Luna Community College suspends athletic programs
Mar. 6—Financially challenged Luna Community College in Las Vegas, N.M. cancelled in baseball and softball seasons Friday because it could not afford to have the teams play their seasons on the road.
Both teams were scheduled to play this weekend, but both were prohibited from going.
"It was a difficult decision to make but ultimately the right one, given these unfortunate circumstances," Luna interim president Dr. Kenneth Patterson said in a news release. "It is our hope that going forward, Luna will be much better situated for full participation in both home and away games."
With the governor-mandated health orders that prohibited sports from being played in New Mexico until recently, the programs scheduled all of their games for the road, school spokesman David Kavanaugh said.
That doubled the anticipated costs for travel and lodging.
And more recently, the teams were impacted by unanticipated mechanical problems for the college's activity bus. Costs of chartering alternate transportation for the rest of the spring schedules exceeded budgeted resources, administrators said.
The softball team was getting ready to head to Lamar, Colo., for a weekend tournament to start its season, and the night before, the team was told it could not go.
"We were scheduled to leave this morning," coach Steve Wallace said of Friday's scheduled early-morning departure. "I found out about 5 (Thursday) yesterday afternoon. It would have been our first weekend of games. First set of games we were playing."
The baseball team, which was off to a 2-4 start, was scheduled to play two doubleheaders against SNCC this weekend in Beatrice, Neb.
The athletic eligibility for the players on both teams would be maintained next season, said Luna ahletic director Carl Vigil.
"We value all our students and our student-athletes and their hard work," Patterson said. "Their diligence and perseverance in the face of all the adversity we've all shared this past year has been a real inspiration."
The region was already helping Luna out financially, said Dan Johnson, athletic director at Southeast Nebraska Community College and Region 9 men's director.
And when told the baseball team would not be making the trip to Nebraska he asked if there was more than could be done to help.
"I told them you can't pick and choose the games you're going to play. Are you going to be able to swing this," he said. "The final word today was they're cancelling the baseball and softball programs for the year. They called back and said, 'We're going to fold baseball and softball for the season.'"
