Colorado College announced it is dropping football, softball and water polo, saying in an open letter to the community that it is “unable to support 20 varsity programs at an appropriate level.”

The school, Division III’s only member in the Mountain time zone, announced the decision as a response to a mandate from the college’s board of trustees to reduce spending by $8 million to $12 million next fiscal year.

“While these steps may seem drastic (and even incompatible with the aspirations of an elite liberal arts college), they are necessary given our current financial standing,” Colorado College President Dick Celeste wrote in the letter that also was signed by Faculty Athletics Representative Ralph Bertrand and Athletics Director Ken Ralph.

“We went through dozens of budget scenarios before coming to the realization that we could no longer support 20 varsity sports,” Ralph said. “Nobody at the school wanted this outcome and many people worked diligently to find a better alternative. In the end it was clear that this move was necessary to ensure the future health of the athletics department.”

The action affects 76 student-athletes – 54 men and 22 women – and is expected to reduce athletics expenditures by more than 10 percent in 2009-10. Dropping football will reduce expenses by more than $450,000, officials said.

Four full-time staff positions and a dozen part-time positions also are involved.

The choice of football, softball and water polo “came down to competitive success, conference affiliation, available facilities, fund-raising success (or endowment earnings), roster size and recruiting success,” according to the open letter, which also noted the action would bring the college “more closely into compliance with Title IX gender-equity legislation.”

Most of Colorado College’s varsity programs compete in Division III, including the discontinued sports, although the school also sponsors Division I men’s ice hockey and women’s soccer programs.

The college is a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, in which its closest league foe is located 600 miles away in Texas. Most other members are located in Gulf Coast states stretching to Georgia.

“In the 2008-09 academic year we have purchased over 1,700 plane tickets and over 1,425 hotel nights in order for our teams to complete their schedules,” the open letter reported, adding that the athletics department will raise $2.1 million this year to fund operations.

“The expense of flying all of our teams around the country to compete has left us unable to meet our budget numbers,” Ralph said. “We will put our resources to work to strengthen the remaining 17 programs.”

The discontinuation of the football program leaves the SCAC, which Colorado College joined in 2006, with eight schools sponsoring the sport. It will gain a ninth football program in 2011 when Hendrix is scheduled to add the sport.

The SCAC’s roster of softball-sponsoring schools shrinks to 10, and league officials said one of the six schools in its East division likely will move to the West division beginning with the 2010 season to balance divisional play.

“The SCAC is obviously disappointed to learn of Colorado College’s decision to drop its football and softball program,” said Commissioner Dwayne Hanberry.

“I know this must have been an agonizingly difficult decision for the school to make. It is never easy to take away opportunities from student-athletes, but we understand that Colorado College felt this was a move it had to make to remain competitively viable in its other 17 varsity sports.”

Colorado College has a long tradition in football, playing its first game in 1882 against a group of local firemen, and including a 54-year affiliation (1909 to 1963) with the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. But the team has posted a winning record only once in the past 32 years, and ended last season with fewer than 40 healthy team members.

The school has sponsored softball since 1996 and established the water polo program six years ago.

“At Colorado College, we aim for excellence in all we do for students – in the classroom, in sports, in service and in study abroad,” Celeste said. “When we fall short, we must take steps to rectify the situation. These three sports have been under-resourced for years, which means that our student-athletes do not enjoy the quality of experience we expect to provide. These turbulent economic times require painful decision, and we have to make such decision in the context of sustaining excellence.”