Cutting the number of football scholarships at Big Sky Conference schools will help address two of the major problems facing intercollegiate athletics, Montana Athletic Director Bill Moos said Tuesday.
"I think it illustrates what we've said all along - that the two prominent issues in intercollegiate athletics right now are cost containment and gender equity. And this decision addresses both of those issues," said Moos.He said he hopes the rest of the Division I-AA programs in the country follow suit.
"The monies from those scholarships can go for opportunities for women," Moos said.
Montana and Montana State are considering adding women's golf and soccer to meet a new NCAA requirement that Division I schools have 14 sports by the 1993-94 school year. To meet Division I requirements, the schools would have to fund a minimum of 51/2 soccer scholarships and three golf scholarships.
The Big Sky Conference Presidents Council voted on Monday to eliminate a total of 18 football scholarships at each league school over a period of three years - six per year per school.
Currently, Big Sky Conference schools have 65 football scholarships.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association allows Division I-AA schools to have up to 70 scholarships.
The NCAA had limited Division I-AA schools to 63 scholarships beginning with the 1994 season, but league presidents voted Monday to reduce that number to 57. By the 1996 season, league schools will be allowed just 45 football scholarships.
"I guess I was surprised that the presidents took as bold a step as quickly as they did," Ron Stephenson, league commissioner, said in a telephone interview from Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday.
"I think that we will either be perceived as being tremendously foresighted leaders in the country, or we will be perceived as doing detrimental things to a fairly strong Division I-AA conference," Stephenson said.
He said he sent a fax detailing the presidents' plan to the commissioners of the other eight Division I-AA conferences, and two commissioners called back to say their leagues already are considering the same action.
The cuts, while freeing money for women's athletics, could threaten non-conference games that bring much-needed money to Big Sky athletic programs.
"The money you gain (cutting scholarships), you lose in your inability to play Division I-A money games. You can't put a 45-grant program up against a I-A team," said Montana State Athletic Director Doug Fullerton.
Division I-A schools are allowed up to 88 scholarships.
Montana State had a $350,000 guarantee for a 1996 game against LSU.
"That's out of the question now," said MSU football coach Cliff Hysell. "I mean, you can't take 45 kids down there and play somebody that's got 85."
UM in Missoula has Division I-A games with guarantees between $100,000 and $125,000 scheduled at least through 1996.
And there's also concern that the cuts will limit booster money.
"If you're not heading towards the playoffs, I don't know what that will do for our league in terms of fan suport and boosters," Fullerton said. "It's like any other good entertainment business - you have to put on a good show or you go broke."
MSU at Bozeman, which has struggled with a 24-64 record in the last eight years after winning the national championship in 1984, already is having a tough enough time putting on a good show.