It's no secret that Faculty of Arts and Sciences administrators haven't exactly won a large fan following over the past couple months. When FAS leaders cut $77 million from its budget in response to the financial crisis, they took the axe to student favorites like the hot breakfasts we eat on those three days a year we're up before 10 and the shuttle service we use on nights we're not in the mood to get mugged.

The Athletic Department felt the heat too, and in that closed-door manner that has become a staple of the way FAS does budget business, Athletic Director Bob Scalise and company gave some JV teams the cheery news that they were being reduced to club status, which is basically a nice way of saying "We're not giving you any more money."

But while FlyBy supports every Harvard student's Constitutionally-guaranteed right to complain--which we gleefully exercise when lowly Cabinet members and famous TV personalities send us off to the real world, or when the College Events Board decimates our quality of life by failing to magically turn its paltry funds into Lil' Wayne--we're also willing to give credit where credit is due. So far, the Athletic Department has resisted the urge to get rid of varsity programs like its counterpart over at MIT.

But that doesn't mean that cuts aren't on the way. Luckily for FAS, we've discovered/made up some more creative ways to save. Take this report in the New York Times a few days ago:

At Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., the women’s swim team held a 'virtual swim meet' with Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, about 112 miles away. Each team swam in its home pool, then compared times to determine the winners. (“We probably saved $900 on bus travel,” said William G. Durden, Dickinson’s president.)

Holy shit! FlyBy's a fan. After the jump, we add our own ways the Athletic Department can trim without cutting teams entirely.

• The golf teams could stop taking expensive trips to California and Florida and play all their matches at Route 1 Miniature Golf in nearby Saugus, Mass. Laugh if you want, but we'd like to see this past season's rookie sensation Mark Pollak make par with a terrifying orange dinosaur staring him down.
• Instead of regular balls, the soccer teams could use the sOccket, a soccer ball invented by a group of Harvard students that "captures the energy from impact that is normally lost to the environment when the soccer ball is kicked, dribbled, thrown...and stores this energy for later use." Green is the New Crimson right?
• The wrestling team could have all its matches in a steel cage, WWE style. Ok, that actually costs money, but it would be pretty badass.