“Save Winthrop Tennis” receives push back from Winthrop University officials

Task force members who are a part of the “Save Winthrop Tennis” initiative said they have faced opposition from Winthrop’s president and Board of Trustees.

Winthrop’s Board of Trustees announced its decision to cut the university’s tennis teams in a board meeting on June 19. Tennis coaches and athletes were informed of this on June 18, by Winthrop University’s Athletics Director Ken Halpin. Both tennis coaches confirmed that before that date, they were never notified that their program was going to be cut.

On May 21, Halpin said in an interview with a Rock Hill, South Carolina-based radio station WRHI, “we are always evaluating everything…the impact…not just financial but social, healthwise, all the elements of every single program we offer. We are always evaluating [whether] it is continuing to feed our mission. What I’m thankful to say is that…when this fiscal year ends it’s been my understanding…Winthrop is going to end this year at a balanced position financially and no one has to go away…we are in great shape right now.”

“We needed to immediately and long-term reduce spending in a couple different areas of the athletics department. So what we did as a senior staff in the athletics department was figure out how to reduce spending to the degree we needed
to,” Hank Harrawood, Winthrop’s deputy athletics director, said. “We needed to cut over $600 [to] $700,000 in spending. We look fiscally at a bunch of different options. The official decision was made by the board. Athletics made the recommendation and the board accepted that.”

Justin Oates, Winthrop’s vice president for finance and business affairs, explained that the athletics department has been in a deficit and has been looking at its budget for a couple of years prior to the tennis teams cut.

“Last year was an interesting year because we operated under two modes between July 1 and Mar.15 or so we operated as normal. It wasn’t until March and COVID hit that drastic conversations started to take place,” Oates said. “Technically
the athletics department has been looking at their budget over the last two years and been sharing data and talking to the Board of Trustees about different kinds of models. We set a number for athletics and meeting that number, I think they felt like tennis was the best approach. The conversation has been going on for two years but COVID kind of made it real and made us make quick decisions.”

Julie Busha, a Winthrop alumna and “Save Winthrop Tennis” member, expressed concern about the board’s decision to cut the tennis teams.

“This board was not given any pre-read documents by the athletics department. They didn’t even know that teams could be eliminated in the agenda, it [just] said athletic update,” Busha said. “The night before the board meeting…they received the copy of the resolution. That’s the only knowledge [given to the board]. There was no content, feedback, presentation, anything to back up what they were going to be told. Vital information was withheld… and that donors had already come forth, along with a USTA grant, to contribute over $500,000 toward court renovations. Those are significant omissions to say the least, and I view false and withheld information as being an ethical issue the university needs to address. There should be no tolerance for what transpired in June.”

According to a source close to the board, members understood that the difficult decision regarding Winthrop tennis was crucial in ensuring to affect the least amount of people while maintaining the university afloat. However, the source addressed that members of the full board were pushed to make the decision to cut tennis in order to financially help the school without any content or presentation to back up the decision.

Along with this, they were never informed of alternatives or of the USTA grant that could be granted to fix Winthrop’s tennis courts. The source also confirmed that the financial plan created by “Save Winthrop Tennis” was not given to them to overlook or consider.

According to a source close to the tennis coaches, the athletics department tried to work with USTA for two summers in a row but had to meet a list of requirements before granting the $500,000. In the summer of 2017, USTA asked for a list requirements which include to provide a facility sketch, send in pictures of the courts, and ask for quotes to get courts done. However due to drainage problems, USTA wanted an engineer to create a plan which would have cost more money for the department. This caused the conversations to stop. Conversations again picked up in the Summer of 2018 but nothing came of it.

“Perhaps cutting a team was the easiest thing to do to help make up the fiscal mismanagement of athletics department budgets over multiple years, which ironically was cited in the committee meeting minutes as the reason for the cuts to begin with,” Busha said. “Given the directive to Dr. Halpin to make cuts didn’t seem to happen until shortly before the meeting, how much due diligence was truly done?”

