Men’s baseball, women’s indoor track and field and men’s soccer will no longer be played at San Francisco State University starting July 1.
“Last year, the University formed an Athletics Task Force to address the ongoing budget shortfall in athletics and formulate a plan to create a sustainable model for Gators Athletics at SF State,” said SFSU President Lynn Mahoney. “The task force recommended we reduce our number of NCAA teams.”
The team eliminations will affect 44 student-athletes and cut the number of NCAA Division II teams competing at SFSU down to 10.
This comes after Sonoma State University announced it was discontinuing all of its athletics programs in January.
California State Universities are facing financial challenges as Governor Gavin Newsom proposed reducing CSU funding by $375.2 million.
“There’s some belt-tightening that’s going to happen, there’s gonna be some challenging times ahead,” said Vince Inglima, head coach of men’s basketball, to Golden Gate Xpress in early February. “But I’m optimistic that we can still do good things and have a positive impact on student-athletes as well as the campus and the community.”
Gators baseball being cut is a shock to many as the team was just competing in the NCAA Division II Western Regionals Championship tournament last season. Head coach Tony Schifano expressed his disappointment in the decision as he is now in his 10th season as the leader of the Swamp’s dugout.
“It’s devastating news; it is devastating for the athletic department and the university,” Schifano said. “Baseball has been a pillar of excellence at this university for the past 6-8 years. I think eliminating sports is not the answer. But like I told my players, everything we do, we do with class, and we’ll handle it with class.”
Senior infielder Justin Johnson Jr. shared his reaction to the administration’s decision.
“I felt devastated for the guys who had helped build this program to be the success it is today,” Johnson said. “It’s unfair to take away a program that means so much to the school community and brings so many people together through sport.”
Johnson also reflected on his experience on the team.
“Being on the baseball team has impacted my life in a major way. Our team isn’t a team, it’s a family,” Johnson said. “The school is taking away the opportunity for our team and past players to come back and enjoy the thing we all enjoy, which was playing baseball together. For future students, they will lose the ability to develop a sense of community that baseball brings to campus. Losing the baseball team I think is devastating to the student body; a successful sports team helps build school spirit and strengthens school community.”
Senior infielder Daniel Murillo sees this as motivation and an opportunity to give Gators baseball one last hoorah in its final inning at the university.
“We’re just going to go out there one last time and go have fun,” Murillo said. “It gives us a better opportunity to just enjoy this last ride.”
“It was a shock,” men’s soccer head coach Sebastian Carrasco said. “We were not ready to leave this situation.”
When Carrasco told the team that cuts were imminent, he could see the disappointment in players’ faces. Carrasco’s main focus right now is to help current players progress through the next steps.
Junior midfielder Michael Rodriguez knew the fate of SFSU athletics would be similar when he heard about the SSU athletic cuts.
“It’s definitely a tough feeling,” Rodriguez said. “You feel sympathy. I was already preparing ahead, and I got some things going. I just feel for others, and hopefully, they could be guided through it all.”
Editor’s Note: The track and field athletes were not available for an interview at the time of publication.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked
Steven Agrusa • Mar 6, 2025 at 11:45 am
Absolute travesty from our governor all the way to San Francisco State Admin. Class cuts, tuition raises, cutting sports, faculty, merging departments, and so much more. Lynn Mahoney, The Cal State Admin, and Newsom should be shamed knowing that they run Universities like a business.
