Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You end the cricket program and fire the coach.
It's a tough decision, but your job as athletic director is to keep the sports programs in your college running as smoothly as possible. If you lose the benefactor that is asking for a volleyball team, you'll likely also lose more programs, because the money he donates supports more than just the cricket program.
Plus, there is growing interest in a volleyball team. The sport is gaining more interest and more attention, and the interest in cricket seems to be waning.
You call the cricket coach into your office and explain the situation to her. You back up your arguments with statistics about the interest in volleyball, and then you tell her she's going to be let go.
You wait for the worst, but it never comes. The cricket coach tells you that she expected that the cricket program would end soon. And in all honesty, she's glad that she's being let go. She's not depending on her salary to pay for her new house. "Now I can go to work in that new garden I haven't had a chance to touch," she says.
She was ready to retire. She just couldn't justify it in her own mind. Your program changes gave her the push she wanted.
"The hardest decision I've ever had to make was to fire someone," says Joane Thibault. She is an athletic director. "Ending a program is easy because you don't usually hurt people. But to fire someone you've come to know? That's a decision that is very hard to make."