MCC Baseball Team a Victim of Its Own Success?

Barring some late inning heroics,  will not field a baseball team this season.

The , four-time defending Region 21 champions who finished third at the NJCAA Division III World Series last May, are one of the many victims of a cut of about $1 million in state aid the community college received earlier this year.

President Gena Glickman announced the elimination of the school’s baseball program in an email to faculty and staff over the summer; Manchester Community College was the only community college in the state that still offered the sport.

“I know this is heart-wrenching for all of us and for our students," Glickman said in the email. 

Chris Strahowski, the Cougars’ 12th year head coach, told Patch this week that he tried to arrange a private fundraising effort to continue the team through at least its current season, but that those efforts basically fell short due to a lack of time and the school’s insistence that Strahowski raise enough funds to cover the cost of another trip to the NJCAA Division III World Series should the team continue its current trend of four straight appearances in the tournament.

Strahowski said he was able to secure about $30,000 in private donations, and pledges of up to $10,000 more, which based on calculations by him and the school’s athletic director would have financed at least the Cougars’ spring season with some cuts, but that school administrators insisted the team had to raise at least $150,000 – the cost of the Cougars’ full budget, plus certain administrative costs tied to the team, as well as an additional $40,000 to cover the team should it earn another NJCAA Division III World Series birth.

But Strahowski and the school’s athletic director, Cynthia Washburne, decided to stop those efforts earlier this week and officially declare the Cougars’ spring season dead. Strahowski said the decision was made to allow players on the team the chance to transfer to another institution that offers baseball before the start of the spring semester.

“I think if given enough time, we could have raised the money. But I didn’t want things to be in limbo, because it’s not fair for the kids,” said Strahowski, who noted that $40,000 in private donations was an “unheard of” sum to raise at the community college level in a span of less than two months.

“That’s where I think a lot of the frustration lies,” he continued. “We had enough money for our regular spring season, a competitive 48 to 56 games, but we just didn’t get the commitment from the school.”

When asked, Strahowski said that the majority of the team’s 22 to 26 players had indicated that they intended to transfer to another school to play baseball in the spring.

“I would say that’s it’s pretty close to 100 percent that all of them are going to leave,” he said.

Washburne said that there was a “one percent chance” the program could be reinstated in January, when the state’s community colleges combine with the Connecticut State University system under a, but that she was informing players that a season this year was unlikely.

“I’ve got students here now asking me ‘are we going to have a team?’ and what I have to tell them is that at this point in time I can make no guarantees that we will have a team,” Washburne said.

But, even if the program were reinstated in January, Strahowski said that substantial damage would already have been wrought to a team that was expected to compete for the NJCAA Division III World Series this year, as the majority of players would have already transferred to new schools.

“By that time the damage is obviously irrevocable,” Strahowski said.

One of those potential transfers is pitcher Kyle Jones, a Plainville native in his second year at the college who said he came to MCC because he did not have the grades to get into a four-year institution. But Jones made the dean’s list in his first year at MCC, and was hoping to parlay his success on the diamond this season into a scholarship at a four-year school.

Now, Jones said, he’s faced with the difficult option of having to find a new school with a baseball program that will accept him before the start of the spring semester.

“My sophomore year would have been a pretty big year for me, especially on the baseball team being recruited by other schools,” Jones said. “I didn’t have the opportunity to go to a lot of other places because of my grades. I’ve gained a lot by coming here, but I’m put in a tough situation with the team being cut.”

Washburne said that many of the team’s players are like Jones, choosing MCC because it offers the opportunity to play baseball when they might not have the grades to get into a four-year institution, but then using that opportunity, plus the school’s many student support services, to successfully transition into a bachelor’s program. She said she did not want to speculate what might happen to many of those prospective students now that MCC would no longer field a baseball team.

“This is not about us, it’s about the kids who use our program for access to higher education or to a bachelor’s degree, and they’re the ones who are going to suffer,” Washburne said.

Editor's Note: Manchester Community College President Gena Glickman was unavailable for comment for this story, but check back this week when she talks with Patch about how the cuts in state aid will impact MCC and the college’s options.