President Donald Trump has turned his attention to the college sports world, mostly at the behest of notable names like former Alabama head coach Nick Saban and Texas Tech mega-booster Cody Campbell.
Saban and Campbell were reportedly set to co-chair Trump’s commission on college sports. While that commission seems to have fallen apart, Trump hasn’t given up on his attempts to “save” college athletics yet.
Late last week, Trump signed an executive order making sweeping recommendations for how the NCAA and its member institutions should do business in the House settlement era. While nothing has been settled, and everything is up for legal interpretation, the executive order, titled “President Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports,” is an attempt to put pressure on schools to keep a level playing field across all athletic programs.
Much of the order is directed at women’s and non-revenue sports, commonly referred to as Olympic sports, such as track and field, swimming, and even soccer. One bullet point of the release from The White House states, “The Order requires the preservation and, where possible, expansion of opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports.”
Campbell has been a notable voice in support of the executive order, taking to X (formerly Twitter) to share how he wants Olympic sports to be protected. One coach at Campbell’s alma mater, though, doesn’t think that’s a major cause for concern for the Red Raiders.
Texas Tech soccer coach Tom Stone said Monday he and his fellow non-revenue coaches have always known that football and men’s basketball hold the water for the athletic department, but noted the soccer program isn’t hurting for attention.
“They’re taking care of us,” Stone said of Tech director of athletics Kirby Hocutt and the department as a whole, “and their plans for us are way more than this season. They kind of have seen around the corner. They’ve got some forward-thinking people in that office. So no, we don’t worry.”
Stone noted the soccer program isn’t concerned whether Hocutt is able to attend every game and feels the team is well taken care of. Additionally, the involvement of coaches such as Joey McGuire and Grant McCasland throughout the entire athletic department — like their appearance in Oklahoma City for the softball team’s Women’s College World Series championship game — shows the dedication of Tech’s most notable faces to the greater good.
One aspect Stone sees as a positive for Texas Tech in this regard is the number of sports sponsored by the school. NCAA bylaws require teams to sponsor a minimum of six men’s teams and eight women’s teams to be considered an FBS-level school. Tech has seven men’s and eight women’s teams.
“I’d be worried if I had 34 sports,” Stone said. “That would concern me, and we know that there are particularly some phases that we’re all going to have to reexamine how we do things, but we’re ready for that. They’ve gotten out ahead of it, so we feel really good about our situation and lucky to be a Red Raider.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Why Tom Stone doesn’t think Texas Tech soccer, Olympic sports need President Trump’s saving
Reporting by Nathan Giese, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
