. If we get reaccredited, then we could continue without having to tear down something that's been a tradition at Life University." The sports programs were widely seen as one of Williams' most personal stamps on the university. The bronze Running Eagle statue that looks down on people entering the gymnasium is literally cast in his likeness. But the decision to kill the programs had nothing to do with trustees wanting to rid the university of Williams' influence, Hurst said. "The cut in athletics is in direct response to the declining enrollment and the lack of revenue brought on by the declining enrollment," Hurst said. "That's it. If you look at the enrollment trends, this cut was inevitable." About 150 students participate in competitive athletics, on five men's teams and three women's teams. Students attending school on athletic scholarship, most of them undergraduates, will be covered through the length of their one-year contracts, Hurst said. That would take the student athletes through the 2002-03 school year, or they can transfer and be eligible to play immediately at schools that are part of the NAIA or the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Jason Campbell, a basketball player, had a measured response. Being able to get his degree is most important to him, he said. "I'm not upset about it," he said. "For one thing, there are other places to go to school. I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. But it's happening, so . . ." With that, Campbell headed into the school gymnasium. The intercollegiate athletics initially were expected to bolster undergraduate enrollment by attracting students who wanted a more traditional college experience. But that never happened, Sigafoose said. The school last year had just 700 students seeking bachelor's degrees. The number of chiropractic students has dropped about 500 from last summer, to 2,400. Even as enrollment is dropping, the school is trying to recruit faculty for both classroom and clinic positions. The staffing shortage has been cited by the Council on Chiropractic Education as one of the reasons for the revocation of accreditation. The chiropractic school may close one of its three public clinics, in north Cobb County, Sigafoose said, to refocus on the basics. The clinics take in people who, for a fee, are treated by chiropractic students working under the supervision of a licensed chiropractor. On campus, students had mixed feelings about the loss of sports programs. "It's definitely a loss," said Kristin Cousineau, a Michigan transplant who went to every ice hockey game last year. Todd Crowe, a 30-year-old Boston native, said the athletics program and chiropractic education go hand in hand. "It's a pretty bad situation," he said. "A lot of what we do as chiropractors has to do with athletics and physical condition. Having athletes here is a good outlet for us to practice our technique on. And some of the athletes are chiropractors, so we get a lot of good feedback. It's just a shame it had to come to this." Having sports teams also provided an opportunity to raise public awareness of the university in ways that had nothing to do with academics, he said. Iris Williams agreed. "I think it's terrible," said Williams, 27, whose boyfriend is on the rugby team and came from New Zealand to play the sport and study chiropractic. "I definitely think this will hurt the school in the long run," she said. "Sports bring athletes here from other countries. I strongly hope they get the sports program back into place." -- Staff writers Mia Taylor and Wendy Parker contributed to this article.