Meat cutting

If that woman hadn't blabbed about the $16M loan, the University wouldn't have had to do this

Two of the longest-tenured members of the Texas A&M University athletics department lost their jobs Thursday in a budget-cutting move that eliminated 17 positions from the department.

Billy Pickard and Jim Kotch have a combined 73 years of service in the department. They were casualties of what athletics director Bill Byrne called a reduction in force that was required to complete a $4.5 million budget cut.

Byrne said in a statement that the athletics department had to eliminate the positions because A&M officials could make only $3.5 million in cuts without reducing personnel.

Now that the $16M loan has to be paid back, Vision 1920 is looking at creating a Systems level Athletic Director, which would allow us to eliminate the redundant athletic department services at the various schools. Each school would keep its own teams and coaches, but the System would handle the luxury boxes and tickets.