The NBC television program "Heroes" spent much of its first season following its characters' desperate attempt to "Save the cheerleader, save the world."
This summer, our own ASU cheerleaders, as well as wrestlers, men's swimmers and men's tennis players, found themselves in need of some saving — all for a whopping $1 million.
To be fair, the cheer program wasn't officially cut this summer, just merged with the marching band spirit squad. Still, if only considering the other three, an awful lot of student athletes' lives, or at least livelihoods, have been negatively affected in order to save a buck.
Call us crazy, but a taxpayer-funded University like ASU with a massive budget shouldn't have to cut drop-in-the-bucket athletic programs to make ends meet.
It's been a tough budget year nationally and locally, and there have to be cuts somewhere at an institution as large as ASU, but giving minor sports programs the ax to scrounge up some extra dollars isn't the best way to go. How many millions were spent to perch those fancy fans on top of the new Global Institute of Sustainability?
And while we're all excited about the upcoming "Extreme Makeover: MU Edition," dining decisions like the exchange of Schlotzsky's for Quiznos haven't made much of an impact on student lives.
Simon Percy, an assistant coach of men's swimming, said his athletes came to ASU to swim, and without the team they have no other reason to stay. The main purpose of the University's spending should be to improve its students' experiences, not to take away their seemingly unimportant programs on a frugal whim.
The efforts of the wrestling, men's swimming and men's tennis teams to raise money and reinstitute their programs are admirable, but they shouldn't have to be doing it.
Facebook.com groups supporting cheer and swimming had 3,379 and 7,376 members respectively at press time. The students have spoken: Shave off $1 million somewhere else.
