YPSILANTI, MI (MPRN)-- About 100 students rallied in the rain Tuesday to protest Eastern Michigan University’s plan to cut four sports teams.
Cutting varsity softball, wrestling, men's swimming and diving, and women's tennis is supposed to save EMU about $2 million.
Ricky Perez says juniors like him on the men’s swim team are floored because they’ve won so many league championships.
“My teammates are my family,” he says. “They’re everything to me. I don’t really have much outside of swim so for this to happen, I mean that’s just about my whole life going down the drain right there.”
Students are asking EMU to get out of the MAC conference to save money. They also want administrators to take pay cuts and offer more transparency so students and staff can weigh in before decisions get made.