Kansas University baseball coach Bobby Randall was disheartened to hear Monday that Iowa State had decided to slice baseball along with men’s swimming and diving for budgetary reasons.
Randall, in his sixth season at KU, coached baseball at ISU from 1984-95.
“I feel badly for the players and coaches that are there right now,” Randall said, “and also for the guys who played there before. It takes their legacy away.”
Kansas recently opted to drop men’s tennis and men’s swimming and diving.
“I know how painful it was when it came to the decision here to drop the sports,” Randall said. “And yet it doesn’t help anybody to drop sports.
“When you have decent facilities, it gives you much more reason to keep the sport,” Randall said. “But it’s not like baseball or any of the men’s Olympic sports is contributing to the budget. When they’re cutting programs and Nebraska or Arkansas, which cut swimming a few years ago, you go, ‘Wait a second, these schools are supposed to have a lot of money.’ It’s not a secure time for any Olympic sports right now.”
