If the 35 percent budget cuts occur, Nicholls athletics would suffer, but not drastically, Nicholls athletic director, Rob Bernardi said.”Like the president said in his speech the other day, we’re going to have athletics,” Bernardi said. “This is not going to be a junior college, and we’re going to be a Division I institution. While there may be some cuts, I don’t expect us dropping sports or dropping classifications.”

Bernardi isn’t sure how the cuts would affect the department, but he said he is reluctant to think that Nicholls would drop any sports.

The minimum requirements maintained for a Division I membership is 14 sports and that is the exact amount Nicholls has.

“We’re very fortunate that the president is taking a very proactive and responsible course of action,” Bernardi said. “The things that he outlined in his speech the other day were very reasonable and something that we should all rally around.”

Bernardi said that “hope is not a plan” and action is better than sitting around and doing nothing.

Athletics has dealt with cuts before, and it didn’t affect the program as much as it seemed it would.

“While we sustained a 20 percent cut in athletics, people on the outside couldn’t really tell,” Bernardi said. “We’re still sponsoring 14 sports and still playing full schedules. We haven’t cut back dramatically on any scholarships, so on the outside, everything looks the same, and I don’t think it would affect attendance.”

One rumor on campus is that Nicholls would drop out of the Southland Conference and join an all-Louisiana conference.

Teams that would join this conference would include Louisiana Tech, University of Lousiana-Monroe, University of Lousiana-Lafayette, Southern, Grambling, McNeese, Southeastern, Tulane, University of New Orleans and Northwestern.

While it’s still a possibility, it is unlikely because all of these teams would have to leave their conferences.

“People have talked about that, but you would have to convince Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette to do it,” Bernardi said. “For us, it limits travel, and there’s interest in the fact that you’re always playing somebody that people know. I don’t want to say it’s far-fetched, but it is rather an unlikely scenario.