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St. Paul’s to discontinue athletics program

St. Paul’s College, a Division II member located in Lawrenceville, Va., has announced it will discontinue its entire athletics program, effective July 1. A release from the school indicated the move is intended to help alleviate the college’s ongoing financial challenges.

A member of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, St. Paul’s fields 14 teams – seven each for men and women. The school said once the 123-year-old institution becomes financially stable again, it will consider reinstating the program.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a member of the school’s board of trustees said if boosters and alumni can raise enough money to sustain any of the teams, those teams conceivably could be revived.

The newspaper also reported that St. Paul’s administrators intend to implement a full-scale intramural program in place of varsity competition.

CIAA board of directors chair and Livingstone College President Jimmy R. Jenkins Sr. said the league “received the report with sadness but also recognizes that since the college is no longer participating in collegiate athletics, it will not continue as a member of the CIAA. In accordance with that fact, the board acknowledges that the CIAA’s two-year transfer rule will no longer prove relevant for St. Paul’s College student-athletes who wish to transfer to any CIAA school.”

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, the regional body for accreditation, put St. Paul’s on probation last summer.

The Times-Dispatch reported that the St. Paul’s board “worked for months on how to cut about $4 million from the school's $11 million budget. The athletics program costs more than $1.3 million a year and athletic scholarships add up to an additional million. Other programs will be cut, too, but the school has not identified them publicly.”

The board determined the school could not stay accredited and keep the athletics program.