Chairman Glenn McCall confirmed this overextension of the athletics budget in the June 19 board meeting, according to the meeting minutes posted on the Winthrop’s Board of Trustees website.

“During this morning’s meeting, the committee reviewed the athletics budget; a budget that has been overextended for many years,” McCall said, according to the meeting minutes. “This overextension of the budget is not a result of COVID-19. While COVID-19 exacerbated the budget difficulties, structural imbalances are at the root of the problem…Dr. Ken Halpin, his coaches, and staff have been working hard to raise private funds as well as cut their costs. But, those measures are not enough.”

“Fundraising is a big part of what athletics is doing but fundraising it two-fold. Fundraising supports the operation…but also big for their facilities,” Oates said. “Fundraising supports not only operations but their facilities…so supporting their facilities is another thing they fundraise for. It’s big in the athletic world and they are definitely working towards that but again it’s balancing a number of aspects.”

According to a source close to the tennis coaches, the coaches and Halpin never worked together to fundraise for the tennis teams. Halpin was requested for a comment but he never responded.

In an effort to salvage Winthrop’s tennis teams, a group of alumni worked together to create the organization “Save Winthrop Tennis.” The group worked to raise money and a plan to present to the board after their decision to cut the tennis teams in June.

According to Busha, the organization raised almost $800,000 and “had financial analysts develop a comprehensive, self-sustaining plan that proves the University will be net positive for years to come by reinstating the program,” she wrote in an email.

The five-step financial plan made by “Save Winthrop Tennis” was based off of the operational costs and expenses from coaches. When the presentation was made the group stacked up a revenue of $635,000 from private donors. The group would host at least five tennis tournaments that would generate about $25,000 and host summer clinics to generate around $15,000. The group also planned on generating a revenue of $30,000 to $35,000 from pledges and $20,000 from crowdfunding per year.

From the presentation it states, “Our goal is to generate at least $125,000 from court sponsorship (full potential of $270,000) and $12,000/year from businesses sponsorship/advertisement.”

The presentation is 26 slides long and details a restructuring plan for women’s and men’s tennis over a six year period. It also includes that one quote obtained from a company would repair the courts for $600,000.

“I think their plan gravitated towards the $600,000 number…but you have to think it’s $600,000 plus times every year it exists. Just to define one year doesn’t get us anywhere because it brings us right back to the same position,” Oates said. “That’s like a $15 million endowment. That excludes the tennis courts.”

One of the task force members, Gabriel Dias, a Winthrop alum, met with Winthrop’s Interim President George Hynd on July 7 to go over details of the unfinalized “Save Winthrop Tennis” plan.

“We had a one-hour meeting. It was about a month after the program got cut,” Dias said. “That was the first time he was able to discuss with someone from the task force about the subject. The first time he actually learned from us about what we were doing and trying to achieve and his reception through the message was very positive. He told me that if we were able to do something like that we were able to bring the program back being financially independent. The chances of us being able to bring it back [were] very very high,” Dias said. “The issue happened after that when he had a meeting with the Board of Trustees.”

Halpin and Harrawood met with Busha and three other task force members via a zoom call to listen to the task force go over their plan and presentation on Aug. 11.

Busha wrote in an email, “Halpin told us that he had until December to make cuts, but claimed he did it quickly to serve in the best interest of the athletes. He did say he was willing to ‘work with us even though our goals may not align with the direction of the board and athletics department.’”

On Aug. 18, Hynd sent a letter out stating that Winthrop has no intention of reinstating the program.

“The funds raised by the alumni and friends, mostly through pledges, have used Winthrop’s name without our permission to fundraise for a program that was eliminated because of its inherent and associated costs,” Hynd wrote.

“I don’t know what happened and why he turned around so quickly and completely decided to go against the cause. That happened and whenever we saw the letter it was very very upsetting for us,” Dias said.

In response to this letter, Busha sent out a letter from the task force.

