The Switch
About 300 students line the sidewalks outside Northrup Hall on the morning of October 5, 1991. The crowd of students, which included Trinity tennis players, held signs saying “Save Trinity Tennis” and “Save a Trinity Tradition.” The protests were caused by the news that came out the night before that the Trinity board of trustees decided to meet and vote on switching Trinity tennis, the only Division 1 team left on campus, to Division 3. The protests were also fueled by the growing perception on campus that the administration did not care about the opinions of the students. After the news of the decision to vote, the Student Association President created a petition that got over 900 signatures in one night to save the Trinity tennis program. Despite the protests and petitions, the board voted 24-0 to switch the tennis program to Division 3.
The student protests continued over the next few days because of the discontent with the administration. One reason that the students were unhappy was that they believed that they should have had a part in the decision to drop such an integral part of the University. The discussions about making the decision were kept a secret from the student body until right before the decision was made and that was unacceptable to the students. School President Ron Calgaard did not agree with this idea and thought it should be the other way around. Calgaard believed that the students should have no part in administrative decisions. Vice President for Student Affairs Coleen Grissom stated that “the board of trustees owns the university and hires the president and the senior executive officers” so the board should be able to make the decisions. Grissom also told the students “what we need you to understand is this is not a democracy.”
The students were also unhappy about the way the tennis players were being treated with this decision. The players had no say in the decision and were getting a tough deal out of the decision which the students thought was unacceptable. After the decision to switch, President Calgaard gave the players three options with their scholarships. The players could transfer to another tennis scholarship program and compete without losing eligibility, they could remain at Trinity and keep their scholarship but would not be allowed to compete in tennis, or they could remain at Trinity and give up their scholarship but could compete in Division 3 tennis. The majority of the players decided to leave Trinity and play elsewhere which led to a huge drop in the team’s talent.
President Calgaard sent a memorandum to the faculty, staff, and students about the decision to discontinue athletic scholarships in tennis. The memo lays out the reasons and benefits of the switch for the school. The memorandum does not state an official reason for the decision, but it states multiple times that the reason for the decision was not financial. However, the memo lays out financial benefits for the decision to discontinue scholarships. According to the memo, the school will save $238,800 after stopping scholarships, and what the school plans to do with the money saved. The University plans to establish a new swimming and diving team that will compete in the Bell Center that will be completed in 1992. The school also plans to increase funding for coaching of men’s and women’s soccer. The University will also increase funding for women’s sports on campus so they can compete in the College Athletic Conference. The last thing the memo states is that the school wants to increase staffing, which includes students, in athletic and intramural programs for better support and security in the new Bell Center. In the appendix of the memo, it states that the annual giving for the support of the tennis program is less than $5,000 a year. This is evidence of what Butch Newman said about foreign players in the tennis program. The foreign players did not come back and support the program after they left the program. The president ends the memorandum with a statement saying that he understands that people will disagree with the decision, but they are “persuaded” that the decision “is in the best long-term interest of Trinity University.”