The Justice

Media Credit: David Sheppard-Brick From left to right, golfers Lee Bloom '10, Ralph Haray '09 and Aaron Hattenbach '09 speak at the golf team's press conference April 22.

The University has officially reinstated the varsity golf team through the 2009 to 2010 season after members of the team independently raised the necessary $22,000 to support the team's operating budget for next year, Director of Athletics Sheryl Sousa '90 announced in a press conference last Wednesday.

Sousa told reporters from the Justice and The Hoot that "the team rallied and took it upon themselves to raise the operating budget we need for next year."

"The amount of character [the players] displayed as a team exemplifies everything we hope our student athletes will be: determined, hardworking and passionate about their sport," Sousa told reporters.

The Department of Athletics had suspended the varsity golf program in February to help fill a projected $10 million gap in the University's fiscal 2009 operating budget, Sousa told reporters. She added that the varsity golf program had been chosen to be converted to a club sport because it only has nine members and would have had "the smallest impact" on staff changes.

Team captain Aaron Hattenbach '09 led the fundraising efforts. Along with co-captain Ralph Haray '09 and Lee Bloom '10, as well as other members of the team, Hattenbach contacted alumni, family, friends and My Sports Dreams, a professional fundraising agency, to assist in the process of raising the $22,000 for the team's operating budget next year.

"It was a team effort," Hattenbach told reporters. "It shows that we can do this, and we can keep going and raise the money we need. I'm excited for the underclassmen who will be able to continue their careers."

The golf team's future beyond the 2009 to 2010 season is still undecided, Sousa said. She told reporters that the team would require an endowment fund of approximately $300,000 to $400,000 to continue beyond next spring, and added that such funds would have to come from the team's continued independent fundraising effort.

"We've had a coordinated effort with [Hattenbach], the team and the Development Office to try and contact alumni for fundraising, so the fundraising doesn't stop here," Sousa told reporters. "We've met our goal, but the efforts are continuing, so now that next year is secure, we just are going to keep going with the momentum we have."

Hattenbach said the team members will continue to fundraise, noting that they will rely even more heavily on alumni support to reach the larger goal.

"We figured our large donors would be from the golf alumni network, but we did get a lot of donors from family and friends, people who didn't know a lot about Brandeis golf. So we really were hoping to compile an accurate list to get these people to donate and build toward the endowment level."

In an interview with the Justice, Hattenbach specifically mentioned the help of three recent golf alumni-David Milch '08, Adam Green '07 and Josh Levine '06-as those who have contributed the most time and effort to the team's fundraising effort.

"They put together [a letter to other alumni] and worked hard," Hattenbach said. "We couldn't have done this without their help and their mentoring along the way, so we're going to look to those guys again for help [moving forward] to see if we can make a lot more money, which will be required."

"It was awesome. It's cool to be a part of it," Green said. "[Hattenbach] took the lead on it and impressed all of us in doing it."

Coach Bill Shipman praised the team's efforts to continue the program at the press conference.

"I knew the team would try to keep itself alive but didn't know how the response would be," he told reporters. "I was very happy with the enthusiasm [the team] showed in doing that. I wasn't sure how quickly it could be done, [but] they did it in an extraordinarily short amount of time."

The golf team had one of its strongest seasons last fall but has struggled early this spring leading up to last weekend's University Athletic Association Championships, in which the team finished last of five teams.

"I'm just really happy and excited to have a team next year," Bloom told reporters. "It gives us another opportunity to go out and play well, and I'm just excited for [that]."

-Mike Prada contributed reporting.

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