UCF Men's Cross Country Cut

Ok I got a phone call a few weeks ago and my mouth dropped when I learned that my alumna matter - UCF had made the decision to drop men's cross country. It upset me very much. You see in1986 I walked on the team as a 119 lb freshman. At the time the school was in debt trying to bring football from Div 2 up to a Div 1 program. So it had very little money for non producing revenue sports like cross country. That first year we had no uniforms, no scholarships, and no coach (the conditioning coach of the football team double as the X-country coach).

By the time we had graduated we actually were able to start holding our head's a little higher because we had pulled together as a team. Pushing each other finding volunteer coaches to work with us, holding races to buy uniforms ourselves. No one gave us a dime or much support. We raised money found ways to start a Track Club and continued running the best we could. We actually had a saying "UCF X-Country - You Gotta Luv it!"

Those experiences lead us to be the leaders and educators that we are today. Many of my fellow teammates went on to be businessmen, coaches and teachers in the community.

It's sad to see a school drop a sport that took over 20 years to build to a respectable and competitive team that it is today.

Please sign the petition to have the school reconsider it's decision.

http://www.petitiononline.com/UCFXC/petition.html

Thanks!