“Our letter solicitations to prospective donors are, and have always been, fact driven, yet often include positive personal stories of how wonderful our Winthrop experience was for us personally,” she wrote. “Never have we misrepresented ourselves as the university, but rather an advocacy group to reinstate the tennis programs to the university. In fact, the US Patent and Trademark Office does not grant Winthrop University exclusive rights to the Winthrop name.”

One of the fundraising efforts for the organization was a GoFundMe page. Clayton Almeida, a task force member and Winthrop tennis alum, said he was contacted by the website to shut down the campaign in mid August.

While in a meeting with Hynd on Aug. 19, Almeida claimed that the president’s office requested the shut down of the campaign. According to Almeida, Hynd said that they contacted the S.C. Department of Education to let them know the campaign was not created by Winthrop.

Hynd’s office advised The Johnsonian to use previous remarks made about the tennis teams elimination.

In an effort to show all the fundraising efforts and plans made by “Save Winthrop Tennis,” several people, including Busha, requested to be able to present their plan to the board.

“First we met with some board members individually, Gary Williams [told us] ‘if Chairman McCall feels something for us to review. He will give it to us,’” Busha said. “He wasn’t even willing to look at it and he put back everything on McCall on whether it was sent to the full board or put on the agenda. I requested that it go to the full board in August. We had had requests to meet with the board but those requests had been blocked.”

An email from the board said individual members cannot speak for themselves unless approved by McCall.

“Per Board policy, the chair speaks for the Board. Individual trustees do not comment to the media unless directed by the chair,” the email said.

“If you have questions, you may submit them to trustees@winthrop.edu and the chair will either answer the question or refer them on to individual committee members.”

Questions were sent to the email; however, the board has not responded.

According to Busha, Hynd and Vice-Chair Kathy Bigham made the decision to block five members of the task force from participating in a public hearing via phone call or Zoom on Sept. 25.

Bigham was not asked for comment due to the deadline of this story.

“I suppose they expect a distinguished alumnus like Kerion Ball to travel from London during a pandemic to speak for three minutes in person, while board members are allowed to participate via Zoom,” Busha said. “I brought up that point specifically more than 24 hours before the meeting with the university’s leadership, but it changed nothing.”

Ball was a tennis team captain, student government president and keynote speaker at Winthrop’s 2012 Convocation.

South Carolina Legislator Seth Rose requested on behalf of “Save Winthrop Tennis,” if they would be granted more time in an effort to present to the board.

“I made a request for the tennis alumni who were raising money to present to the board of trustees and was basically told that speakers are only given two minutes to speak. So I said ‘Well how about give them five minutes. Can you give them minutes? Or 10 minutes to present to you about the things they are doing?’” Rose said. “[The task force] understands that difficult decisions are being made but we also understand that at some point COVID will pass and revenues will go back to normal. ‘It was we are going to raise money. We are going to do these things we want to work with the athletics department but give us a date when revenues have gone back to normal.”

“I understand difficult decisions have to be made but you can make these decisions in an open and transparent way and not alienate alumni of this great institution to be treated like this,” Rose said. “It cannot be allowed that an organization that has gone to Winthrop and is raising money and they ask the board of trustees to give them five minutes and that’s rebuffed. That’s appalling. If they can do this to tennis alumni they can do this to anyone. It’s really disappointing. It should be alarming for every student.”

Busha expressed her concerns regarding the board meeting and how some members of the task force were not able to attend.

“Three members live several states away and two live internationally. Despite members of the board of trustees themselves having the option to participate for the entire meeting via Zoom from their homes across South Carolina, the university set a clear message that even during a pandemic, anyone wishing to give a public statement must do so in person,” Busha wrote in an email. “No consideration would be made for those in unique circumstances.”

Busha was the only one able to attend to give her timed three-minute speech. She spoke about freedom of speech, concerns over governance practices and highlighted key omissions and factual data that were not presented to the board in June regarding tennis.

Image courtesy Save Winthrop Tennis.