By Emily Rachelle Russell | Echo
This summer, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Kyle Gould decided to stop the production and distribution of free game day T-shirts for Taylor students, faculty and staff due to budget needs.
"(T)his was one (decision) that we felt would help us to meet the needs of our student-athletes and teams," Gould said.
According to Gould, Taylor's student-athlete population has grown from 300 to over 400 in five years. This growth, combined with the recent addition of both men's and women's lacrosse, led to a need for changes in the budget.
Skip Trudeau, vice president for student development, approved the decision this summer.
"This was changed this year purely as a financial savings to Intercollegiate Athletics (IA) budgets," Trudeau said. "IA has had to cut some costs in recent years and this unfortunately was one of those areas."
According to Trudeau, game day shirts were implemented about seven or eight years ago to bolster campus and student support for Taylor's athletics teams and programs. The cost of these shirts was almost $12,000, according to Gould; Taylor ordered 2,200 every year for students, faculty and staff at a cost of roughly $5.25 per shirt.
Not all students are happy with the change. Junior Caroline Shapley thought the shirts were sometimes lower quality than shirts she would buy, but she still appreciated having something free for her time at Taylor.
"What ticks me off is first they took away the handbooks, then they took away (the shirts) - why am I paying all this stuff?" Shapley said. "I just want to know where my money's going. . . . (Upperclassmen) have gotten it for two years, and it got ripped away from them."
However, senior Hannah Williams thinks the savings are worth the change.
"You get a free shirt on your college visit, so it's not that no one (has) a Taylor University shirt," Williams said. "I don't think (the shirts) are a waste; I think people will always wear them, (but) I feel like the point of it is so you can have a Taylor thing to wear to support sports teams, but you will have one anyways (because of your college visit)."
