Turns out being a student athlete can be a rather costly endeavour. The average varsity athlete drops approximately $900 of their own money during one year of competition, says the 2004-2005 co-curricular programs, services and facilities budget recently approved by the Council of Athletics and Recreation (CAR). No small peanuts for representatives of the wealthiest school in Canada.

Funding woes of this sort moved Dean Bruce Kidd of the Faculty of Physical Education and Health (FPEH) to speak out against government cutbacks at last week’s National Day of Student Action. If the recent budget is anything to go by, the FPEH is severely plagued by underfunding-and not only to Varsity Blues programs. Co-curricular programs-like intramurals-and facility services have also been dealt serious financial blows in the past decade or so. The lack of a proper football and soccer stadium at U of T comes as a result of these cutbacks.

“Varsity Stadium used to be the centre of U of T, Toronto, and Canadian athletics,” said Kidd, addressing the crowd at the Day of Action rally. “But it could no longer be maintained because of university underfunding, so we had to tear it down.”

Kidd also harkened back to a time when the provincial and federal governments provided up to 35 per cent of the funding for university athletics and recreation. “One figure that the former provost put out,” said Kidd, “was that since 1991, Ontario universities have lost 49 per cent of government funding.” Combine this loss with a similar decision made by the university’s Governing Council, also in the early 90s, to drastically decrease its funding of athletics and recreation, and the result is a crippled faculty. “If provincial funding rose to meet the national average,” said Kidd, “not even the highest, but just the average, we would see a 36 per cent increase in funding to our universities.”

To make up the dwindling government funds, the university took a creative approach. “We’ve been able to address budget cuts and inflation by taking in more students,” said Kidd. “We’ve crammed more students into the available space. The difficulty is that it means you’re maxed out-it’s a very difficult balancing act.”

And as enrollment numbers increase, so do the names on intramural waiting lists. The CAR budget states that about 8,500 students participate in U of T intramural programs, all of which are run by the FPEH. The more popular sports, however, are virtually impossible to join. There are currently 45 teams on the waiting list for men’s indoor soccer.

For the dean, more lasting and viable solutions need to be considered -especially when it comes to funding facilities such as a new stadium. “In virtually every other university in Ontario, students are contributing to those capital costs [building costs], through referendum. At the University of Windsor, students voted by a large majority that allowed them to refurbish their stadium.” Kidd went on to cite successful referendums at both UTSC and UTM that approved levying students to meet capital costs. Only in December, a council vote at the Erindale campus agreed to dinging students with additional fees in order to build the new Health and Wellness Centre. A similar levy proposal for a new Varsity Stadium was rejected by St. George campus students in 2002.

“Student groups-the GSU [Graduate Students Union] and APUS [Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students] in particular-continue to believe that students should not contribute to the capital costs of co-curricular activities,” said Kidd. Such levies, he added, “appear to be blocked here on the St. George campus.”

APUS president Chris Ramsaroop stands by the refusal to levy. “We don’t think students should be footing the cost,” he replied to the dean’s comments. “We believe that the provincial government is where the money should be coming from, as well as central administration. I think it’s kind of misleading-we’re here to protect student interests, so if we pick up the capital costs, then what’s next?”

The next sticking point between the FPEH and student unions could come, once again, over Varsity Stadium. Should the proposed deal with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) chairperson Larry Tannenbaum to build a new facility go through, the agreement will have to be ratified by Governing Council-an agreement that will suggest hiking student fees to pay for the new playing ground.

With the increased fees will come increased services, says the dean. “The fees will be higher, but remember, we will have a new facility,” says Kidd. “And we will be able to provide many more hours of use to U of T students that we couldn’t previously or currently. Should we be unable to generate that revenue, the alternative would be to not use the facility for as many hours as planned, and simply to rent out the facility for those hours.”

Kidd will have his work cut out convincing the student unions of the benefits such an increase will bring to the average student. “We have to look at the project,” says Ramsaroop of the stadium deal. “We have traditionally taken stances against these increases, and I imagine we’ll take a similar stance this time.”

For Ramsaroop and APUS, the worry extends beyond increased student fees. “I do have some reservations should a public/private partnership happen there on the field,” he says. “Certain aspects of our campus are getting corporatized. What kind of impact will this have on our campus? What kind of deals will be made? What kind of accountability and transparency will we have?”

It is still too early to know what will happen on the empty Varsity lot, and in the meantime CAR will await budget approval from the Council on Student Services (COSS). Only then will the FPEH be able to address the huge pent up demand, huge waiting lists, and huge facility challenges that lie ahead.