Speaking at the Tifton Kiwanis Club’s meeting Friday, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College President Dr. David Bridges defended the school’s decision to discontinue its basketball programs.

On Tuesday, Bridges announced that both the men’s and women’s basketball teams would be disbanded, effective immediately.

“Contrary to the rumors and what you may have read in the newspaper, this decision was not made lightly,” said Bridges. “This was something that began over a year ago.”

He continued, “We do not spend state money on athletics. The money comes from athletic fees paid by our students — a fee the students are not given a choice on paying.”

On Friday afternoon, the school responded to an open records request by the Gazette regarding the school’s basketball budget for fiscal 2008. According to the documents released by the school, the salaries and benefits for then-coaches Todd Sheppard and Julie Conner were a combined $130,240.

Bridges said at the Kiwanis Club meeting that money came from the state, as Sheppard and Conner were both hired as teachers, and not coaches.

The money from the total athletic budget — which Bridges said at the meeting was a little over $500,000 — given to each program was $60,000, for a total of $120,000.

In a budget category called Athletic Revenue/expense, there was $2,256 listed. A note on the listing for this number mentions that figure comes from the ticket revenue for all sports, although basketball was the only sport at ABAC that required a paid ticket to attend.

Training expenses for the basketball program were listed at $8,000. The final number listed in the basketball budget was Bus expense/depreciation, which came to $3,600.

All totaled together, the figure for basketball was $264,096. With the state supplying the salaries for the coaches, the total that came out of the

school’s athletic budget was $133,856. Besides money issues, Bridges also cited lack of student interest, not just in basketball but in all sports.

“If you look at the numbers, students don’t really support intercollegiate sports anymore,” said Bridges. “And the community doesn’t come out,

(either). There simply isn’t broad support anymore. Unfortunately, the biggest benefit (of athletics) right now is public relations.”

After saying he felt the school was not big enough to support eight intercollegiate athletic teams, Bridges said, “We want to be able to excel

at whatever we do.