Travel back to the past with Pipe Dream Sports. Every week we will be reaching into our archives, digging up past sports articles. Who wrote those articles? How were the sports teams back then? Could we finally find the answer to why Binghamton University does not have a football team? What other sports issues were on everyone’s minds? Those questions and more will be answered as we look back to a time when the America East did not exist.

The date is Sept. 16, 1988.

The fall of ‘88 semester was in full swing. SUNY-Binghamton students were settled into their dorms, classes had started and the sports teams (known then as the Colonials) were in full gear. Little did the campus know, there was some news coming from top SUNY officials.

Pipe Dream writer Glen Scott Friedman brought the story.

The chancellor of the SUNY system had just received authorization from the SUNY Board of Trustees to approve a regulation allowing each campus to establish an athletic fee, should they individually choose to do so.

The fee was to be added to students’ semester bills and was to be required during the following year. The Board had also required that each campus create an Intercollegiate Athletics Board. During the fall 1988 semester, students were paying a mandatory $105 activities fee, of which $18.77 went to athletics, similar to the current 2008 activities fee.

Then-SUNY-Binghamton President Clifford Clark told Friedman that the athletic fee would max out at $30 per student per semester and the activities fee would be diminished.

The main concern at the time was not the fee, but the formation of the mandatory IAB.

The Student Association executive board opposed the fee.

The vice presidents of the SA in ‘88 had told Friedman that the fee would cause mass disagreement among those involved.

“Essentially, it will take the money out of students’ hands and place it in the hands of the administration and faculty,” then-SA Executive Vice President Philip Hom told Friedman.

The athletic department argued that the fee would make athletic funding more consistent and would allow for more long-term commitments and decisions.

Does the athletic financial situation at SUNY Binghamton in 1988 sound familiar?

The 2008 SUNY budget cuts, covered by Pipe Dream last week, have left the athletic department with less cash.