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Even as the current economic crisis forces cutbacks and reductions in funding at Maryville College, soccer coach Pepe Fernandez is unfazed. He's seen it all before.

"Gosh dang it, we make it," Fernandez said. "People talk about the economy, but 15 years ago we made it on half the budget and traveling in vans."

The athletic department at MC has not been immune to cuts affecting the college as a whole, with pay and budget freezes already in effect. Athletic director and volleyball coach Kandis Schram said her department is looking for new ways to trim costs, such as holding off on buying new uniforms and sending multiple teams on the same road trip. After adding golf as a varsity sport last fall, Schram said she's already planning a fundraiser to help offset the sport's startup costs.

"We're trying to see this as an opportunity, not a crisis," Schram said. "If things can be cut, we're cutting them. If not, then we're trying to figure out how to do them with less money."

Randy Lambert, former Scots athletic director and men's basketball coach, said thinning travel budgets could present a huge opportunity for Maryville. After being denied admission to the mammoth Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference in the past, Lambert said he thinks the Scots could become part of a divisional alignment of schools in that conference from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama. The SCAC currently stretches from Georgia to as far away as Texas and Colorado.

"I'm looking forward to what (the economy) might do to conference alignments," Lambert said. "I'm hoping it will clear up our conference picture ... You would think that some of those schools have to be thinking about trying to make their travel more regionally centered."

Travel is the major cost for the Scots as a Division III school in a state with just two other D-III programs. Schram said she's exploring sending her volleyball team with the soccer teams in the fall to reduce the number of road trips. Lambert said he's trying to schedule as many doubleheaders with women's basketball as he can after playing back-to-back with Todd Wright's team seven times this year.

As coach of both soccer teams at MC, Fernandez tries to schedule men's and women's teams as often as he can, something that most other schools shy away from. While his 2009 schedule has changed three times since December, mainly for economic reasons, Fernandez is anything but concerned. After a tournament at Piedmont College in Georgia fell through, Fernandez found a team in California that showed interest in playing the Scots.

"I think at a small school, it's all part of it," Fernandez said. "If you talk to all the coaches here and look at the people that have been successful, no matter what the circumstances at a small school, you find a way to make things work."