Chris Hill and Jennifer McNeil have undertaken a staggering amount of correspondence in the past week. Faced with the shuttering of their respective golf programs at St. Edward’s University, an NCAA Division II school in Austin, Texas, coaches Hill and McNeil have mounted phone and letter campaigns. The continuation of their programs depends on it.
“I’ve locked myself in my office and my house,” said Hill, in his second year as head coach of the men’s team. “I’m averaging 11 hours and 21 minutes on my phone.”
Hill had 513 text messages and 233 yet-to-be-returned calls or voicemails on his cell phone Monday morning after an initial round of phone calls and emails. McNeil, meanwhile, and volunteer assistant Emily Kvinta, spent the past few days compiling a spreadsheet of the program’s alumni base. Letters followed.
McNeil should know that list well. The Hilltopper women’s golf team begins and ends with her – and she is nowhere near ready to write the final chapter.
“We’re in this business because we’re fighters and we don’t like to lose. The name of our job is winning and we have to figure out how to do that,” said McNeil, an Austin native.
University officials broke the news to a handful of coaches in a Zoom meeting April 15 that their programs were being dropped in light of budget cuts due to the coronavirus. In addition to men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis and men’s soccer also found themselves on the chopping block. (Cheer is being transitioned to a club team.)
As upper administration continues to meet this week, Hill and McNeil continue to spread the word and figure out what it would mean, financially, to revive the programs – both in the short term and the long term.
Hill just hopes the decision-makers at St. Edward’s are taking note of the number of people who have offered their support. St. Edward’s junior Nico Ciavaglia has helped demonstrate that.
The Detroit native, an entrepreneurship major, is in his second year at St. Edward’s after transferring from Concordia-Texas, where Hill previously coached. When Hill put the initial message in the team’s group chat last week, telling his men that the university was cutting their program, Ciavaglia laughed out loud. He thought it was a joke, refusing to believe it until confirmation from the athletic department – the one coach had warned would be coming – hit his email within the hour.
“I’m really going to miss the family we created, that’s the biggest thing,” Ciavaglia said of where the potential cuts hit the hardest.
Ciavaglia was so angry he started jotting down notes, from emotions he felt to why he thought the university’s decision was off-base. Later that day, he uploaded his thoughts as a petition on change.org and called it a night. He thought 500 people might sign their names, but instead woke up to 2,500 signatures. By Monday morning, nearly 14,000 people had signed.
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“The biggest thing to me was that after making this, it really showed how upset other people were as well,” Ciavaglia said. “I cannot believe how awesome the whole Austin community has been. It proves how much they love sports and they love athletics and they love college programs.”
The St. Edward’s student body numbers 3,680 undergraduates, and the student-athlete population is roughly 300. Nearly a third of those athletes would be affected by the proposed athletic cuts.
McNeil coached the first Hilltopper women’s golf team in the 2003-04 season. She also served as the men’s head golf coach for the 2004-05 season and has been a constant for the program. In 2011, she was named the NCGA DII National Coach of the Year. Two years later, the St. Edward’s women ended the 2012-13 season by winning the NCAA West Regional and finishing fourth at the national championship.
It’s an upward trajectory that made last week’s phone call particularly tough to take.
“I woke up Thursday morning and I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going out this way,’” she said.
She and Hill have joined forces. “We’re all one,” Hill said.
In her first year as coach, McNeil had half a scholarship to offer. She now has a little over three. Hill has 2.4 scholarships available (despite the NCAA allowing 3.6). His men’s program has an operating budget of $44,000, but fundraisers have bumped those available funds up to $80,000 per season.
“We’ve never spent a dollar we didn’t have,” Hill said. The program was healthy.
McNeil has also worked to fundraise for her program, and thus create a surplus in her budget. Division II women’s golf is divided into four regions, with St. Edward’s being in a west region that extends all the way to Hawaii. Regular-season competition generally necessitates a couple of flights.
The ladies league at Onion Creek Club – where the Hilltoppers often practice — has embraced McNeil’s program, and had played a huge role in fundraising. A benefit at the club – which included a silent auction and live music – produced $20,000 in its first year.
McNeil names loyalty and relationship-building as the cornerstones of a program she has spent 17 years – her entire coaching career – cultivating. Those qualities have never been needed more.
“When they chose us, they chose family,” McNeil said of a program that has never been about luring players in with huge scholarships. “It became family first, golf second.”