FH is a fairly large roster sport, so if you cut that sport TIX comes into play. So would expect 1 or more men’s sports soon to go as well. It’s been known for a long time Pacific is hurting financially. Academically they cannot compete with the UCs and a kid that cant get into say Sac or Chico can get into Pacific easily. Their law school (in Sac) is bleeding red ink all over the place and has drastically cut back its funding. Ditto dental school in SF. Very hard to recruit good faculty to those types of schools.

From the UOP news release:

Field hockey competes in the America East Conference, with most teams on the East Coast. It is one of four in California — the others being UC Davis, Cal Berkeley and Stanford — to make up the West Division of the America East Conference. America East notified the four California associate member institutions in field hockey this fall that this opportunity will be eliminated following the 2019-20 season. This change will put the burden on individual schools to schedule games, and for these four programs, it will eliminate automatic bids to NCAA national tournaments after winning conference tournaments.

https://www.pacifictigers.com/sports/w-fieldh/2018-19/releases/20181203nplaxi

So now there are three field hockey schools west of the Missouri River, and a year from now they will lose their already tenuous conference affiliation. Particularly tough for Davis as I think UOP was about the only conference team they defeated in the last few years, and this year they didn't even to that.

Pacifics press release was also very vague. I cannot find any AEC press release that supports this decision; rather Pacific later adds that this was part of a $1 million cut in athletics in general. Does anyone actually believe that Stanford or Cal, not to mention UC Davis will just take this AEC “decision” without objection? Alumni and parents in these small sports (espeically women’s) (FH, beach volleyball, rowing, wrestling, fencing, equestrian, men’s baseball (Cal) are extremely devoted to their offsprings athletic endeavors) will vigorously fight this. Rumor has it that the wealthy UC Davis parent that basically funded the FH program and built the new FH field is a politically connected guy. I doubt that he will let his daughters program go down the tubes due to Pacific budget cuts without a big fight.

Would dropping field hockey require UOP to make cuts in some men's program? Does it leave them with Title IX problems?

The Stockton Record:
https://www.recordnet.com/sports/20181203/pacific-cuts-field-hockey-program
(Says no other cuts anticipated.)

Channel 40:
https://fox40.com/2018/12/03/players-vow-to-fight-back-after-uop-cuts-womens-field-hockey-team/

Here is an article from the Bangor Daily News about the change in the AEC membership and divisional alignment. The article reports it will happen at the end of the 2018 season (i.e., now) rather than at the end of the 2019 season.

https://bangordailynews.com/2018/07/17/sports/umaine-sports/america-east-field-hockey-adds-member-to-end-east-west-format/

Does this mean Cal, Stanford and UCD will compete NAIA? No playoffs and rely on an at-large bid for NCAA berth?

Certainly not NAIA...but I assume as a small conference without an auto-bid unless they can find another conference that will provide this membership of convenience that the AEC did. Before the AEC association they were in a conference with South Atlantic roots. The article in the Bangor paper notes that the AEC found another school to join as a field hockey member, thus keeping their auto-bid without the cross-country travel problems.

No teams at UCLA and USC?

Nope,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_field_hockey_programs
http://www.telluris.us/hbwave/id12.html

With UOP dropping the sport the closest D-1 field hockey schools to the east of Davis are Missouri State and Iowa. That's it on this side of the Mississippi River.

(This one always surprised me: Not only do neither USC nor UCLA have field hockey, USC doesn't even have softball.)

So this leaves Stanford, Cal and UC Davis with field hockey to the west of the Mississippi. Seems like we could tam up with Cal and Stanford and have teams from the east come and play all 3 of us?

I think there's a lot of that with field hockey schedules. UCD will travel to the east once or twice a season. Play several teams, often at neutral sites....teams will travel west play the west coast teams....sometimes UCD will meet the team from the east at Cal or Stanford.

Adopting FH over say rowing might have been Dr. Blues first real stumble as AD. It’s hard to say not knowing if there was any evidence out there to indicate Pacific was cutting that sport. But going with any sport that is so very uncommon in the West is, to say the least, going to be problematical. Someone did mention that FH was made financially feasible due to some big bucks from a athlete parent. So maybe thats the reason we got FH. Still wonder why not rowing? We had a very successful program before it was cut.

There are lots of factors that go into these decisions....but I have never understood why UCD added field hockey. One of the reasons, among many, the school dropped wrestling was that it was not a big west coast sport. There have always been more wrestling teams in the west than field hockey teams.

But I digress.

When was field hockey added at Davis?

Very good question: 2009. So I was dead wrong to place this on AD Blue. I do not recall who was AD then. Otherwise, still an interesting decision.

Reason Field Hockey was added? There was a donor ready to fund the Field Hockey "stadium" and program.

So Warzeka?

Hopefully the funding is still in place, they’re going to have to do even more traveling to find opponents

$tanford is, of course, a whole 'nother story, but they list women's teams in fencing, squash and synchronized swimming. Looking at the schedules, all of their opponents in those sports are in the east.

Surprised in this day and age that the NCAA sanctions field hockey. It discriminates against left-handers.

New FH coach hired by KB. Dominique Masters. So this sport is not going away any time soon. I bet that KB and Stanford will figure out a way to keep FH on the west coast.

One step is to grow the sport in the Pacific Time Zone. CIF does not sponsor regional or statewide championships but there are a few sections....Central Coast, Southern, San Diego and North(?) that sponsor the sport. Perhaps colleges in Southern California can pick up the sport.

At last word we no longer have a conference affiliation in the sport, travel to the other side of the Missouri River ain't cheap...

Yes, but we have an very wealthy player parent who is apparently not used being told “no” you can’t do that. I have no idea who he/she is, but if he/she built the FH field hockey field he/she certainly can help KB figure this thing out. And then is still very plucky Stanford who also does not take “no” all that well either. I don’t think Dominque would have taken this job if she didn’t think there was a future here in FH. I think 72 made a very good point. The SoCal area needs this HS sport at another level. Lordy, there is enough wealth down there to get this figured out fast. Also, this is an Olympic sport and guess who gets the Games in 2028? LA.