First Kansas State Equestrian, Now UT Martin to Discontinue Equine Competition After 2015-2016

MARTIN, Tenn. – University of Tennessee at Martin officials met with the Skyhawk equestrian team on Sunday, Nov. 16 to notify them that the 2015-16 academic year would be their last year of varsity competition.

“This was a very difficult decision for our university but upcoming changes within the NCAA necessitated this move,” UT Martin athletics director Julio Freire said. “We have to be proactive in protecting our Division-I status within the NCAA. Moving forward, we will honor the scholarship of each equestrian student-athlete through their fourth academic year.”

UT Martin athletics department participates in the NCAA at the Division-I level and sponsors the minimum number of sports (14) to remain at this level. UT Martin officially added equestrian in 2005 as an NCAA-recognized emerging sport, which means the sport has 10 years to accumulate 40 school-sponsored teams. Only two universities (Southern Methodist in 2009, Baylor in 2006) have officially added equestrian since the Skyhawks joined, bringing the current list of teams to 21. Kansas State officially discontinued equestrian in October of this year.

“In anticipation of the Committee on Women’s Athletics’ recommended legislation, we believe that at this time it is in our university’s best interest to discontinue equestrian from our list of sponsored sports after the 2015-2016 academic year,” Freire said. “This move has been resisted for over a half a year but unfortunately it is time to act. We just do not believe that there is a realistic path to add enough schools to achieve sustainability as a fully recognized NCAA championship sport.”

UT Martin Chancellor Tom Rakes and the university leadership team are working with Freire and other athletics administrators to formalize the plans related to UT Martin’s next women’s varsity athletic team, which will begin competition in the 2016-17 academic year.

“Our equestrian team has the very best student-athletes who represent UT Martin academically, athletically and socially,” Freire said. “They represent everything that is good and right within intercollegiate athletics. I’d like to thank the coaches and student-athletes who have made this program one of our finest here at UT Martin. A special thank you goes out to head coach Meghan Corvin, who started the program and kept it running smoothly. She is a wonderful mentor and we would never have reached the heights we did without her leadership and guidance.”