Ping: JeeberD

[Huckleberry]

Why doesn't UTEP have a baseball team? There is somewhat of a tradition of competitive baseball teams from the El Paso high schools. Easily moreso than their relatively non-competitive football and basketball teams.

Just curious now that both football and basketball have had/are having seasons that put them in the Top 40 for Division 1 in their respective sports.

[JeeberD]

UTEP had a baseball team for a number of years, but it disbanded in I believe 1985 due to lack of funds. For some reason the team was always miserable (it supposedly made the football team look prosperous) despite El Paso's high school baseball talent. The team hardly drew any fans, partly because of their track record and partly because the AA El Paso Diablos were always the #2 show in town behind the UTEP hoops team.

Here's a pretty decent article from an issue of this past summer's the El Paso Times about the subject.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:lzXYFWrWHTMJ:www.elpasotimes.com/stories/sports/todaysstories/20040618-132070.shtml+%22UTEP+baseball%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a

[Tom E]

Title 9 killed alot of small to mid sized sports programs...