Last week the nation’s second-largest athletic program acknowledged that the recession had dealt it a devastating blow. MIT, proud former promoter of 41 varsity sports ranging from the mainstream to the obscure (the Engineers sported one of the best air pistol squads in the country), cut eight of its teams, including alpine skiing, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s gymnastics, golf, pistol, and wrestling.

While Harvard can now pat itself on the back for being the only school in the nation with 41 intercollegiate teams, any celebration should be short-lived.

The reality of the recession puts the Harvard Athletic Department in a precarious position, faced with the same 10 to 15 percent budget reduction as the rest of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

There is no doubt that balancing so many sports poses a difficult task, and if the Crimson faces anywhere near the $495,000 setback that the Engineers will suffer in 2009, Harvard Athletic Director Bob Scalise may have little choice in wielding the axe on a few less prominent squads.

If he does so, it will be a tremendous loss for the Harvard community.

High profile sports like basketball and football will never be at risk—not as long as they draw fans—but some of the Crimson’s most competitive squads often seem to be some of the school’s best kept secrets.

My first beat as a fledgling sports reporter last spring was wrestling, a vacancy left for a freshman because it had escaped the interest of even my fellow sports fanatics. I had never seen a wrestling match (my high school didn’t have a team), and thus pored through the NCAA rulebook for help, too afraid to ask the athletes about the basics (junior co-captain Louis Caputo may be a gentle soul, but a meeting in person makes it painfully obvious that he could kill you with his bare hands).

While I was forced to bluff my way through early articles (it takes awhile to understand how one grappler can score points when both fall to the mat in a mutual headlock), one thing did not escape my notice.

From the moment that I took my seat in the MAC bleachers, it was clear from some of the pummelings delivered on the mat that this team had talent. Top-notch talent.

Then-sophomore J.P. O’Connor finished sixth in the country that year, marking Harvard’s third straight season with an All-American competitor. The squad only improved this season, with sophomore Corey Jantzen and Caputo joining him among the country’s elite. All three wrestlers hovered in the top 10 for their weight class all season en route to the NCAA championships, with Caputo taking All-American honors for an eighth place finish.

Can you think of any other teams at Harvard with three players ranked in the top 10 at their position? Squash? Fencing? Maybe women’s hockey? A theme starts to emerge pretty quickly: Some of our smallest sports also represent our most nationally competitive talent and while disbanding any of them may not impact overall attendance, it would gravely diminish the quality of our athletics.

Of course, our traditionally stellar squads will not be threatened regardless of economic conditions, as it is hard to imagine that Ancient Eight institutions like crew or squash could find themselves without a home in Cambridge anytime soon. But how could we devalue those less heralded sports that continue to improve each year?

Women’s golf claimed its second Ivy League title in as many seasons this past weekend, while the women’s sailing team recently qualified for the ICSA National Championship—a feat it did not accomplish in 2008. And even wrestling, which could not keep pace with No. 2 Cornell or Penn in the Ivy League, will return all three of its all-stars in 2010 to give the Big Red a run for its money.

Yet, just down the river the Engineers will not compete in two of these three sports next year. This detail is not intended to belittle MIT—Athletic Director Julie Soriero made the decisions that she had to make when faced with a constrained budget, and the Engineers will undoubtedly adjust to the loss.

But for a Division I school like Harvard—and particularly in this community, which prides itself on fostering a wide array of talents—eliminating a sport of any size is a travesty.We can fully acknowledge the difficult decisions that lie ahead, not just for Harvard’s athletic department but also for this entire institution. But for the Crimson, cutting nationally-ranked teams or those still finding their footing does a disservice to the mission of DHA. As we await the announcement of the 2009-10 budget, let’s hope that such drastic measures are a last resort.

—Staff writer Max N. Brondfield can be reached at mbrondf@fas.harvard.edu.