The NMU board of trustees has approved the addition of four new varsity sports beginning in 2015 and 2016. The sports are women’s golf and men’s swimming and diving, which will begin in the fall of 2015, and men’s soccer and women’s lacrosse, beginning sometime in 2016.

Athletic department director Forrest Karr addressed the board of trustees on Friday, Sept. 26, about the current state of athletics. He talked about current improvements to the performance of teams, how the athletic department is doing in terms of GPA and information about awards and championships that the teams have brought in the past two years. In addition, Karr brought up the approval of four new sports teams.

Several items brought up to the board to accommodate the new teams included adding a couple of positions in the department, such as a head coach for women’s lacrosse and a possible assistant sports information director. Karr said at the meeting, “Those things would need to be worked out in the future.”

NMU president Fritz Erickson said he was excited about the prospect of bringing in more students.

“We have an opportunity to bring in at least 90 more students in the next two years with the additions,” Erickson said. “It really makes sense for us to do swimming and golf first. We have wonderful coaches that are excited for it.”

Erickson said he also looked at the long-term financial cost and the facilities NMU already has to accommodate the new teams.

“With these new additions, we really don’t have as much added weight in facilities,” Erickson said. “So this really uses many of our current resources to their fullest potential. This is an opportunity to add more students without a ton of extra costs.”

When the Board asked how new athletes would be brought into the program in coordination with scholarships, Karr noted , “If a coach were to use the maximum number of scholarships allowed by the university during a new program’s first year, the entire program’s scholarships would be tied up in one class and the team would fall off a cliff four years later. This is why coaches generally phase in scholarships when starting new programs.”

According to The North Wind in an article published on Aug. 28, 1980, then-president John X. Jamrich was forced to axe several NMU sports teams from the overall programs, which included men’s gymnastics, men’s swimming, women’s tennis and men’s and women’s skiing.

At the time, the swim and dive team head coach Don Trost requested to be relieved of his coaching duties to return back to teaching.

According to current women’s head coach Heidi Voigt, the NMU men’s swim and dive team was cut in 1980.

“That team had a good number of All-Americans than other sports,” Voigt said.

Overall, Karr said he was happy with the addition. “This is a big day for us and we are really looking forward to it.”