Something fishy is going on at Iowa State, and it stinks like a dead one.

The men’s swimming team was cut Monday, which was expected. The big news on that day was the cancellation of the baseball program, which dates back to 1892.

In all of the talk surrounding athletic cuts and budget trims, the baseball team was never mentioned. On Monday, Bruce “the hatchet man” Van de Velde chopped the head off of Cyclone baseball.

Where in the world did this come from?

All of the reasons that could possible explain why Van de Velde did what he did are well known. ISU baseball is rarely competitive, due mostly to the fact that weather limits their outdoor practice time and amount of home games.

Another reason that baseball fell has to be due to Title IX, which mandates that all schools have an equal number of men’s and women’s teams. Without Title IX, a low revenue women’s sport, like gymnastics or volleyball, would have been cut instead. The exact reason the cuts were made is not the key factor at work here.

Much like the way the Baltimore Colts secretly packed up and moved during the middle of the night to Indianapolis years ago, Van de Velde, pulled a fast one on everyone dumb enough to think they were safe. When the coach of the team that is being cut isn’t notified until the day of the announcement, something is awry.

The whole thing is odd. Yes, ISU baseball isn’t very good, but with the cut we are the only team in the Big 12 without baseball representation (Colorado is reinstating their team).

I realize the strong sports at Iowa State right now are basketball and wrestling, but I feel we should at least be represented in our own conference in every sport it has to offer.

Why in the world wasn’t anyone consulted about the dire position the baseball team was in? It seems that any other matter of this magnitude around campus would be met with one meeting after another to decide the best course of action. The baseball team never got a chance to speak.

No public forums to voice an opinion, no chance to recommend fund-raisers, no task force appointed to locate extra dollars. It is almost as if Van de Velde got up, looked in the mirror and said, “I think I will cut baseball today.”

Bruce did look sad at the news conference Monday, but I believe his sadness was derived more from his shortcomings as an athletic director than from his sympathy for Coach Lyle Smith and his troops.

I have been known to stir the fire from time to time, so I don’t see any reason not to do it today. I think we should feel cheated, and I think we should be upset. Wouldn’t you as a student or an alumnus like to have a say as to whether or not huge decisions like this get made? At the very least I think we deserve a heads up to get ready for the storm.

It may seem like the baseball team is history, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. I feel differently. I believe that flooding Van de Velde’s office and home with phone calls would be an appropriate place to start. At the very least, we are deserving of an explanation on why no one was notified that baseball was in danger.

The second question he can answer is why the team or the alumni were not given one single opportunity to turn things around. If the program was in such terrible shape, maybe Bruce should have said something earlier. Is this Eugene Smith’s fault? I doubt it.

More likely, this is a case of an AD getting too involved in a certain area of our athletic department (basketball) and not noticing the major shortcomings of an equally important program until it was too late.

It is a travesty that probably did not need to occur.

A century is a long time for one thing to exist. ISU baseball exceeded 100 years, and although they are not the best team around, they are as much an institution at this university as anything else that has withstood the test of time.

I call on all readers to take a stand and demand to be part of decisions that are important to this university. After all, without us, there would be no university and no AD job for Bruce Van de Velde to screw up.

There is a downward spiral effect taking place at Iowa State. It dates back to Eugene Smith leaving for Arizona State and has continued with the departures of our president, and top two fund-raisers.

Add to this the men’s basketball joke in the NCAA tournament, and you will not find many happy times in recent days. It may seem like the baseball story is unrelated to these other things, but it is part of the overall trend I am referring to. Something needs to be done; the pot needs to be stirred up.

Baseball could have a future at this university, but it is a dead issue if people don’t try to revive it. Get on the phone and show your support for ISU athletics. Let Bruce Van de Velde know that you are upset. Let him know that you are not happy with the way things are happening around here. I am only one person, but join with me and we will be hard to ignore.

Marcus Charter is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Ames.