The University of Utah is discontinuing its beach volleyball program at the end of the academic year, the school announced Tuesday.
The Utes have fielded a beach volleyball team since 2017 and were coming off the program’s best season to date.
With the elimination of beach volleyball, the university will sponsor 19 intercollegiate programs moving forward.
“This was an extremely difficult decision, and we did not arrive at this conclusion without a significant and appropriate amount of thought, consideration and consultation,” Utah athletic director Mark Harlan said in a statement.
He further explained the reasoning behind the move — it was about the landscape of the sport and its limited growth potential.
“We looked at the landscape of intercollegiate beach volleyball and the future opportunities of our student-athletes,” Harlan said. “Currently, there are only 12 beach volleyball programs among power conference institutions, with little evidence of the sport expanding at this time.”
“With the sport’s growth stunted, and without the home facilities with amenities that allow us to host championship-level events, we are not providing the world-class experience that we seek to provide to our student-athletes.”
When Utah added beach volleyball in 2017, it was the ninth member of the Pac-12 that sponsored the sport.
In the Big 12, which the school joined this academic year, there are only four Big 12 schools that sponsor the sport, and the conference does not have an automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament.
TCU, Arizona and Arizona State also sponsor beach volleyball. The Horned Frogs, as an at-large bid, earned the No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA championships.
Utah’s season ended last week at the Big 12 championships following the Utes’ most successful record in its nine-year run. Utah finished the year with a school-best 21 wins, to 14 losses.
At one point, Utah was ranked in the top 25 for the first time in program history.
On the same day of the Utes’ final match of the year, the school announced that Brenda Whicker, who served as the Utes’ head coach the past eight seasons, was retiring.
“The University of Utah is like a second home to me,” Whicker, a Utah Athletics Hall of Famer in volleyball, said in a statement at the time.
“My time at Utah began as a player and I have been so grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to come back here and coach. It’s been so fun to be a part of this program from the beginning and to see the growth of beach volleyball in college athletics. I have been very blessed to coach some amazing young women and I will forever cherish the relationships and experiences we’ve had together.”
Harlan said Utah will work with its student-athletes impacted by this decision to help them through this transition and aid them in finding another school if they choose to continue playing collegiate beach volleyball.
The school will also honor student-athletes’ scholarships through the remainder of their undergraduate work if they choose to remain at the university, and all scholarships for incoming student-athletes will be honored as well, Harlan said.
“We are mindful of the impact this decision has on the current students in our beach volleyball program, as well as on the incoming student-athletes who committed to Utah,” Harlan explained. “We will work closely with each of our impacted student-athletes to provide them with all of the support they need.
“Should any member of the team decide to remain at the university, their scholarship will be honored through the receipt of their undergraduate degree, and the incoming student-athletes also will have their scholarship offers honored.”
“Should a current or incoming student-athlete elect to pursue their sport at another school, Utah will do all that it can to facilitate the process,” he continued. “Scholarship funds previously dedicated to the beach volleyball program will be redirected to our other women’s sports programs.”
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