Hello Everyone,

We are the California State University Monterey Bay Men’s Cross Country team and we have just learned on March 12th, 2015, that our program will be cut after the fall 2015 season. It has been devastating as we have been a program that has overcome and exceeded the barriers placed in front of us in this program’s 15 year history. Starting out as a competitive NAIA Cal-Pac Conference team, we were always in the running for conference championships and even won the 2000 fall title before moving to the NCAA in 2004. In 2010, our program went through a late coaching transition to Coach Greg Rhines that left our program on death’s door and with only 2 male athletes on the team and three men with no cross country experience joined our program to keep it afloat.

Throughout the last four years, our program has made leaps and bounds and not only have we revived our program, but we demolished every school record in the book. We went from a team literally placing last in the region to having our best season in CSUMB history and placing in the top 50% of our region. The men of CSUMB past and present have woken up before the crack of dawn, day after day, year after year, putting in blood, sweat, and tears to create the best program for our fellow teammates and the school we represent. In return, the administration cuts our budget year after year yet we still rise to the challenge and run at a competitive level.

The athletic administration has not given our team a clear reason as to why we are being cut. One of the main reasons expressed in determining their decision was their feelings that our program could not be run properly and compete at a high level. We find this reasoning to be unfounded as we have proven in these last four years that the barriers they have placed in front of us (e.g. budget cuts, one coach running three programs, etc.) have been overcome. CSUMB Cross Country competes in one of the most competitive conferences in the west, including six of the eight schools ranked in the USTFCCCA West region and we have competed up to par with these teams for the last two years and we can continue to go to the next level. We have also maintained one of the highest overall team GPAs in the region and won the USTFCCCA All-Academic award.

Please help us send a message to administration that CSUMB Men’s Cross Country deserves to stay and should continue to compete in the NCAA by signing this petition. We want our voices to be heard and to fight this tooth and nail.

If you can, please share this petition with the hashtag #SaveMBMXC.

Thank you for your support.

CSUMB Men’s Cross Country