I am always hopeful but with the recent cuts
on campus this resolution passing looks almost impossible.
UNH rejects bid to revive baseball
By Shir Haberman
CONCORD - The House Education Committee passed a resolution on Thursday urging the University of New Hampshire to reinstate intercollegiate baseball and add softball. That resolution will go to the entire House on March 7 for action.
The resolution is sponsored by state Rep. David Bettencourt, R-Salem, a senior at UNH, co-captain of the school’s club-level baseball team and son of a former UNH coach. The state rep. said he’s not pushing to revive baseball for his father, but rather for high school baseball players in the state.
However, university officials said that given the system’s current financial situation, bringing baseball and softball to UNH would be virtually impossible. The baseball program was cut in 1997, and plans to start a softball program were also scrapped.
"The university is grateful to the bill’s sponsor for providing us with the opportunity to play baseball and softball at UNH, but as you might imagine, neither sport is even on our radar screen given the announcement Jan. 31 about a major athletics reorganization at the university," UNH spokesman Kim Billings said in a prepared statement.
"Faced with a projected $1 million deficit this year, UNH athletics made painful financial decisions, including the elimination of four varsity sports," Billings added.
That response is exactly what Rep. Bettencourt expected. In an e-mail to like-minded legislators around the state sent prior to the committee vote, he said committee approval of the resolution would send a strong message to university officials.
"UNH officials went into (the legislative) process underestimating the determination of all of you and myself to see our dream of getting UNH baseball back fulfilled," Bettencourt wrote. "At every step they have done everything possible to try to derail our dream."
His father, also named David Bettencourt, guided the Wildcats to a then-school record 23 wins en route to a North Atlantic Conference tournament appearance in 1993. He was named the conference’s Coach of the Year and ended the season with a 23-20 record, including a second place finish in the conference.
The senior Bettencourt was also a player at UNH. He was a catcher under head coach Ten Conner, and captain of the 1975 and 1976 squads during his junior and senior seasons. As a sophomore in 1974, Bettencourt led the Wildcats with a .395 average earning All-Yankee Conference and All-New England honors.
He also coached the sport at the high school level, including from 1998 to 2000 at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton.
The younger Bettencourt cited two major league stars who are New Hampshire products: 2005 Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter and Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk, who attended UNH briefly before joining the Boston Red Sox. The lawmaker hopes future stars born and bred in New Hampshire will have the opportunity to play baseball at the state school.
"UNH policy forces some of our best and brightest student-athletes out of state," he said.
The state representative played baseball at the University of Massachusetts before transferring to UNH last year.
When UNH dropped its baseball program nine years ago, it cited the same reasons cited recently for cutting men’s and women’s tennis, women’s crew and men’s swimming, and slashing the men’s ski team roster - lack of funding.
UNH officials cited a study done at that time as justification.
"The goal of the study was to look at our structure of departments, our division of play, our fields and facilities and our support departments," said then-UNH athletics director Judy Ray. "It was obvious that to get in line with the rest of the teams in our conference, we had to make cuts."
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