Women runners want same funding as other programs

By Nate Swinton

When the women's cross-country team traveled to Mills College in Oakland two weekends ago, they got off to a slow start - even before the race began.

The team had arranged to take a charter bus to Mills. But when the bus didn't show and with the athletic department vans already being used by another team, the runners had no choice but to drive their own cars to the meet, arriving 40 minutes before starting time.

"We had to scramble to go get our cars," junior Annie Gastelum, a top runner the past two years, said. "It didn't make us late but we had to rush."

"It's annoying that you have to use your own money to pay for gas and stress out where you're going," junior Jenny Smokey, the team's top runner the past two years, said.

And while the incident was not the school's fault " the bus company had an internal mix-up - it only added to the team's growing perception that they are not viewed as equal to other sports teams by the Santa Clara Athletic Department.

Many women on the team point to the economic disparity between themselves and other teams as their main point of contention. The program only has one scholarship available for the entire team, and its usually divided three or four ways. This pales next to the 14 full rides available to the women's basketball program.

The team also receives less equipment compared to other programs. Because they're not sponsored by an athletic company such as Adidas or Nike, their free equipment consists of the bare necessities, such as uniforms and warm-ups, and is paid for with the team's budget.

"You hear about the volleyball team getting running shoes and we don't even get running shoes," said Gastelum. "We're a running team."

Cheryl Levick, the school's athletic director, said each team's budget within the athletic department is decided on a "case by case" basis. The amount of money each team receives, she said, is determined "by what a team needs to be successful."

"No one has as much money as they want to have, and therefore a coach must make decisions," Levick said. She noted that the men's and women's team have equal budgets and that there are no "equity issues" between the two teams.

In fact, last spring Levick gave the women's cross country program a 60 percent budget increase. She also hopes the number of scholarships will increase in the near future.

"We are raising money for scholarships as fast as we can, it's that important to us," Levick said.

Women's first-year Head Coach Tom Service said he feels that his team's needs are well taken care of. Service, who coached at nearby Leland High School prior to arriving on campus this summer, said the team's new uniforms, use of school vans and two scheduled flights to meets this year convince him that the team is well-off, budget wise.

"I'm feeling kind of spoiled right now," he said.

Service also noted that the team elected to use their budget to buy new uniforms this year instead of getting team running shoes. Ordering cross-country shoes in large quantities is difficult, he added, because of the unique fit of each shoe.

"I feel we're adequately funded equipment-wise," he said.

Despite these arguments, the perception of "getting the shaft" remains among the women runners.

"Generally, cross-country is not in the limelight for people," said senior Shannon Gleeson, in her third year with the team. "How many teams here have to make a decision between uniforms and shoes?"

Milena Basile, a sophomore top-three runner this year, agreed. "I don't think the athletic department thinks we're important enough. I feel like they don't include us. It's more like a club team."

Smokey said limited funds inhibit the ability of the team to improve.

"If [the athletic department] wants our team to improve so much, they need to spend more money on our program. I don't see how our team is supposed to get better."

John Maloney, the men's head coach, takes a different perspective on the issue. Maloney, who coached the men's and women's programs for five years before concentrating solely on the men's team the past four years, said the programs are currently in the best economic shape ever.

"With the budget increase, we have money that we've never had before in the history of the program. We've never had it as good in terms of budget," Maloney said.

He said that while the team does receive far less compared to the basketball and soccer teams, it's due to the nature of cross-country rather than any sort of mistreatment by the athletic department.

"It's just a result of we picked the wrong sport," he said. "A lot of it is the element of the sport we have."

Maloney, a men's team participant in the late '70s and early '80s for Santa Clara, noted that cross-country is not a revenue-producing sport and said that programs across the nation all have similar budget issues. In most programs, it is only recently that runners have been provided transportation to meets, he said.

Maloney also doesn't see an increase in funds as the solution to building an elite program at Santa Clara.

"Money usually translates into winning, but this is a sport where winning depends on how good a coach you have and how hard your kids work," he said. "My belief is that we're not going to get better by having more money thrown at us."