A year later, UNI baseball players still hurt

CEDAR FALLS - Chad Arp graduated from the University of Northern Iowa last weekend with a degree in Geographical Information Systems. Think high-tech mapping.

He walked across the stage at commencement ceremonies and was handed his diploma by school president Ben Allen. Talk about cruel irony.

“It was pretty hard to shake his hand,” Arp said.

It's been a year since UNI's baseball program was dropped for what the school said was financial reasons.

Head coach Rick Heller has rebounded by getting a job leading fellow Missouri Valley Conference school Indiana State. Several Panthers players with remaining eligibility found other schools to play for, while some - like former Cedar Rapids Xavier prep Arp - quit their baseball careers to stay at UNI and finish their educations.

Despite being scattered across the country now, these guys remain a team in this way: their hard feelings about what happened very much linger.

“It still hurts,” said Jeff Taliaferro, a senior catcher who transferred to Texas-San Antonio.

“Baseball just got pushed aside,” said Travis Bennett, a former Cedar Rapids Jefferson prep who transferred to traditional college baseball powerhouse Wichita State for his senior year.

Dropping the sport seemed an annual rumor at UNI but became reality last March when Athletics Director Troy Dannen announced that 2009 would be the final season because of a significant decrease in state funding for the UNI athletics program. There was one codicil: if $1.2 million was raised in five weeks, the program could be saved for three years with the chance for a $10 million permanent endowment.

As expected, the fundraising came up shy. Depending on whom you ask, a subsequent proposal involving Perfect Game USA baseball club in Cedar Rapids was floated and turned down by UNI.

Perfect Game and others said they would provide private funding annually to pay for the program in exchange for the school providing money for 10 scholarships. Dannen said there were many things discussed between the parties and he could not remember that specific proposal.

UNI was threatened with a reverse-discrimination lawsuit by Perfect Game that never came to fruition.

“We supported the battle all the way to the end,” Perfect Game President Jerry Ford said. “The problem was that not enough of the group wanted to invest more money to fight what looked like a losing battle. In other words, we did pursue a lawsuit, even started action with a high-level attorney, but in the end the support started to wane.”

Northern Iowa played the final game of its 103-year baseball history last May 16 - a walk-off 4-3 win over Bradley at Waterloo's Riverfront Stadium.

“Sure there is (some),” Heller said, when asked if he has any remaining animosity. “But that's how things went, and you can't change it. I've always tried to take the high road ... I've tried to put it behind me and move forward.”

That's what they've all done ... begrudgingly.

Arp, Taliaferro and Bennett said they were appalled when they learned the school had raised $800,000 for the installation of new turf in the UNI-Dome. The Black Hawk Gaming Association donated $500,000 of that money.

They became more angered when it was announced last November that a local couple had given the UNI athletics department an unrestricted $2 million gift.

“That made me sick,” Taliaferro said. “We needed $1.2 million to keep the program going for three years. They found money to make all these improvements to the Dome, put new turf in. That was hard for me to stomach.”

“You see all the things they've done,” Bennett said. “They put new turf in the Dome, the head basketball coach (Ben Jacobson) just got a new contract. The money is there, obviously. Unfortunately, they were looking to drop a program, and we were it.”

Dannen said he understands the hard feelings but reiterated he had no choice but to cut baseball. Title IX prevented UNI from touching any of the school's women's programs, for instance.

In late March, the state Board of Regents asked UNI and Iowa State to significantly reduce or eliminate all taxpayer support for its athletics programs. That will likely create even more headaches for Dannen, considering 40 percent of UNI's athletics budget comes via public funding.

“I respect how upset everyone is,” Dannen said. “But this was a decision that had to be made given the economic conditions.”

That doesn't make it any easier to take for UNI's former baseball players. Just ask them.

In this instance, time has not been a salve.

“It's been a year,” Arp said. “But I feel like that has just created more time to add even more salt to our wounds."