Loss to Columbia marks end of program for Benedictine-Springfield
Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 11:56 p.m. CST
BY JACOB BOGAGE
COLUMBIA — Nikki Bull-Eguez was trying to plan a fundraiser in September 2014 for the Benedictine-Springfield University athletics department — something pretty routine until she got a response she didn’t expect.
“Hold off on this,” an administrator told the athletics director.
That was weird, she thought at the time. The Bulldogs started an athletics department three years ago, which included 11 respectable programs. But they needed facilities. They needed equipment.
When the men’s basketball program started, the campus didn’t own a physical basketball, according to coach Ian Mckeithen. McKeithen went out recruiting players anyway. He landed Stephan Shepherd, then a forward at Riverside Community College in California as one of his first recruits.
“He came and saw me and he was real genuine, and I felt like I could trust him,” Shepherd said. “I liked the town. It was cool. There was a good vibe.
“But it was really weird. We didn’t have anything (at Benedictine-Springfield). No trainer. The meal times to get food were really weird. My (junior college) looked like a university.”
Bull-Eguez was assigned to fix those early deficiencies. She worked for a year to push Benedictine-Springfield into the AMC, home to Columbia College and Stephens College.
The Bulldogs needed trainers. They needed to fill teams with NAIA-caliber athletes, rather than walk-ons. Sure, Benedictine-Springfield was a small college, but it could — and would — compete, she thought.
The men’s basketball team won 15 games a year ago. The women’s team was making gradual improvements. The volleyball program was looking up, she said.
“Everything we were trying to do as a department was to better ourselves in this conference, to give us a stronger foothold,” Bull-Eguez said.
But that email, the one about the fundraiser, was eery. She mentioned it to a coworker. Then faculty members started talking.
“That to me was a little suspicious because I wasn’t trying to spend money. I was trying to raise money,” she said. “That’s when the staff started to talk a little more and we started to put two and two together. Something was changing. We weren’t quite sure what, but we knew there was some type of change coming. Then Oct. 23 was when we found out.”
Benedictine-Springfield wasn’t just going to cut its sports program, as Bull-Eguez had feared. The college was closing its doors.
The Bulldogs men’s basketball team played its final game — ever — Thursday night: an 82-43 loss to Columbia College in the American Midwest Conference tournament.
The women’s team folded midway through the year. Spring sports baseball, softball, golf, soccer and cross country will play out the end of the school year.
After the spring 2015 semester, the Springfield campus will cease its undergraduate program and instead offer online adult-education classes, the Board of Trustees announced.
“In a changing and evolving higher education environment, in order for the university to grow, we must make hard decisions,” Benedictine system president William Carroll said in a news release. Benedictine also has campuses in Lisle, Illinois, and Mesa, Arizona.
“It is necessary that we recognize where the need is and act accordingly for the long-term survival of the Springfield branch campus and for the Springfield community,” he said.
Students with junior standing will have the chance to finish their degrees at the Springfield campus, an option called “teach-out,” before the university closes completely. It will lay off 75 of its 100 full-time employees.
Thirteen positions in the athletics department, though not all of them full time, will be eliminated, Bull-Eguez said.
Former AMC member Mid-Continent University closed its doors a year ago. Sweet Briar University in Virginia announced Tuesday it would close permanently in August.
“I’ve never seen this before,” said AMC Commissioner Will Wolper.
He reached out to an old colleague earlier in the week, the commissioner of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, the one Sweet Briar will leave, to chat about changes in higher education. “It’s unfortunate, for sure,” he said.
He’s begun talks with other institutions about joining the AMC in the coming years. At 12 teams after Benedictine-Springfield leaves, the AMC is still at a healthy size, he said.
“I felt like we fought to get in this conference,” Bull-Eguez said. “We went through a year of them looking at us and I always took it as a privilege of our university being a part of this conference.”
That’s little solace for the 11 basketball players whose careers with the Bulldogs ended Thursday night.
When McKeithen subbed out his five seniors with a minute left in the game, guard Clavontae Brown pulled his jersey over his head and sobbed. Shepherd draped a towel over his head and bit a paper cup of water.
The Bulldogs stayed in the visiting locker room for 40 minutes after the game ended. Nobody wanted to leave.
McKeithen’s eyes were glazed over and red from tears. His players stood in the hallway waiting for the bus to meet them at the front of the building.
Columbia coach Bob Burchard brought the Bulldogs to midcourt at the end of the game and asked the crowd to give them a standing ovation.
“That’s from the heart,” he said.
Meanwhile, Quintin Norris, the Cougars’ video coordinator, was waiting in the hallway to hand McKeithen a copy of the night’s game film.
“Why bother?” asked a nearby security guard. “It’s all over.”
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