Broward College moves toward dropping athletics amid pandemic, but coaches plan to fight

Broward College is moving toward dropping athletics and a final decision could come next month.

The Fort Lauderdale four-year college, which competes at the highest level of junior college athletics, informed its staff Wednesday in a virtual athletic department meeting, then informed its athletes Thursday on a brief video conference call, baseball coach Gregg Bennis told the Miami Herald.

Bennis said no specific reasons were given and the call with athletes lasted less than 10 minutes. Questions posed by athletes on the Thursday call were not answered. Athletic director Michael Goodrich and associate vice president of student life Neil Cohen made the announcement to the athletes, and Bennis said they spent just about three minutes on the call.

“That was pretty much the end of the story. They told us that they were going to get rid of the program. They didn’t really give us any reason, they just said that with all this going on — and they kept it vague — that they were going to get rid of the program,” Bennis said. “A couple of the student-athletes started typing in the chat with questions and they just went ignored, and, again, they ended the call. It ended up about a nine-minute call even though it was more like three minutes once we got started.”

Bennis said he and a handful of other coaches plan to fight the college’s decision leading up to a scheduled vote by the Board of Trustees in June, but he is operating as if the program will be no more, contacting coaches at other schools to find homes for his players.

Broward has still yet to formally announce the news and Goodrich declined to comment, deferring to a spokesperson. Jodi Brown-Lindo, the district director of public relations, would neither confirm nor deny the college’s plans.

“Broward College is finalizing its 2020-21 budget to improve its impact on students,” Brown-Lindo said in an email. “As these are ongoing discussions, it would be premature to offer details not yet finalized.”

The Seahawks compete in eight sports — baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, women’s tennis and women’s volleyball — and all eight teams will cease to exist at the start of the next school year, assuming the Board of Trustees votes to approve the decision next month. The board is scheduled to convene for a vote on the final day of June.

Bennis said he and several coaches, including men’s basketball coach Anthony Q. Anderson, are scheduled to talk later Thursday to formulate a plan to save some or all of Broward’s sports teams.

“We’re trying to put a plan together. Now that we don’t have jobs to lose, we can kind of come at them,” Bennis said. “We were told by our athletic director that he doesn’t want us to think that the June 30 vote is really a vote at all. He said it’s more of a foregone conclusion, so we’re going to fight it because we don’t really have faith in that statement, but we are all operating to get our student athletes new homes.

“I told my players, I said, ‘All of you are going to go on as if the program is 100-percent shut down. I am talking to other coaches on your behalf saying that the program is completely shut down, but I’m fighting this thing until June 30.’ If I don’t have players on June 30, but I have a program, so be it.”

Bennis said he expects most of his players to be able to land elsewhere.

“We will find homes for most of them,” he said

The Seahawks are, so far, the Florida athletic program hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shut down all college athletics since March.

On May 11, Melbourne’s Florida Institute of Technology, which competes at the Division II level, announced it was dropping its football program after less than a decade of playing. On May 6, the FIU Panthers dropped their men’s indoor track and field program, and other Division I schools have faced additional cost-cutting measures.

“Everybody expected budget cuts — maybe even major cuts — because of the situation, but we didn’t think they would pull the plug completely. We were shocked,” an athletic department source said. “The athletes are devastated. We were just told that it is a financial decision, nothing more. It will be difficult for these athletes to find new schools because there is no recruiting right now. Campuses are closed. They were looking forward to more normalcy in the fall and then this happened.”

Broward, one of the largest community colleges in the country, has had JUCO athletics since 1962 and the baseball program, in particular, has been incredibly successful.

More than 80 players from Broward, formerly Broward Community College, have been taken in the MLB draft and 10 alumni have reached the Majors, including Oakland Athletics starting pitcher Mike Fiers, Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Robby Scott and former Miami Marlins starting pitcher Mat Latos, who spent nine years in the big leagues.

The Seahawks also had three men’s basketball players sign with Division I programs this year.

Sports reporter Michelle Kaufman contributed reporting.