To the female cross-country runners, who had sat silently outside the Nov. 2 meeting, the decision was infuriating but not surprising.

“We were angry, but we knew it was coming; the football team gets what they want,” one senior member of the women’s cross-country and track teams said. The runner requested anonymity, fearing repercussions for herself and her teams, which share several members and often train together.

The prioritization of football teams over other sports is not uncommon at N.C.A.A. institutions, and members of the cross-country team at Rowan, where athletes compete in the N.C.A.A.’s Division III, say their university is no exception. The runner who requested anonymity and several other team members said that they did not have locker rooms near the track where they train and that they sometimes had to provide their own transportation to meets.

Rowan’s football coach, Jay Accorsi, did not respond to requests for comment, and the athletic department staff referred questions about the practice arrangement to the university’s communications department. An official there disputed the notion that the runners had been forced away from the track, saying the athletic department was merely enforcing a longstanding policy that only one team can use a facility at a time.

According to Joe Cardona, the vice president for university relations at Rowan, that means the football team gets the field — and by extension the track that surrounds it inside Rowan’s stadium — when it holds practice. Cardona said the cross-country and track teams had declined an offer to use the track at a different time of the day.