ASU men’s gymnastics offers club success guide

The letters to Don Robinson came from France, Switzerland, Australia and Britain — all places the former Arizona State men’s gymnastics coach had taken his team for competition. They were sympathy cards — laments for the Sun Devils’ 1993 demise.

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Now the torch, and pain, have been passed to others reeling from ASU’s decision to eliminate men’s swimming and men’s tennis three weeks ago.

The reasons were all too familiar to Robinson: budget cuts and Title IX.

“A lot of water dried up under the bridge,” said Robinson, whose program was eliminated as a varsity sport in 1993, along with scholarships for archery and badminton. “I hope someone rebuilds the dam someday.”

Wrestling at ASU received a stay of execution thanks to a group of private donors spearheaded by Suns chairman Jerry Colangelo.

The two remaining victims have turned their focus from mourning to money as they attempt to salvage their programs in one form or another.

The magic number for next year is $240,000, although the ASU athletic department wants a longer-term financial promise to reinstate the two sports, likely a $5 million endowment. The athletic department’s fiscal-year budget begins July 1, but no reinstatement deadline was set for either sport since they would operate on private funding.

“If we learned that the program was being cut, let’s say, three to five months earlier, then we could have raised the money easily,” ASU swimmer Mohammed Madwa said. “It could have saved the program without question.”

That, too, is water under the bridge. But if they don’t achieve the endowment figure, another question looms:

Could men’s swimming and men’s tennis evolve into club sports?

For tennis, it would require a roster overhaul if seven players pursue scholarship opportunities at other schools as expected, and someone to guide the sport at the club level.

“That one I’d have to give a lot of thought to,” 26-year coach Lou Belken said of a club team. “I doubt any of our guys would want to do that.”

Same goes for swim coach Mike Chasson, who recently started www.saveasuswimming.com in hopes a club team will never have to be an option. Chasson operates the Sun Devil Aquatics club program his swimmers could switch to, but that’s not the first option.

“Yeah, I think it’s definitely viable,” Chasson said of saving the program. “It’s viable until you can’t get what you need to make it work.”

If varsity can’t work, club can, and the ASU’s men’s gymnastics team provides the blueprint.

ASU has vaulted itself to elite status as a club sport, and it’s because Robinson and former assistant Scott Barclay took it to the streets.

Fifteen years ago, gymnastics, archery and badminton were eliminated from ASU’s budget by then-athletic director Charles Harris. At the time, ASU was the only Division I school in the country to offer scholarships for archery and badminton, non-NCAA sanctioned sports.

Robinson elected to retire, though he remains an important figure around the guys, and Barclay took over.

Though no longer financially responsible or liable for the program, the school allowed gymnastics to continue training on campus, which meant it needed only $40,000 in fundraising per year (mostly for travel) to survive.

Barclay wasn’t paid as coach for the first five years, but he had booster support and raised funds on weekends. That included traveling to Junior Olympic programs throughout the West to haul and set up equipment.

“We had a choice to fight against something abstract or build, and we’re building,” Barclay said.

“It was time to quit fighting. We don’t need that anymore, and that’s what the other sports are going to have to go through.”

Sun Devil gymnastics remains an elite squad in college club circles. The team won the USA National College Club championship in 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2008.

These days, Barclay’s budget exceeds $100,000 and he gets paid (along with two assistants).

In 2000, ASU tore down the team’s old home, so the Sun Devils took up residence in a Mesa gym owned by former Sun Devil gymnast Mike Naddour.

Barclay and his wife took out a business loan to build a new gym, and the Aspire Kids Sports Center opened in Chandler in 2005, where he and his assistants coach kids in exchange for facility time.

The fundraising and booster donations continue to the tune of nearly $80,000 per year, plus an endowment of $1.5 million. There’s been plenty of good fortune along the way, but it remains a constant grind to sustain itself financially.

Barclay had the will, so he found ways.

“I hope they continue on in some way,” Barclay said of the two fallen sports. “We’ll do anything we can to help.”