Utah has discontinued the program after nine seasons.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Magdalena Dabrowski hits the ball for CMU, as Kinga Windish defends, for Utah, in beach volleyball action between Utah and Colorado Mesa, in the first home tournament in history for the University of Utah, Saturday, April 13, 2019.
The University of Utah is spiking beach volleyball.
The U. said a change in conferences, the sport’s “stunted” growth, and home facilities that don’t allow the Utes to host championship-level events all contributed to discontinuing the program, which just finished its ninth season.
“This was an extremely difficult decision, and we did not arrive at this conclusion without a significant and appropriate amount of thought, consideration and consultation,” Utah Athletic Director Mark Harlan said in a news release.
Utah was part of the Pac-12 Conference when the school added beach volleyball in 2017. The conference had nine schools that competed in the sport.
Now the Utes are members of the Big 12 Conference, which only has three other beach volleyball programs and lacks automatic qualification for the NCAA tournament.
“We looked at the landscape of intercollegiate beach volleyball and the future opportunities of our student-athletes. Currently, there are only 12 beach volleyball programs among power conference institutions, with little evidence of the sport expanding at this time,” Harlan said. “With the sport’s growth stunted, and without the home facilities with amenities that allow us to host championship-level events, we are not providing the world-class experience that we seek to provide to our student-athletes.”
The Utes finished their season in the semifinals of the Big 12 tournament last week.
The decision to shut down the program leaves about 12 current athletes and a handful of incoming recruits without a team.
“We will work closely with each of our impacted student-athletes to provide them with all of the support they need,” Harlan said.
That includes honoring the scholarships for all of those athletes “through the receipt of their undergraduate degree” for students who might decide to remain at the U. For athletes who want to find a new program, Harlan said, “Utah will do all that it can to facilitate the process.”
Utah said that scholarship funds previously dedicated to the beach volleyball team would be funneled to the school’s other women’s sports programs.