People often find a silver lining when it comes to challenging situations, but the lining the men's golf program at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, found recently was as golden as the school's nickname.

Last April, former Minnesota President Mark Yudof announced that, at least tentatively, the Golden Gophers' men's and women's golf and men's gymnastics programs would be eliminated to reduce a budget deficit within the athletics department.

But the men's golfers decided to take the fate of the program into their own hands. All they did was win Minnesota's first Big Ten Conference golf title in 30 years and then promptly claim the university's first national championship in the sport.

But the path from extinction to distinction was complicated.

Immediately after the announcement that the programs would be cut, former interim men's athletics director Tom Moe approached the president to encourage him to reverse the decision.

"As an athletics director, I felt that elimination of teams should be a last resort only," Moe said. "I asked him (Yudof) to delay cutting the teams until we saw how some other budget initiatives worked out. The president said if I could raise the operation costs of the three programs for three years, he would withdraw his recommendation (to eliminate the programs)."

The goals? A total budget of $2.7 million was needed in nine months in order to prevent the programs from being cut -- $900,000 by June 2002, and another $1.8 million in pledges by February 2003.

"I called about 35 friends and supporters of Minnesota athletics together for a meeting and shared my challenge with them," Moe said.

From that meeting, the "Save Gopher Sports" campaign began.

Furious fund-raising

Mike Halloran, the development director for the Minnesota athletics department, said Moe laid the leadership foundation and quickly assembled a group that wanted to donate and raise money. Halloran was part of that group.

"We raised more than $1 million in the first 80 to 95 days, which created a lot of momentum to build on. There were more than 1,700 gifts, with a lot of $10 and $100 donations," said Halloran. "Those 'small' gifts add up."

According to Jeff Schemmel, former Minnesota senior associate athletics director for men's athletics and current senior vice-president and executive director of development at Arizona State University, one of the initial roadblocks of the campaign was to convey the message that the $2.7 million would not just "buy" a certain amount of time for the programs but would ensure that these programs would remain intact indefinitely.

Minnesota men's golf coach Brad James said other challenges included the poor economic climate of the time, which was apparent from decreasing tournament sponsorships.

There also was some reluctance for people to donate to a team that featured so many non-domestic student-athletes. "There are several international student-athletes on the golf team, which I think caused some concern, but 50 percent of the team is from Minnesota, too," James said.

James also thinks Title IX issues and the fact that at the time the athletics department was merging the men's and women's departments to create one department made community members question whether their donation was actually going to the golf program.

A combination of events enabled the campaign's success, including individual and private contributions and various fund-raising events, including a golf outing and a telethon. The December event on KARE-TV, coupled with an online auction, raised almost $700,000 in three hours and was considered an extended "infomercial" for the university athletics department.

"The telethon was a huge success in raising money and celebrating Minnesota athletics," said James. "It was a chance for community members to show their appreciation and give back to Minnesota athletics."

Long-term gifts

The Save Gopher Sports Classic, an August golf outing, partnered with professional golfer and former Golden Gopher Tom Lehman to raise $50,000. Student-athletes from the men's and women's teams were paired with every foursome for the event, which is slated to become an annual affair this summer with all funds going toward the athletics budget.

With about $350,000 left to raise in less than a month, an anonymous donor stepped forward and pledged to match all donations dollar for dollar to finish the campaign.

Halloran said Save Gopher Sports was the best thing to happen to Minnesota fund-raising since it created awareness among friends and donors to give long-term financial gifts.

"The commitment to saving teams was the short-term goal; endowment and long-term financial gifts are the key for meeting long-term goals," he said. "There has been a big change in annual giving since the Save Gopher Sports campaign was initiated."

With the assurance that the men's and women's golf and men's gymnastics programs were financially secure and off the chopping block, the movement turned from saving three Gopher sports to endowing all 25 sports and 300 full scholarships at Minnesota -- about a $6.2 million goal.

"The goal is to eventually endow every single scholarship at Minnesota," Halloran said. "After the department's strategic plan is set in the near future, we will identify realistic three-to-five-year goals and work until all sports are endowed."

While Moe was the interim men's athletics director at Minnesota, he said the two primary ways to ensure the athletics department's financial success would be to increase the football revenue and to increase scholarship endowments.

Endowment may be the future for more athletics departments as scholarship costs increase and as fewer athletics departments earn revenues over expenses. With scholarship costs increasing annually and institutions required to make more money to cover the costs, making ends meet may become more difficult with time, which makes endowments more necessary. The situation -- and solution -- at Minnesota may in fact be a model for other athletics departments in similar predicaments.

On-course adversity

As for Minnesota's golf exploits on the course, if it weren't for chance, the men's golf program wouldn't even have had the opportunity to compete for the Division I title. Inclement weather caused the Division I Men's Golf Committee to consider cutting the field of 30 teams in half after two rounds. That would have caught the Golden Gophers, which were tied for 16th. If that wasn't adversity enough, the team was assessed a two-shot penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct on the second day, which moved the Gophers from 12th to 16th place in the standings.

But the Gophers found comfort in Minnesota-type weather in the third round as they played through wind, rain and hail to shoot the only under-par score, a one-under 283, to go into the final day tied for fourth place.

It truly was a long-shot for Minnesota to claim the title. Throughout the season, Minnesota was ranked no higher than 18th in the national polls. By winning the championship, they became the first northern school to win since fellow-Big Ten member Ohio State in 1979.

"Two weeks after winning the championship and I began to see all the money pouring in, I sent the president an
e-mail thanking him," said James. "In hindsight, being threatened with elimination was a positive thing for our program."

Some, in fact, would call it a golden lining.