PIERCE COLLEGE : Forensics Team Dissolved Due to Cuts

The award-winning Pierce College forensics team has been disbanded as the Woodland Hills school struggles to cope with a 1990-91 budget that is down $1.7 million from last year.

College administrators decided not to replace the team’s coach, after former coach Jeff Cooper resigned for personal reasons.

“I didn’t know they weren’t going to hire a new coach and by the time I found out it was too late to change my mind,” said Cooper, the team’s coach since its inception in 1986.

He vowed to fight to have the team reinstated. “Forensics is too important not to have on campus,” Cooper said.

In losing its coach, the team also faced a drop from $2,000 to $500 in its allocation from the Associate Students Organization.

“It’s cutting the heart out of what education is supposed to be,” said former team member Jeff Simon, 23, a political science major who now attends UCLA.

The team, which had about 14 members, has won about 225 awards and has fought its way to the Phi Rho Pi National Forensics Tournament every year since its founding.

Cooper, who teaches forensics, said acquiring funding for the program has been “a constant battle.”

He said he resigned as team coach because of a “horrendous” workload. “I’d like to see my family more often,” he said.

Pierce’s 1990-91 budget, allocated by a financially ailing Los Angeles Community College District, is $23.7 million. The 1989-90 budget was $25.4 million.