Crowley and Goin were asked to evaluate the October 1 recommendation by Northridge's Athletics Department and Athletics Director Dick Dull. The department recommended discontinuing football to help remedy athletics budget shortfalls projected at $725,000 this year and expected to reach nearly $1 million-a-year by 2004-05 unless something is done.

In preparing their report, Crowley and Goin reviewed the Athletics Department report and spent a day at Northridge in late October touring the university's athletics facilities and interviewing key figures. Those included Athletics Department administrators, head football coach Jeff Kearin, student government leaders, and representatives of several other campus entities.

President Koester is considering the Crowley-Goin report along with many other individual comments that have been submitted to the university during the past month and a half since the Athletics Department issued its recommendation.

President Koester has promised to make a decision on the department's recommendation by Thanksgiving.

In reviewing the status of Northridge athletics, Crowley and Goin concluded, "The athletic program's financial situation is precarious. Simply put, the budget is decidedly inadequate to support a Division I program that includes football. That has been the program's position, apparently, since it moved up from Division II nearly a decade ago."

After recounting the relatively high cost of running a football program, Northridge's inadequate facilities for football, poor attendance at football games and very modest external financial support for the sport, they said, "Given these considerations, the logic driving the recommendation is virtually inarguable.

"Even with the discontinuation of football, maintaining a 20 sport Division I program would be a daunting task for the university," the pair added in their report. Northridge, now at 21 sports with football, already offers one of the broadest intercollegiate athletics programs among comparable institutions, spending more than $7 million a year on athletics.

To keep the entire athletics program strong even without football, Crowley and Goin said the university must have a university commitment to significantly improve its fundraising for athletics and, by doing so, find ways to fund various athletics facility upgrades that are important to the future of the program.

While Title IX does leave decisions up to the schools, it also creates an atmosphere where there is an obvious team that will go.  Women’s sports are not cut.  Men’s teams are often cut.  The main reason for cutting the teams is because of numbers.  There are too many males.

Cowley Community College is a member institution of the National Junior College Athletic Association and is part of the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference.

Science Bound encourages underrepresented ethnic minorities to pursue science and technology at the university level. The program offers assistance to overcome academic and financial barriers while providing hands-on experiences to the students.

Health occupations courses were offered in 1965 with the college's first facilities provided in 1967. Three years later, the college's name was changed to Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute as the college transfer program was implemented.