​Rutgers has built a solid wrestling program, and its rowing program has long been nationally ranked, a status it has maintained for several years. Other programs on the banks—men’s golf, field hockey, women’s lacrosse, women’s soccer, and gymnastics—have also enjoyed a respectable run of success in recent seasons. Yet these teams have often operated without the level of financial and logistical support they deserve. Keli Zinn has made it plain that those lean days are behind us. “Our absence in that space [NIL] over the past three or four years has clearly impacted where our Olympic sports are performing today. We needed to address that, and our Olympic coaches heard back in the fall that this isn’t just about football and basketball—it will affect you as well.”
In honor of this year’s World Cup, Andrew highlighted Rutgers Soccer—both the men’s and the women’s programs—reminding readers of Rutgers’ proud and historically strong, though not consistently recent, track record. And as is often the case, reality can hit hard: the Directors’ Cup standings for 2025-26 revealed that Rutgers has struggled to maintain competing levels across multiple sports. The picture is clear: recent performance has not met the lofty expectations that come with Rutgers’ potential.
That context brings me to an Athletic article (note the possible paywall) that some readers interpreted as another critical takedown of Rutgers athletics. Andrew shared a link, sparking a range of comments. I didn’t read it as a hit piece against Rutgers alone; indeed, it also criticized Maryland in equal measure. And that observation is where I want to begin. In the original Athletic piece, Maryland’s new athletics director, Jim Smith, spoke about preserving support for successful programs beyond football and men’s basketball. Maryland, like Rutgers, has a history of strong programs in field hockey, lacrosse, and soccer. Smith argued that those programs deserve to be supported at a level that keeps them competitive and relevant, not merely sacrificed for football’s sake. “There’s a philosophical debate,” Smith said. “Does every football program need to spend $50 million on a roster to win? I don’t believe so. I think you can spend smart money and still be very successful, and that’s where we’re going to invest while maintaining our other sports. We’ve seen other schools go the opposite route—go all in on football, and everyone else gets left behind. We don’t have that here. We have a history of success in the other sports, so we’re going to continue to invest there and be smart about how we do it, while winning in football and basketball.”
That line of thinking should resonate with Rutgers. It makes little sense to pour resources into “the beast” of football while starving the rest of the athletic department, especially when that beast isn’t unquestionably the best in the conference or the country. Football and basketball command visibility and SEO attention, but excellence across the board requires balanced investment. If the goal is sustained success, Rutgers needs a strategy that channels resources into a competitive football and basketball program while also elevating the other Olympic and non-revenue sports to the levels where they can compete for conference titles and national recognition.
If Rutgers wants to maximize its overall athletic impact, the front office should adopt a model akin to Maryland’s: fund smartly across all sports, protect and uplift the historically strong programs, and ensure NIL and related support are accessible to athletes in every sport. This balanced approach would not only preserve Rutgers’ competitive legacy in field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, and other disciplines but also bolster the wrestling, rowing, and rising programs that have already shown promise. The aim should be to create a sustainable ecosystem where all sports have a meaningful shot at success, rather than an outsized focus on a single flagship program at the expense of the rest.